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Crime Prevention Creating Safe Communities

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Crime displacement Crime opportunity Crime prevention through

environmental design (CPTED)

Crime prevention officers’ roles

Designing out crime Evaluation Publicity campaign

Second-generation CPTED Situational crime prevention

(SCP)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

As a result of reading this chapter, the student will: � Know how crime prevention evolved � Understand how crime prevention relates to community oriented policing and problem

solving (COPPS) � Be able to describe crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) as well as some

of the obstacles to adopting it � Comprehend the meaning and value of situational crime prevention � Be able to list the principles of crime opportunity � Be able to delineate the roles of the contemporary crime prevention officer � Know how to evaluate the outcomes of crime prevention initiatives � Be aware of the nature and potential for crime displacement � Know which crime prevention strategies work, do not work, and hold promise

I don’t see much improvement in man’s heart. The whole thing is in man’s heart: his desire,

his greed, his lust, his pride, his ego. —BILLY GRAHAM, 2006

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The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action dealing with them.

—SIR ROBERT PEEL’S NINTH PRINCIPLE OF POLICING, 1829

INTRODUCTION

A multimillion dollar hotel/convention center complex is constructed in the middle of a large Midwestern city. Immediately upon its completion, police begin receiving reports of rapes in the parking garage, robberies in dark hallways, and all manner of other crimes. The parking garage, hallways, lighting, and security system—indeed, much of the facility—had to be retrofitted to prevent such an onslaught of crimes, at a major cost to the owners. The police department com- mander who headed up the agency’s crime prevention bureau later lamented that:

They [the hotel chain building the complex] came to town and talked with the archi- tects, the health department, the street department, the zoning department, the fire department, and everyone else—but they never came to see me.

Until relatively recently, such was often the angst of one whose career revolved around preventing crimes—a time when perhaps only a few, if any, officers were engaged in such activi- ties, and they primarily gave out advice and brochures on “lock it or lose it,” and so forth. Thankfully, that simplistic, reductionistic era is now long gone, and today’s crime prevention professionals are engaged in much more sophisticated and appreciated work. We also know that it is far cheaper to prevent a crime from occurring in the first place, rather than trying to reac- tively investigate it and then try to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate the offender.1

This chapter begins with a brief history of how crime prevention evolved, and then we dis- cuss how crime prevention works hand-in-glove with community oriented policing and problem solving (COPPS), which is examined in Chapter 3). Two very important components of crime prevention and COPPS are then analyzed: crime prevention through environmental design and situational crime prevention. Following that, we briefly review several issues and problems that can accompany crime prevention efforts: the role of the crime prevention officer, conducting a crime prevention publicity campaign, the displacement of crime, and the evaluation of initia- tives. Finally, we view which crime prevention strategies have been shown to work, to not work, and to hold promise. The chapter concludes with a summary, review questions, and several sce- narios and activities that provide opportunities for you to “learn by doing.”

The underlying theme of this chapter, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, is that the police alone cannot prevent crime and disorder; the community must be engaged in a collaborative effort if the physical and social problems that plague the community are to be reduced or eliminated.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Crime prevention may be defined as:

A pattern of attitudes and behaviors directed both at reducing the threat of crime and enhancing the sense of safety and security to positively influence the quality of life in our society and to help develop environments where crime cannot flourish.2

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Crime prevention is not a new idea. Humans have long known that crime is not simply a matter of motivation; it is also a matter of opportunity. Indeed, for as long as people have been victim- ized, there have been attempts to protect one’s self and family. The term “crime prevention,” how- ever, has only recently come to signify a set of ideas for combating crime.3

Our earliest ancestors maximized lighting from the sun and moon and employed defensive placement of homes on the side of cliffs, with only one entrance and exit.4 Cave dwellers estab- lished ownership of a space by surrounding it with large boulders; later the Romans developed and enforced complex land laws. Walled cities and castles exist throughout the world. It is a nat- ural human impulse to claim and secure an area to prevent problems.5

A more contemporary form of early preventive action was the Chicago Area Project (CAP), based on the research of Shaw and McKay in the 1930s and 1940s, which concerned the altering of the social fabric. Crime and delinquency were concentrated in the central areas of Chicago. Identifying a high level of transiency and an apparent lack of social ties in these areas as the root cause of the problems, Shaw and McKay labeled the problem as “social disorganiza- tion,” meaning that the constant turnover of residents resulted in the inability of the people to exert any informal social control over the individuals in the area. Consequently, offenders could act with some degree of impunity in these neighborhoods.6 Shaw’s proposed solution to the problem was to work with the residents to build a sense of pride and community, thereby prompting people to stay and exert control over the actions of the people in the area. CAP was

Under COPPS, crime prevention is evolving to more comprehensives situational and environmental intervention strategies. This photo depicts a Neighborhood Watch sign vandalized by local gangs.

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founded in 1931 and generated community support by using volunteers and existing neighbor- hood institutions.7

The 1970s saw the rise of community-based crime prevention programs, such as the Neighborhood or Block Watch. These programs used the same premise as physical design approaches: Potential offenders will not commit a crime if they perceive citizen activity, aware- ness, and concern in an area. The focus is on citizen surveillance and action (such as cutting back bushes, installing lighting, removing obstacles to enhance sight lines, organizing security surveys, and distributing crime and crime prevention news). Signs of resident activity and cohesion should work to protect the neighborhood. The police also recognized that they could not stop crime or solve problems on their own; they needed the help of the citizenry.8

Crime prevention experienced perhaps its biggest boost, however, with the emergence of physical design as a topic of debate. Led by the work of Oscar Newman in 1972, flaws in the phys- ical environment were identified as causes of, or at least facilitators for, criminal behavior. In 1969 Newman first coined the term “defensible space,” which in his mind did not mean ugly fortress- like buildings where occupants were prisoners. (Table 4–1 depicts Newman’s suggestions for defensible space.) Rather, buildings that are properly designed promote a sense of safety and power to their occupants, making them less afraid and vulnerable.9

Newman, an architect, argued that the physical characteristics of an area have the potential to suggest to residents and potential offenders that either the area is well cared for and protected or it is open to criminal activity. Design features conducive to criminal behavior—allowing offenders to commit a crime and escape with minimal risk of detection—would include common entrances for a large number of people, poorly placed windows inhibiting casual surveillance of grounds and common areas, hidden entrances, easy access for illegitimate users, and isolated buildings.10

Then in the 1970s and 1980s, theories of crime were developed that gave added importance to the role of crime opportunity. L. E. Cohen and M. Felson’s routine activity theory seeks to explain how physical and social environments create crime opportunities by bringing together in

TABLE 4–1 Oscar Newman’s Defensible Space Suggestions

1. Reduce the size of a housing estate or block.

2. Reduce the number of dwellings sharing an entrance way.

3. Reduce the number of stories in a building block.

4. Arrange dwellings in groups to encourage social contact.

5. Minimize the degree of shared public space inside and near blocks.

6. Make the boundaries between public and private space very clear.

7. Make public areas clearly visible to nearby housing.

8. Use external rather than internal corridors in blocks of housing so that they are visible.

9. Make entrances flush with the street rather than set back.

10. Do not have entrances facing away from the street because they are not open to surveillance.

11. Avoid landscaping and vegetation that impede surveillance.

12. Reduce escape routes (elevators, staircases, and multiple exits) for criminals.

Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Crime Prevention Brief, “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design” (no date), p. 2.

