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Informing Citizen Security Policy: An Evidence Gap Map on Policing Interventions - Dataset

By Knowledge and Learning Division (VPS/VPS/KLD); Citizen Security Division (VPS/IFD/CIS)

Citizen security remains one of the most pressing development challenges facing low- and middle-income countries around the globe. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), for example—a region where homicide rates have consistently remained more than three times the global average (UNODC, 2023; InSight Crime, 2024)—crime and violence are estimated to cost approximately 3.4% of the region’s GDP (IDB, 2024), whereas research suggests that bringing the crime level in Latin America down to the world average would boost LAC’s average annual growth rate by 0.5 percentage points (IMF, 2023).

This Evidence Gap Map (EGM) focuses on citizen security interventions led or supported by police agencies, and maps existing impact evaluations and systematic reviews that examine the effectiveness of a wide range of policing interventions aimed at reducing crime, violence, disorder, overall insecurity, and their associated risk factors and underlying determinants. While some previous evidence maps have narrowly focused on specific strategies or contexts, this EGM takes a broader and more inclusive and comprehensive approach, covering a wide range of intervention types, settings, and outcome areas.

The EGM is available at: https://developmentevidence.3ieimpact.org/egm/IDB-policing-egm

By synthesizing rigorous evidence on what works, what doesn’t, and where gaps remain, the EGM aims to inform policymakers, practitioners, and researchers on the most effective uses of policing resources. It is intended to support evidence-informed decision-making, promote more effective allocation of public security investments, and ultimately contribute to safer communities and stronger economies across the LAC region and beyond.

This EGM was developed through a collaborative effort across multiple teams within the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and peer-reviewed, and visualized by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) in 2025 to ensure methodological rigor and transparency.

Project collaborators include Camilo Acosta, Sergio Britto Lima, Minji Kang, Indira Porto, Rodrigo Serrano Berthet, and Harold Villalba (listed alphabetically).

What the data covers

The intervention framework runs from a top-level domain down to a named intervention and, where the coding defines one, a third-level subtype. Its domains include geographically focused policing, disruptive and investigative strategies, community-level crime and disorder prevention, police reform, police control and accountability, applied technologies for crime prevention and detection, the regulation of firearm ownership and use, and group and armed violence prevention. The outcome framework is built the same way, covering lethal, violent and property crime, group, youth and gender-based violence, drug- and alcohol-related offences, disorder, recidivism, fear of crime and perceived safety, police abuse and victimisation, institutional performance and legitimacy, and the risk and protective factors associated with crime. Each study records the regions and countries it examined and the income levels of those countries. Coverage is global rather than regional: on many interventions the available evidence comes from outside Latin America and the Caribbean.

What it contains

Impact evaluations and systematic reviews, in two tables that share a column layout. Each study carries its citation, journal quartile and open-access status, the evaluation design and method it used, up to ten coded interventions and ten outcomes, and an effectiveness rating for each outcome. The two framework hierarchies are published as tables of their own, with a description of every category. Each systematic review additionally carries its synthesis method and the overall confidence rating awarded by a critical appraisal against the 3ie instrument; the completed appraisals are published as a workbook. Three data dictionaries document the columns of the study and framework tables, and the review protocol is published as a PDF.

How the data was collected

This is a secondary synthesis and contains no new fieldwork. Studies were identified through the search strategy, databases and inclusion and exclusion criteria set out in the review protocol, then screened and coded onto the framework that protocol defines. The impact evaluations are experiments and quasi-experiments; the systematic reviews are syntheses of those literatures.