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one place at a particular time a “likely” offender, a “suitable” target, and the absence of a “capable guardian” against crime (e.g., a police officer or security guard).11 Routine activity theory was used to explain how large increases in burglary rates occurred in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s because (1) home electronic goods became lighter and (2) women increasingly entered the labor force, resulting in more empty homes during the day that could be entered by burglars.

Another opportunity theory is the rational choice perspective, which holds that all crime is purposive behavior designed to benefit the offender.12 In committing an offense, the offender makes the choice to balance the effort, risks, and rewards with the costs and benefits of alternative legal means of achieving an end.

James Q. Wilson and George Kelling’s 1982 “broken windows” theory extended Oscar Newman’s focus on housing projects to entire neighborhoods. “Broken windows” refers to phys- ical signs that an area is unattended: There may be abandoned vehicles and buildings in the area, trash and litter may be present, and there may be broken windows and lights and graffiti.13 In addition to these physical indicators are social manifestations of the same problems, such as loi- tering youths, public drunkenness, prostitution, and vagrancy. Both the physical and social indi- cators are typically referred to as signs of “incivility” that attract offenders to the area.14

The glass stairwell in this parking garage demonstrates how natural surveillance can be designed into a facility. People using the stairwell are easily seen by passers-by, thus reducing the likelihood of victimization.

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The most recent movements in crime prevention focus efforts and interventions on attack- ing specific problems, places, and times. Ronald V. Clarke proposed “situational prevention” as “measures directed at highly specific forms of crime that involve environmental changes that reduce the opportunities for crime and increase its risk.”15 Examples of situational prevention include the installation of surveillance equipment in a parking lot experiencing vandalism, erect- ing security screens in banks to stop robberies, altering traffic patterns in a drug market neigh- borhood, using electronic tags for library materials, and using caller ID for obscene phone calls.16

The physical environment as it relates to crime prevention is discussed shortly. Next we discuss the contemporary crime prevention-based philosophy.

CRIME PREVENTION AND COPPS: A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP

COPPS argues that the police and the community must stop treating the symptoms of the prob- lem. COPPS requires a new age of prevention—as well as improvement of prevention efforts.

Altering physical designs of buildings, for example, is not in itself generally sufficient for altering the level of crime; physical design changes cannot stop a truly motivated offender. Furthermore, altering the physical environment does not guarantee that residents will become involved and take action. Direct efforts to enhance active citizen involvement are necessary.17

Crime prevention and COPPS are therefore close companions, attempting to define a problem, identify contributing causes, seek out the proper people or agencies to assist in identify- ing potential solutions, and work as a group to implement the solution. The problem drives the solution.18

Comprehensive crime prevention resource guides for municipal and rural agencies are available through the National Crime Prevention Council at http://www.ncpc.org. Courtesy National Crime Prevention Council.

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At its heart, COPPS is about preventing crime. COPPS and crime prevention are linked in several areas. Crime prevention efforts provide information and skills that are essential to com- munity policing. Furthermore, crime prevention and community policing have six major points in common19:

1. Each deals with the health of the community. They acknowledge the many interrelated issues that contribute to crime.

2. Each seeks to address underlying causes and problems. Although short-term and reactive measures (such as personal security and response to calls for service) are necessary, they are insufficient if crime is to be significantly reduced. Looking beyond symptoms to treat the causes of community problems is a strategy that both, at their best, share in full measure.

3. Each deals with the combination of physical and social issues that are at the heart of many community problems. An abandoned building may attract drug addicts; bored teens may become area burglars. Both approaches examine the broadest possible range of causes and solutions.

4. Each requires active involvement by community residents. Both have the chief task of enabling people to make themselves and their communities safer by helping them gain appropriate knowledge, develop helpful attitudes, and take useful actions.

5. Each requires partnerships beyond law enforcement to be effective. Both efforts can and have involved schools, community centers, civic organizations, religious groups, social service agencies, public works agencies, and other elements of the community.

6. Each is an approach or a philosophy rather than a program. Neither is a fixed system for delivery of a specific service; instead, each is a way of doing business and involves the devel- opment of an institutional mindset.

Crime prevention provides knowledge about ways to involve the entire community in reducing crime, both individually and collectively; community policing practices can spread that knowledge. Community policing officers need to understand and apply techniques to educate and motivate citizens; crime prevention offers these techniques. Because crime prevention addresses both physical and social aspects of neighborhoods, it offers numerous ways for com- munity policing officers to gain entry into community circles. Crime prevention offers resources to help change community attitudes and behaviors.

CRIME PREVENTION THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

Designing Out Crime

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is defined as the “proper design and effective use of the environment that can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime, and an improvement in the quality of life.”20 At its core are three principles that support problem- solving approaches to crime21:

1. Natural access control. Natural access control uses elements such as doors, shrubs, fences, and gates to deny admission to a crime target and to create a perception among offenders that there is a risk in selecting the target.

2. Natural surveillance. Natural surveillance includes the proper placement of windows, lighting, and landscaping to increase the ability of those who care to observe intruders as well as regular users, allowing them to challenge inappropriate behavior or report it to the police or the property owner.

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3. Territorial reinforcement. Using such elements as sidewalks, landscaping, and porches helps distinguish between public and private areas and helps users exhibit signs of “owner- ship” that send hands-off messages to would-be offenders.

Ironically, in the past the police were not involved in design planning, whereas fire departments have promulgated and enforced national fire codes for about a half-century. Today, in cities such as Tempe, Arizona, if the police are not involved in the preliminary stages of planning a building, they often become very involved afterward, when crimes are committed in or around the structure.22

Cities such as Tempe have become leaders in expanding policing’s new role in designing out crime. In the late 1900s, Tempe enacted an ordinance requiring that no commercial, park, or residential building permit be issued until the police department had approved it, ensuring that the building fully protected its occupants.

Tempe’s CPTED officers advocate that walls around the perimeter of a building be at least eight feet high to make them more difficult to scale. River rocks are banned from parking lots, as they can be used as weapons. Natural surveillance, which can be obtained from proper lighting and window placement, helps people oversee nearby activities. Transparent fences are better than walls to monitor activities. Light switches in rest rooms should be keyed or remotely con- trolled to prevent tampering, thus perhaps facilitating a possible hiding place for an attacker; rest rooms should not be located at the ends of hallways where they are isolated. Defensive architecture includes “target hardening” through quality deadbolts and other mechanical means and includes proper landscaping (e.g., thorny bushes help to keep burglars away).23

Five types of information are needed for CPTED planning24:

1. Crime analysis information. This can include crime mapping, police crime data, incident reports, and victim and offender statistics.

This gated storage facility uses an electronic keyed gate for access control.

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2. Demographics. This should include resident statistics, such as age, race, gender, income, and income sources.

3. Land use information. This includes zoning information (such as residential, commercial, industrial, school, and park zones) as well as occupancy data for each zone.

4. Observations. These should include details of parking procedures, maintenance, and resi- dents’ reactions to crime.

5. Resident information. This includes resident crime surveys and interviews with police and security officers.

Second-Generation CPTED

As emphasized in Chapter 2 and stated by Greg Saville and Gerry Cleveland, “what really counts is a sense of community.”25 In that vein, a second-generation CPTED has more recently been developed that, again in the words of Saville and Cleveland, “recognizes that the most valuable aspects of a safe community lie not in structures of the brick and mortar type, but rather in struc- tures of family, of thought, and, most importantly, of behavior.”26

In addition to the basic elements such as access control and natural surveillance, second- generation CPTED looks at several social aspects of how neighborhoods work27:

• Size of the district, population density, and differentiation of buildings. There is an envi- ronmental influence on social interaction. We have relied for too long on large systems for survival. It is difficult to get to know one’s neighbors when the neighborhood consists of 100 homes, an apartment building has more than 300 units, and a high school has more than 3,000 students. Size can affect the alienation of a place. We need to live in smaller, locally based neighborhoods, near where we work, go to school, and socialize. We must develop ways to encourage more local contacts for social, economic, and political interac- tion. (This brings us full circle to the Chicago studies of the 1930s, discussed above.)

• Urban meeting places. Providing meeting places is an absolute necessity in neighborhoods, and the lack thereof can make urban spaces empty and dangerous—which is why regional shopping malls fail to become places of community gathering.

• Youth clubs. Again, the creation of youth clubs has been a crime prevention and community- building strategy since the aforementioned CAP of the 1930s and can provide activities, meeting places, and life skills training.

Second-generation CPTED also involves the idea of an ecological threshold, or what is called the neighborhood “tipping point.” The fundamental idea is that a neighborhood, just like a natural ecosystem, has the capacity to contain only so much; too much of something and the sys- tem will collapse.

A study of neighborhood bars and taverns serves as an example. For those persons who are harmed by alcohol-related behavior, for the police who respond to alcohol-related calls for serv- ice, and other municipal officials who attempt to control these establishments, too many bars in too small an area can create an excessive amount of crime and disorder. The bars can lead to a drain on municipal services, especially the police, and the neighborhood may reach its tipping point. Studies show that the number of bar seats located in a neighborhood has a multiplier effect on the police calls for service, and at some point the police, social services, and city resources become exhausted, and the situation can no longer be tolerated.28 More research is certainly war- ranted concerning this tipping point concept.

Exhibit 4–1 breaks down CPTED activities into their most basic components.

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Exhibit 4–1 Breaking Down CPTED Functions and Activities

Following are some examples of actual CPTED activities, reported by the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, that demonstrate how it works. Note that for each exam- ple, asking why here? compels the person(s) examining the situation to consider the motivations behind the activities, as well as the environmental conditions related to the location. Solving a problem thus requires a detailed understanding of both crime and place, and the response should consider one of the three objectives of CPTED: control access, provide opportunities to see and be seen, or define ownership and encourage the maintenance of territory.

Case #1: Custodial workers routinely find evidence of smoking, drinking, and vandalism in a high school lavatory.

Why here? The lavatory is in an isolated area of the building, adjacent to a ticket booth and concession stand that are active only during athletic events. The school’s open lunch policy allows students to eat anywhere on campus, while monitors are assigned only to the cafeteria.

CPTED response: A lock is installed on the lavatory door, and it remains locked unless there is an athletic event. The open lunch policy has been revised: Students are still allowed to leave the cafeteria but must eat in designated areas, and a faculty member is charged with patrolling these areas during lunch periods.

Case #2: The back wall of a building in an office center is repeatedly tagged with graffiti.

Why here? The taggers have selected an area that is out of the view of passers-by: a rear corner location where two buildings come together at the end of a poorly lit service lane. Visibility is further reduced by hedges at the site’s perimeter. Businesses in the office center are open from 9 AM to 5 PM during the week; however, the tagged building is next to a roller skating rink where activity peaks at night and on week- ends.

CPTED response: Hedges are trimmed and wall-mounted light fixtures installed along the service lane, with motion detection lighting in the problem area. The skating rink agrees to change to a “no re-admission” policy to keep skaters inside the building and away from the office property.

Case #3: ATM patrons at a bank are being robbed after dark.

Why here? The bank is situated along a commercial strip in a neighborhood with vacant properties and abandoned businesses. The ATM is in the front corner of the bank building, and the drive-through teller windows are at the side of the building, around the corner from the ATM. Robbers hide in the darkened drive-through teller area and attack unsuspecting ATM users after they complete a transaction.

CPTED response: The bank installs a fence at the corner of the building, creating a barrier between the ATM and the drive-through teller area.

Source: Diane Zahm, Using Crime Prevention through Environmental Design in Problem Solving (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, August 2007, pp. 1–3, http://www.popcenter.org/tools/cpted/ (Accessed July 12, 2010).

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SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION

Situational crime prevention (SCP) draws from the aforementioned rational choice and routine activities theories and departs radically from most criminology in its orientation. It is focused on the settings for crime and the prevention of crime rather than on persons committing criminal acts. It seeks to forestall the occurrence of crime rather than to detect and sanction offenders. It seeks not to eliminate criminal or delinquent tendencies through improvement of society or its institutions but merely to make criminal action less attractive to offenders.29

SCP is a targeted means of reducing crime. It provides an analytical framework for strategies to prevent crime in varying settings. It is an “environmental criminology” approach that seeks to reduce crime opportunity by making settings less conducive to unwanted or illegal activities, focusing on the environment rather than the offender.30 The commission of a crime requires not merely the offender but, as every detective story reader knows, also the opportunity for crime.31

Because “opportunity makes the thief,” seven principles of crime opportunity have been developed, some of which draw on the above theories32:

1. Opportunities play a role in all crime. 2. Crime opportunities are highly specific (e.g., the theft of cars for joyriding has a different

pattern of opportunity than theft for car parts). 3. Crime opportunities are concentrated in time and space (dramatic differences are found from

one address to another, even in high-crime areas, and shift by time, hour, and day of week). 4. Crime opportunities depend on everyday movements of activity (e.g., burglars visit houses

in the daytime when occupants are away). 5. One crime produces opportunities for another (e.g., a successful burglary may encourage

the offender to return in the future, or a youth who has his bicycle stolen may feel justified in stealing someone else’s).

Advertising obstructions create poor natural surveillance and may contribute to a location’s being an attractive target to offenders.

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6. Some products offer more tempting crime opportunities (e.g., easily carried items such as electronic equipment and jewelry are attractive).

7. Social and technological advancements produce new opportunities (products are most sought after in their new “mass-marketing” stages, when demand for them is greatest; most products reach a saturation stage where most people have them and they are unlikely to be stolen).

Although the concept of SCP was British in origin, its development was influenced by two independent, but nonetheless related, strands of policy research in the United States: defensible space and crime prevention through environmental design—both of which preceded SCP and were discussed earlier in the chapter. Because of the trans-Atlantic delay in the dissemination of ideas, however, there was no stimulus for the development of SCP.33

SCP is a problem-oriented approach that examines the roots of a problem and identifies a unique solution to the problem. Experience has shown that successful SCP measures must be

Signage at the entrance to this apartment complex and high school parking lot serves to remove offenders’excuses for loitering and trespassing.