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Metadata & use

Identifier https://doi.org/10.60966/sij240vu
License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Related Knowledge Product
Citation

Acosta, Camilo, et al. (2025). Informing Citizen Security Policy: An Evidence Gap Map on Policing Interventions - Dataset. IDB Open Data. https://doi.org/10.60966/sij240vu
Published date 2025-10-15
Modified date 2026-10-28
Tags/Keywords Policing · Citizen Security · Evidence · Literature · Gaps
Language
  1. English
Temporal coverage 1970-2025
Country
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Ireland
Israel
India
Sweden
Slovenia
El Salvador
Bolivia
Türkiye
France
Trinidad & Tobago
Ukraine
United States
Uruguay
Czechia
Venezuela
Switzerland
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
United Kingdom
Chile
Colombia
Denmark
Ecuador
Estonia
Spain
Finland
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
Croatia
Hungary
Italy
Jamaica
Mexico
Belgium
Malaysia
Panama
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Costa Rica
Russia
Germany
Liberia
Lithuania
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
South Africa
Uganda
South Korea
Slovakia
Taiwan
Publisher
Inter-American Development Bank
Author
Acosta, Camilo
Britto-Lima, Sergio
Kang, Minji
Porto, Indira
Serrano Berthet, Rodrigo
Villalba, Harold
Data collection type Administrative Data
Data structure Structured Data
Dataset unit of observation

Publication
Data notes

What is this dataset?

It is an evidence gap map (EGM) of the studies that evaluate police-led interventions. The IDB's Citizen Security Division and Knowledge and Learning Division built it with the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), following a 3ie protocol adapted for the IDB. Every study is coded onto a two-dimensional framework of interventions and outcomes, so the areas where evidence has accumulated, and the areas where none was identified, can be read off directly. It records which studies exist and what they measured; it does not pool them into a combined estimate of effect.

What does it contain?

The studies themselves, separated into impact evaluations and systematic reviews; the two framework hierarchies used to code them, each with a description of every category; and, for every systematic review, a critical appraisal against the 3ie instrument, published as a workbook. Three data dictionaries document the columns, and the review protocol accompanies the data as a PDF.

How is the evidence classified?

Along two axes, each of them a hierarchy. Interventions run from a top-level domain — among them geographically focused policing, disruptive and investigative strategies, community-level crime and disorder prevention, police reform, police control and accountability, applied technologies for crime prevention and detection, the regulation of firearm ownership and use, and group and armed violence prevention — to a named intervention and, where the coding defines one, a third-level subtype. Outcomes are built the same way, covering lethal, violent and property crime, group, youth and gender-based violence, drug- and alcohol-related offences, disorder, recidivism, fear of crime and perceived safety, police abuse and victimisation, institutional performance, institutional trust and legitimacy, and the risk and protective factors associated with crime and violence. The framework tables hold both hierarchies; the study tables draw their values from them, one per numbered slot, so a study measuring several interventions or outcomes fills several slots.

Which countries and regions are covered?

The map is global rather than regional: on many interventions the available evidence comes from outside Latin America and the Caribbean. Each study records the regions and countries it examined and the income levels of those countries.

What time period does it cover?

Studies published from 1970 through 2025.

How was the evidence identified and screened?

Through the search strategy, databases, and inclusion and exclusion criteria set out in the review protocol, which is published alongside the data as a PDF. The protocol also defines the intervention and outcome framework and the instrument used to rate each systematic review.

How were the systematic reviews appraised?

Each was rated against the 3ie critical appraisal instrument. The completed appraisals are published as a workbook, one worksheet per review, carrying the reviewer's answer and comments for every criterion. Each review receives an overall confidence rating of high, medium or low, which is repeated in the systematic reviews table beside the study.

How do the tables fit together?

The two study tables share a column layout, so impact evaluations and systematic reviews can be read the same way and stacked on the study identifier. The framework tables supply the intervention and outcome vocabulary that the study tables use by name. The appraisal workbook is organised by systematic review, one worksheet each, and the data dictionaries key to the column names of the tables they document.

How can it be used?

To find the studies that measure a particular intervention and outcome pair; to see where evidence is concentrated and where none was identified, before commissioning new research or designing a programme; and to judge how much weight a given systematic review can carry, because its appraisal is published beside it rather than summarised away.

In what format is it available, and under what licence?

As a set of tables in the IDB Open Data DataStore, browsable online and downloadable as CSV, with the review protocol as a PDF and the critical appraisals as a workbook. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, which allows reuse and adaptation provided the source is credited.

How do I cite it?

Use the citation shown on this page, which names the authors, the dataset title, IDB Open Data as the publisher, and the dataset's persistent identifier.

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