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directed against specific crimes and must be designed with a clear understanding of the motives of offenders and their methods. SCP relies on the rational choice theory of crime, which asserts that criminals choose to commit crimes based on the costs and benefits involved with the crime. For example, a potential offender will commit a high-risk crime only if the rewards of the crime outweigh the risks.34

Ronald V. Clarke divided crime prevention goals into five primary objectives, each of which is designed to dissuade the criminal from committing the offense by making the crime too hard to commit, too risky, or too small in terms of rewards to be worth the criminal’s time.35 We dis- cuss each of these five objectives:

1. Increasing the effort needed to commit the crime. Crimes typically happen because they are easy to commit. A person might see an easy opportunity to commit a crime and do so. Casual criminals are eliminated by increasing the effort needed to commit a crime. Following are different methods for increasing the effort needed to commit a crime: a. Hardening targets. Install physical barriers (such as locks, bolts, protective screens, and

mechanical containment and antifraud devices to impede an offender’s ability to pene- trate a potential target).

b. Controlling access. Install barriers and design walkways, paths, and roads so that unwanted users are prevented from entering vulnerable areas.

c. Deflecting offenders. Discourage crime by giving people alternate legal venues for their activities (such as decreasing littering by providing litter bins or separating fans of rival teams after athletic events).

d. Controlling facilitators. Facilitators are accessories who aid in the commission of crimes. Controlling them is achieved by universal measures (such as firearms permit regulations) and specific measures (metal detectors in community centers).

2. Increasing the risks associated with the crime. Increasing the risks associated with a crime reduces the incidence of that crime, because criminals believe that they will not be caught; offenders who believe that they will be caught are less likely to offend. For example, if a video camera monitors all entrances and exits to a convenience store or bank, potential robbers who know of such surveillance will be less likely to rob such establishments. a. Entry and exit screening. Screening methods include guest sign-ins or a required

display of identification; they ensure that residents and visitors meet entrance requirements.

b. Formal surveillance. Using security personnel and hardware (such as CCTV and bur- glar alarms) is a deterrent to unwanted activities.

c. Informal surveillance. The presence of building attendants, concierges, maintenance workers, and attendants increases site surveillance and crime reporting.

d. Natural surveillance. The surveillance can be provided by people as they go about their daily activities, making potential offenders feel exposed and vulnerable.

3. Reducing the rewards. Reducing the rewards from crime makes offending not worthwhile to offenders. Methods of reducing rewards include making targets of crime less valuable by the following means: a. Removing targets. Eliminate crime purposes from public areas. Examples include hav-

ing a no-cash policy and keeping valuable property in a secure area overnight. b. Identifying property. Use indelible marks, establishing ownership and preventing indi-

viduals from reselling the property.

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c. Removing inducements. Related to target removal, this involves removing temptations that offenders have not targeted in advance but that are likely to become the targets of a spontaneous crime (such as vacant houses or other living units or broken windows and light fixtures).

4. Reducing the provocations. The environment or manner in which places are managed (e.g., busy bars and unmonitored drinking) may provoke crime and violence. Studies show that certain lighting improves people’s mood and morale in the workplace. Additional seat- ing and soothing music, measures to avoid long waiting lines, and other such options may reduce people’s frustrations in crowded public places.

5. Removing the excuses. Many offenders say,“I didn’t know any better” or “I had no choice.” This strategy involves informing individuals of the law and rules and offers them alternatives to ille- gal activity by eliminating their excuses for committing crime. For example, a “no trespassing” sign is enforceable if posted. It also involves rule setting, such as clearly stating the rules of a housing development, which establish the procedures of punishment for violators. Such meth- ods prevent offenders from excusing their crimes by claiming ignorance or misunderstanding.

Table 4–2 presents an SCP matrix for CPTED, specifically for the five CPTED objectives discussed. Included are organized (procedural measures), mechanical (provision or removal of certain physical objects), and natural (use of native aspects of the environment) means of facili- tating each.

OTHER CRIME PREVENTION CHALLENGES

Next we look at four challenges that come into play with crime prevention operations that must be taken into account if the strategy is to function properly: the role of the crime prevention offi- cers, crime displacement, properly publicizing crime prevention campaigns, and the evaluation of results.

Officers’ Roles

What do crime prevention officers do? In broad terms, the mission of the crime prevention offi- cer is to solve problems. By using all resources—city agencies, social services, the fire department, power companies, and landlords—the crime prevention effort builds a sense of partnership with other city and community agencies. It is proactive work, investigating suspicious people and activities. It is the police work that recognizes the importance of community input and involves officers trying to solve community problems even if they are not criminal in nature.

Today’s crime prevention officers are also specifically engaged in the following activities:

• Obtaining useful information concerning hot spots, crime patterns, and individuals of interest.

• Using resources to put an end to ongoing problems and reduce the number of calls for service that require officer intervention, so as to free up patrol time and afford officers more time to be proactive.

• Acting as liaisons for Neighborhood Watch participants along with conducting public rela- tions events, thus giving the department a human face and improving relationships between the police and the citizens.

• Obtaining and using grant money and other donations to fund programs allow the depart- ment to use budgeted funds for other needed activities.36

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TABLE 4–2 Situational Crime Preventiion Matrix

Increase the Effort

Increase the Risks

Reduce the Rewards

Reduce the Provocations

Remove the Excuses

1. Harden targets immobilizers in cars antirobbery screens

6. Extend guardianship cocooning Neighborhood Watch

11. Conceal targets gender-neutral phone directories off-street parking

16. Reduce frustration and stress efficient queueing soothing lighting

21. Set rules rental agreements hotel registration

2. Control access to facilities alley gating entry phones

7. Assist natural surveillance improved street lighting Neighborhood Watch hotlines

12. Remove targets removable car radios; prepaid public phone cards

17. Avoid disputes fixed cab fares; reduce crowding in pubs

22. Post instructions “No parking” “Private property”

3. Screen exits tickets needed electronic tags for libraries

8. Reduce anonymity taxi driver IDs “How’s my driving?” signs

13. Identify property property marking; vehicle licensing

18. Reduce emotional arousal controls on violent porn; prohibit pedophiles working with children

23. Alert conscience roadside speed display signs “Shoplifting is stealing”

4. Deflect offenders street closures in red light district separate toilets for women

9. Utilize place managers train employees to prevent crime support whistleblowers

14. Disrupt markets checks on pawn brokers licensed street vendors

19. Neutralize peer pressure “Idiots drink and drive” “It’s OK to say no”

24. Assist compliance litter bins public lavatories

5. Control tools/weapons toughened beer glasses; photos on credit cards

10. Strengthen formal surveillance speed cameras CCTV in town centers

15. Deny benefits ink merchandise tags; graffiti cleaning

20. Discourage imitation rapid vandalism repair; V-chips in TVs

25. Control drugs/alcohol Breathalyzers in pubs; alcohol-free events

Source: Ronald V. Clarke and Derek Cornish, “Opportunities, Precipitators, and Criminal Decisions: A Reply to Wortley’s Critique of Situational Crime Prevention.” In M. Smith and D. B. Cornish (eds.), Theory for Situational Crime Prevention. Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. 16 (Monsey, N.Y.: Criminal Justice Press, 2003).

It has also been said that every police officer needs to know at least as much as the bad guy knows. Certainly, the knowledge to commit criminal acts is not limited to a few; such information now is widely available on the Internet. For example, the Open Organization of Lockpickers, or TOOOL (www.toool.nl), is an organization dedicated to the so-called sport of lock picking. Although most TOOOL enthusiasts are generally law-abiding people who are interested in the intricacies of locks and keys, that information is available to those with crim- inal designs as well. Another site where such information proliferates is YouTube, where videos now explicitly show how to open padlocks with a tool made from a soft drink can, and how to get drinks and food from vending machines without paying. Obviously the police

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must monitor such sites and be aware of what the “bad guys” know, are doing, and are using as tools.37

Conducting a Publicity Campaign

Crime prevention publicity campaigns target two main audiences: potential victims and offend- ers. Police agencies should decide which audience to target based on the nature of the problem. For example, if a police department notices there are numerous preventable property crimes in an area, perhaps a short campaign to remind residents about the importance of securing their belongings could be beneficial. On the other hand, if local youths routinely vandalize cars in a parking lot, a campaign threatening police apprehension would be more effective. A dual approach can also be used, whereby two campaigns run simultaneously, one to reduce the num- ber of potential victims and the other to deter offenders.

Victim-Oriented Campaigns

Efforts to reach victims can take one of two forms: Police can try to provide general information to residents concerning crime and its prevention, or they can advertise a specific community pro- gram they are undertaking. These campaigns often involve cooperation between the police department and the community in conducting home-security surveys, obtaining steering-wheel locks, or providing classes on various security-enhancing measures. Fliers and newsletters demonstrating techniques to make cars and houses “burglar-proof” are common in these “target- hardening” campaigns.

Offender-Oriented Campaigns

Offender-oriented crime prevention strategies rely on the notion that offenders are rational indi- viduals who seek to maximize their rewards while minimizing their potential costs. With that premise, giving offenders information about the risks of crime becomes an important compo- nent of crime reduction efforts. Publicity campaigns that threaten an increased risk of arrest can be more effective in reducing offending.

Offender campaigns are successful not when they threaten later punishment, but when they threaten detection and arrest. Offender campaigns are more efficient when they target spe- cific crime types and focus on a clearly defined geographic area. For offenders to take the message seriously, they need to feel as though the campaign targets them directly. For example, a police initiative to reduce car vandalism after school hours can include posting signs around town stat- ing that “Vandalism is a Misdemeanor,” but a more focused approach might include posters in the problem area with messages such as “Smile: Undercover Officers are Watching You,” or “Our Officers Have Arrested 12 Students for Vandalism This Month—Will You Be Next?”38

Table 4–3 provides the primary considerations when developing both victim- and offender-oriented campaigns.

Displacement of Crime

An issue that emerges in any serious discussion of crime prevention is crime displacement, which refers to the idea that rather than eliminate crime, interventions simply result in the move- ment of crime to another area, shift offenders to new targets in the same area, alter the methods used to accomplish a crime, or prompt offenders to change the type of crime they commit.39

Displacement has, therefore, been the Achilles’ heel of crime prevention in general. Efforts to

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control drug dealing and crime in neighborhoods and places are often criticized for having dis- placed the offending behavior instead of reducing it. If crime or drug dealing has only been moved around without any net reduction in harmful behavior, then that would be a valid criticism.

Research indicates, however, that displacement is not inevitable but is contingent on the offender’s judgments about alternative crimes. If these alternatives are not viable, the offender may well settle for smaller criminal rewards or for a lower rate of crime. Few offenders are so driven by need or desire that they have to maintain a certain level of offending, whatever the cost. For many, the elimination of easy opportunities for crime may actually encourage them to explore noncriminal alternatives.40 There are six commonly recognized types of displacement41:

1. Time. Offenders change the time when they commit crimes (e.g., switching from dealing drugs during the day to dealing at night).

2. Location. Offenders switch from targets in one location to targets in other locations (e.g., a dealer stops selling drugs in one community and begins selling them in another community).

3. Target. Offenders switch from one type of target to another type (e.g., a burglar switches from apartment units to detached single-family homes).

4. Method. Offenders change the way they attack targets (e.g., a street robber stops using a knife and uses a gun).

5. Type. Offenders switch from one form of crime to another (e.g., from burglary to check fraud). 6. Perpetrator. New offenders replace old offenders who have been removed by police enforce-

ment (e.g., a dealer is arrested and a new dealer begins business with the same customers).

A review of the evidence for displacement shows that when attempts to detect displace- ment have been made, it is often not found, and if found, it is far less than 100 percent.42 John Eck found that of 33 studies that looked for displacement effects, only 3 found evidence of much dis- placement.43 Eck concluded, “There is more reason to expect no displacement than a great deal.

TABLE 4–3 Managing Victim- and Offender-Oriented Publicity Campaigns

Publicity directed at VICTIMS can advertise:

• Self-protection techniques

• New ways to report crime

• Locations of police facilities or resources

• Dangerous areas

• Offenders living in the area (e.g., sex offenders)

• Neighborhood crime problems.

Publicity directed at OFFENDERS can advertise:

• Police techniques or future police crackdowns

• Penalties or the risk of apprehension for certain crimes

• Results of past crackdowns or police operations

• Knowledge of an illicit market or drug trade

• Legislative changes

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Center for Problem Oriented Policing, “Police Publicity Campaigns and Target Audiences,” http://www.popcenter.org/responses/crime_prevention/2 (Accessed September 22, 2010).

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A reasonable conclusion is that displacement can be a threat, but that it is unlikely to completely negate gains due to an enforcement crackdown or a crime prevention effort.”44

Research has shown that offenders generally begin offending at places they are familiar with and explore outward into increasingly unfamiliar areas.45 If opportunities are blocked (by increased enforcement, target hardening, or some other means) close to a familiar location, then displace- ment to other targets close to familiar areas is most likely. Displacement usually occurs in the direc- tion of familiar places, times, targets, and behaviors. Offenders may desist for varying periods of time, or they may even stop offending, depending on how important crime is to their lives.46

Although studies have indicated that displacement may not pose a major threat to crime prevention efforts, it is still a phenomenon that police officials must take into account. Ignoring this problem can lead to inequitable solutions to problems; this is particularly true of problem- solving tactics designed to displace offenders from specific locations. Efforts must be made to track those individuals to ensure that they do not create a problem somewhere else.47

Evaluating Crime Prevention Initiatives

The field of crime prevention generally suffers from the same shortcoming and criticisms that many other interventions suffer from: poor or nonexistent evaluation. The evaluation component of many initiatives is often poorly conceived, marginally funded, and short-lived. A useful form of evaluation is an outcome or impact evaluation to determine whether the intervention accomplished the expected result. Assessments of this nature require more planning and effort, and consideration must be given to the selection of comparison groups, time frames, outcome variables, potential confound- ing factors, and analytic techniques.48 We will discuss such higher levels of evaluation in Chapter 8.)

For now, we will briefly note that evaluations not only provide the police with valuable information, but also give community leaders and residents an indication of the success or failure of crime prevention efforts.49 That point hopefully will be made as we look at the following dis- cussion of what works and does not work in crime prevention.

CRIME PREVENTION: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T

Many crime prevention programs work; others do not. Most programs have not yet been evalu- ated with enough scientific evidence to draw conclusions. Enough evidence is available, however, to create tentative lists of what works, what does not work, and what is promising.

Following are the major conclusions of a report to Congress, based on a systematic review of more than 500 scientific evaluations of crime prevention practices by the University of Maryland’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.50 This is the first major evaluation of crime prevention programs, resulting in much attention and debate in the field. There are some surprising findings, particularly in the list of programs that do not hold promise—several of which have become pet projects of police agencies and political leaders.

What Prevents or Reduces Crime

The following are programs that researchers believed with reasonable certainty would prevent crime or reduce risk factors for crime. These programs are thus likely to be effective in preventing some form of crime:

• Providing extra police patrols in high-crime hot spots • Monitoring known high-risk repeat offenders to reduce their time on the streets and

returning them to prison quickly

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• Arresting employed domestic abusers to reduce repeated abuse by these suspects • Offering rehabilitation programs for juvenile and adult offenders that are appropriate to

their risk factors to reduce their rates of repeat offending • Offering drug treatment programs to prison inmates to reduce repeat offending after their

release

What Does Not Appear to Be Successful

Sufficient evidence indicated to the University of Maryland researchers that the following pro- grams failed to reduce crime or reduce risk factors:

• Gun buyback programs failed to reduce gun violence in cities (as evaluated in St. Louis and Seattle).

• Neighborhood Watch programs organized with police failed to reduce burglary or other target crimes, especially in higher-crime areas where voluntary participation often fails.

• Arrests of unemployed suspects for domestic assault caused higher rates of repeat offend- ing over the long term than nonarrest alternatives.

• Increased arrests or raids on drug markets failed to reduce violent crime or disorder for more than a few days, if at all.

• Storefront police offices failed to prevent crime in the surrounding areas. • Police newsletters with local crime information failed to reduce victimization rates (as eval-

uated in Newark, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas). • Correctional boot camps using traditional military training failed to reduce repeat offend-

ing after release compared to similar offenders serving time on probation and parole, for both juveniles and adults.

• “Scared Straight” programs that bring minor juvenile offenders to visit maximum-security prisons to see the severity of prison conditions failed to reduce the participants’ reoffend- ing rates and may increase crime.

• Shock probation, shock parole, and split sentences, in which offenders are incarcerated for a short period of time at the beginning of the sentence and then supervised in the community, did not reduce repeat offending compared to the placement of similar offenders only under community supervision, and they increased crime rates for some groups.

• Home detention with electronic monitoring for low-risk offenders failed to reduce offend- ing compared to the placement of similar offenders under standard community supervi- sion without electronic monitoring.

• Intensive supervision on parole or probation did not reduce repeat offending compared to normal levels of community supervision.

What Holds Promise

Researchers determined that the level of certainty for the following programs is too low for there to be positive generalizable conclusions, but some empirical basis exists for predicting that fur- ther research could show positive results:

• Problem-solving analysis is effective when addressed to the specific crime situation. • Proactive arrests for carrying concealed weapons in gun crime hot spots, using traffic

enforcement and field interrogations, can be helpful.

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• Community policing with meetings to set priorities reduced community perceptions of the severity of crime problems in Chicago.

• Field interrogations of suspicious persons reduced crime in a San Diego experiment. • Gang offender monitoring by community workers and probation and police officers can

reduce gang violence. • Community-based mentoring by Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America substantially reduced

drug abuse in one experiment, although evaluations of other similar programs showed that it did not.

• Battered women’s shelters were found to reduce at least the short-term (six-week) rate of repeat victimization for women who take other steps to seek help.

Many more impact evaluations using stronger scientific methods are needed before even minimally valid conclusions can be reached about the impact of programs on crime. Again, as previously noted, there is much debate in the field about the research findings. The Maryland report to Congress, however, has raised the consciousness of the crime prevention discipline and will, it is hoped, bring about much more needed research and inquiry.

Although both adult and juvenile military-style boot camps increased in number in the 1990s, they had poor results in reducing repeat offending. Courtesy Washoe County, Nevada, Sheriff’s Office.

Summary It is clear that the field of crime prevention has matured from its earlier forms, originally involving strategic placement of rocks by early cave dwellers and until recently having to do primarily with target hardening one’s home with better locks. This chapter has shown its various elements as well as the results of research efforts concerning what good can occur

when measures are taken to prevent crimes. The police realize that they alone cannot prevent or address crime and disorder and that a partnership with the community is essential if the physical and social problems that plague communities are to be reduced or eliminated.

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Items for Review

1. Describe briefly the history of crime prevention. 2. Explain the relationship between crime prevention and

COPPS. 3. Define what is meant by CPTED, what its second gen-

eration includes, and what some potential obstacles to implementing it are.

4. Explain the crime prevention officer’s roles. 5. Describe what is meant by situational crime preven-

tion, and list its five goals.

6. Review some of the primary considerations for con- ducting a crime- and victim-oriented publicity cam- paign.

7. Explain what is meant by crime displacement, and how it relates to crime prevention.

8. Discuss some crime reduction or prevention activities that have been shown by researchers to work, to not work, and to hold promise.

Learn by Doing

1. As part of a class group project, you and a fellow crim- inal justice student have been assigned to determine what “works, doesn’t work, and has promise” in your local area with regard to police practices. You decide to begin by contacting the research, planning, and analy- sis unit of your local police agency and ask for their input. Based on what you have read and heard about local police initiatives, what do you believe they would say “works” in local policing, and what initiatives have been shown to not work?

2. Your criminal justice professor has the following essay question as part of a take-home exam in a community

policing course: “Your police agency is launching a massive crime prevention initiative and desperately needs to get the word out to the general public. How will it do so?” You contact your local agency’s Public Information Officer (PIO) for assistance. What will he or she say are some good approaches for publicizing the campaign?

3. Your criminal justice professor asks you to prepare an essay spelling out the definitions of crime prevention, CPTED, and situational crime prevention. What will be your responses?

Notes

1. Ronald V. Clarke, Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (2nd ed.) (Monsey, N.Y.: Criminal Justice Press, 1997), p. 2.

2. Crime Prevention Coalition of America, Crime Prevention in America: Foundations for Action (Washington, D.C.: National Crime Prevention Council, 1990), p. 64.

3. Steven P. Lab, “Crime Prevention: Where Have We Been and Which Way Should We Go?” in Steven P. Lab (ed.), Community Policing at a Crossroads (Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson, 1997), pp. 1–13.

4. Cynthia Scanlon, “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design,” Law and Order (May 1996):50.

5. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design,” in Crime Prevention Brief (Washington, D.C.: Author, no date), p. 2.

6. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” p. 5.

7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 7. 9. Scanlon,“Crime Prevention Through Environmental

Design,” p. 50. 10. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” p. 6. 11. L. E. Cohen and M. Felson,“Social Change and Crime

Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach,” American Sociological Review 44 (1997):588–608.

12. D. B. Cornish and R. V. Clarke, The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986).

13. James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, “Broken Windows,” The Atlantic Monthly 211 (1982):29–38.

14. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” p. 6. 15. Ronald V. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention: Its

Theoretical Basis and Practical Scope,” in Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (eds.), Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research (Vol. 4) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 225–256.

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16. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” pp. 8–9. 17. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” p. 6. 18. Ibid., p. 8. 19. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice

Assistance, Crime Prevention and Community Policing, p. 3.

20. C. R. Jeffrey, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1971), p. 117.

21. National Crime Prevention Council, Designing Safer Communities: A Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Handbook (Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997), pp. 7–8.

22. “Building a More Crime-Free Environment: Tempe Cops Have the Last Word on Construction Projects,” Law Enforcement News (November 15, 1998):7.

23. Scanlon,“Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design,” pp. 51–52.

24. Ibid., p. 3. 25. Greg Saville and Gerry Cleveland, “2nd Generation

CPTED: An Antidote to the Social Y2K Virus of Urban Design.” Paper presented at the Third Annual International CPTED Conference, Washington, D.C., December 14–16, 1998.

26. Ibid., p. 1. 27. Ibid. 28. Gregory Saville, “New Tools to Eradicate Crime

Places and Crime Niches.” Paper presented at the Conference of Safer Communities, Melbourne, Australia, September 10–11, 1998, pp. 9–10.

29. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” p. 230. 30. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development, “Situational Prevention,” Crime Prevention Brief (Washington, D.C.: Author, no date), p. 1.

31. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” p. 231. 32. U.S. Department of Justice, Center for Problem-

Oriented Policing, “The 10 Principles of Crime Opportunity,” http://www.popcenter.org/about- situational.htm (Accessed March 7, 2006).

33. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” p. 236. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Adapted from Ron Francis and Jeff Wamboldt,

“Making Crime Prevention a Priority, The Police

Chief, January 2010, p. 40, http://www. policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuse- action=display_arch&article_id=1989&issue_id=12 010 (Accessed July 12, 2010).

37. Jeffrey Dingle, “Thinking Like a Thief is the Key to Crime Prevention,” The Police Chief, January 2010, p. 30, http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/ index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=198 6&issue_id=12010 (Accessed July 12, 2010).

38. Ibid., pp. 5–11 39. Lab, “Crime Prevention,” p. 12. 40. Clarke, “Situational Crime Prevention,” p. 237. 41. Robert Barr and Ken Pease, “Crime Placement,

Displacement, and Deflection,” in Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (eds.), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research (Vol. 12) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 146–175.

42. John E. Eck, “The Threat of Crime Displacement,” Criminal Justice Abstracts 25 (3) (1993):529.

43. Pat Mayhew, Ronald V. Clarke, A. Sturman, and J. M. Hough, Crime as Opportunity (Home Office Research Study No. 34) (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976); J. Lowman, “Prostitution in Vancouver: Some Notes on the Genesis of a Social Problem,” Canadian Journal of Criminology 28 (1) (1997):1–16; Barry Poyner and Barry Webb, “Reducing Theft from Shopping Bags in City Center Markets,” in Ronald V. Clarke (ed.), Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (Albany, N.Y.: Harrow and Heston, 1992).

44. Eck, “The Threat of Crime Displacement,” pp. 534–536.

45. Ibid., p. 537. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., pp. 541–542. 48. Ibid. 49. William Spelman and John E. Eck, “Problem-

Solving: Problem Oriented Policing in Newport News,” Research in Brief (January 1987):8.

50. Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise C. Gottfredson, Doris L. MacKenzie, John Eck, Peter Reuter, and Shawn D. Bushway, “Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising.” Research in Brief (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1998), pp. 1–27.

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� � � � � � 5

Technologies and Tools for the Tasks:

Collecting and Analyzing Information

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

105

ARJIS CompStat Computer-aided dispatch

(CAD) Computer statistics Counterterrorism Crime analysis

Crime mapping Decision making structure

(for IT) Geographic profiling Information technology Intelligence-led policing Mobile computing

Predictive Policing Records management system

(RMS) Social networking sites Street-level criminology

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

As a result of reading this chapter, the student will: � Know the necessary steps and components for establishing an IT framework � Understand the functions of the three basic crime-analysis tools: computer-aided dispatch,

mobile computing, and records management systems � Comprehend the basics of crime mapping functions, and how crime patterns can be

geomapped � Be able to explain how IT applies to crime analysis � Know the basic purposes of three new management and analysis tools: CompStat, intelligence-

led policing, and predictive policing � Know about geographic profiling and counterterrorism analysis � Know how the Internet and an intranet apply to policing and crime analysis

God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

—ECCLESIASTES 7:29

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INTRODUCTION

According to the Wickersham Commission, 1931, the newly deployed radio-equipped patrol car was “fast, efficient, stealthy . . . [and police were] just as liable to be within 60 feet as 3 miles of the crook plying his trade - and may bring them down about him like a swarm of bees—this lightning swift angel of death.”1 Thus was the age of police technologies born, to turn the tide against criminals.

Now, for more than four decades, the police have been employing myriad technologies to gather, store, and share information. In addition, today’s police officers are on smart phones, deploying electroshock weapons against criminals, resuscitating heart attack victims with defib- rillators kept in the patrol car, sending latent fingerprints to an automated database for matching, using various means to see whether someone is telling the truth, notifying the public about wanted persons, using social networking sites, creating composite drawings and traffic collision diagrams with computer software, and employing many kinds of databases and tools of the trade (many of which are discussed later in this chapter)—all of which would boggle the minds of the members of the Wickersham Commission.

This chapter examines the current use of technologies and other tools as they can be applied to community oriented policing and problem solving (COPPS). We begin by considering how to lay the foundation—establishing a decision making structure for an information tech- nology (IT) project. Next we consider what we call the basic systems of analysis: computer-aided dispatch (CAD), mobile computing, and records management, and then we move into the broad area of crime mapping, and what it can provide to COPPS. Then we revisit crime analysis, dis- cussed in Chapter 3 in conjunction with the S.A.R.A. problem-solving process (for scanning, analysis, response, analysis, as discussed in previous chapters) to look more deeply at the tools that are available for a thorough look at crime problems and patterns.

Then we examine several relatively new management and analysis tools that can be used to manage crime: CompStat, intelligence-led policing (ILD), and predictive policing; those dis- cussions are followed by brief considerations of geographic profiling and hot spots, counterter- rorism analysis, a review of how the Internet and an intranet can assist the police in crime analysis and engaging the community (included here is an overview of the popular social net- working sites, which are now being used to partner with the community), and the use of surveys. A number of examples of IT applications are disseminated throughout the chapter, as exhibits. The chapter concludes with a summary, review questions, and several scenarios and activities that provide opportunities for you to “learn by doing.”

Note that we will not endeavor to list or describe all of the technologies and tools that are available for, or adaptable to COPPS purposes; the IT that is now available is simply too wide- spread and varied in role, nature, and application for us to attempt to do so. Therefore, here we will only cover the basics.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: BUILDING AN IT FRAMEWORK

Establishing a Decision Making Structure for an IT Project

As expensive, complex, and important as information technology (IT) is for today’s COPPS efforts, certainly any degree of success in planning, installing, implementing, and managing an IT project involves a major combined effort on the part of many people. The need for careful atten- tion to this process has been recognized and assisted by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), in its Law Enforcement Tech Guide: A Guide for Executives, Managers and Technologists.2 Although this publication is primarily designed for

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1.3 USER COMMITTEE Subject matter/business process experts

Patrol Officers, Dispatchers, Records Clerks Identifies systems operational requirements

1.4 TECHNICAL COMMITTEE IT support staff

within the agency and from parent IT organization Analyzes technical environment

Identifies technical solutions

1.5 AD HOC WORKING GROUP

Focused on a particular project, e.g.,

computer-aided dispatch (CAD)

1.5 AD HOC WORKING GROUP

Focused on a particular project, e.g.,

records management system (RMS)

1.5 AD HOC WORKING GROUP

Focused on a particular project, e.g.,

researching mobile computing devices

1.5 AD HOC WORKING GROUP

Focused on a particular project, e.g.,

transferring data from CAD to RMS

EXECUTIVE SPONSOR Chief/Sheriff

Ultimate decisionmaking authority Provides leadership and accountability

1.1 STEERING COMMITTEE Deputy Chief(s)/Sheriff(s), i.e.,

Records, Identification, Dispatch, Jail Provides leadership, creates vision, removes obstacles

1.2 PROJECT MANAGER The person responsible for all project-related

tasks and deliverables Directs User and Technical Committees

Informs Steering Committee

FIGURE 5-1 A Decision Making Structure for an IT Project

Source: Kelly J. Harris and William H. Romesburg, Law Enforcement Tech Guide: A Guide for Executives, Managers and Technologists (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2002), p. 27; also available at: http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/ric/Publications/lawenforcementtechguide.pdf (Accessed July 13, 2010).

larger agencies, small and rural police agencies may also be assisted by a companion publication, also available at the COPS office.3

First, the foundation must be established by creating a decision-making structure. Agency leadership (chief or sheriff, upper management) and users (patrol officers, investigators, dis- patchers, records clerks, crime analysis, community policing experts, and technical staff) will all rely on this foundation being established.

Figure 5-1 illustrates how a project decision-making structure might be configured. As shown, the executive sponsor will be the person who has ultimate decision-making authority and provides leadership and accountability. Below the executive sponsor are several more layers of key people who are involved, as follows:

• The Steering Committee. It includes captains, lieutenants, high-ranking non-sworn employees (i.e., dispatch supervisor, records supervisor, IT manager), whose role is to adopt a shared vision; commit to and guide the project; dedicate staff resources; keep

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abreast of project progress, risks, challenges, successes; provide update reports to the execu- tive sponsor; remove project barriers; deal with policy and personnel obstacles; and render decisions on issues that impact project scope, time, and cost.

• The Project Manager. Ideally, this is an individual who has project management skills, experience and/or training, dedicated in a full-time manner to the success of the initiative. His or her role is to provide overall project direction, manage the project’s schedule, serve as a single point of contact with vendors, direct/lead team members toward project objec- tives, review and approve project deliverables, handle low-level problem resolution, and serve as liaison to the Steering Committee.

• The User Committee. These are subject matter and business process experts for the func- tions to be addressed (i.e., patrol officer, detective, dispatcher, records clerk, crime analyst, property manager). His or her role is to assist and support in creating a project charter (Chapter 3 of the Tech Guide) and ultimately the project plan (Part III). To analyze existing workflows, define business processes (Chapter 4), look for efficiencies and establish the requirements of any new system.

• The Technical Committee. These people are dedicated technical staff from the agency. Their roles are to understand the vision proposed by the Steering Committee and the User Committee’s workflow and business needs, to analyze the agency’s existing technical environ- ment, and to research and propose solutions to the agency’s business needs and problems.

• The Ad Hoc Committee. As shown in Figure 5-1, these are people who, throughout the course of the project, may be convened to focus on particular issues. These groups may be formed to look at specific tasks and business processes that require more in-depth research or analysis, or to carry out research on and development of a variety of project-specific plans, models, policies and directions. Ad hoc working groups are assembled on a tempo- rary basis to address a specific issue or task.4

In addition to mentioning available resources concerning police IT for problem solving mentioned throughout this chapter, we also note that the Center for Problem Oriented Policing5

has a vast array of resources available for research in this area, as well as Hendon Publishing Company’s Public Safety IT magazine.6

Some Basics: Computer-Aided Dispatch, Mobile Computing, and Records Management

Now, we briefly describe several staples of today’s system of IT: the CAD system, mobile comput- ing, and records management system. These tools are described in detail because they are the primary technologies for offering core data management capabilities for COPPS, such as data capture and entry; search, retrieval, and display; messaging; and linkages between data elements.7

COMPUTER-AIDED DISPATCH. CAD has become an indispensable technology in policing, designed to handle all information related to receiving and dispatching emergency calls for service (CFS). CAD is often the first point of data entry, whether processing an emergency 911 CFS or managing an officer-initiated car stop. CAD fully automates the call-taking and dispatching func- tions; used with automated vehicle location (AVL) systems that track patrol vehicle status, CAD can help to prioritize CFS and make recommendations for unit and resource dispatching based on beats, zones, closest resources, repeat calls for service, and/or current unit activities. Some CAD sys- tems can also provide the number and type of prior calls that were made at the location, whether there are existing warrants for residents, or if there are specific hazards related to the location.8

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MOBILE COMPUTING. Mobile computing has become the catchall phrase for outfitting an officer’s vehicle or person with the technology that, in effect, allows him or her to be a “mobile office.” Mobile computing is actually composed of several law enforcement hardware and soft- ware technologies working together to allow officers to access, receive, create, and exchange infor- mation wirelessly in the field. Officers can proactively query local, state, and national databases; receive and initiate CAD events; view unit status; send e-mail; prepare and file incident reports; issue citations; capture field interview information; access department policies and procedures; research penal codes; and perform many other functions. In sum, they are able to do nearly everything they could do in the station house.9

RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (RMS). Today a records management system (RMS) is a key asset to effective policing, offering robust analytical tools and the ability to seamlessly share information, developing complex linkages between myriad data and information, and assisting in effective management strategies. In its simplest form, an RMS captures, maintains, and ana- lyzes all police agency and incident-related information and is vital for tracking and managing criminal and noncriminal events, investigations, and personnel information. An RMS automates the daily practice of entering, storing, retrieving, retaining, archiving, viewing, and exchanging records, documents, data, information, or files related to persons, vehicles, incidents, arrests, war- rants, traffic accidents, citations, pawn tickets, civil process papers, gun registration investiga- tions, property, and evidence.10

Together, CAD and RMS can produce most of the data in CompStat (discussed below) with a touch of a button. Otherwise, a data entry clerk or crime analyst must enter the details of every incident reported, arrest effected, summons issued, case cleared, and other such information into a spreadsheet or database to produce the reports.11

Exhibit 5-1 How Technology Changed the Chicago Police Department

In the early 2000s, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) had three goals: to make Chicago the safest U.S. city, to partner with the community to solve problems of crime and disorder, and to share information with hundreds of criminal justice agencies in the greater Chicago area. The CPD had mountains of data stored in an inaccessible, antiquated computer and sitting around in file cabinets, but could do little with it. Efforts to perform a technology upgrade had resulted in CPD becoming mired down with getting information into the database without looking at what it needed to do to accomplish its goals; nor was there an understanding of who needed the informa- tion, why and when they needed it, and how best to present it. Sworn personnel were spending all their time putting data into the system without getting anything out that helped them in their job.

Finally the CPD formed a unique partnership with a private corporation, which provided IT and technical assistance; together they developed a new analysis and reporting tool that helped to accelerate its efforts to meet its core mission. The results are as follows:

� Greater productivity. By linking available information, officers could do more in less time and solve crimes that were unsolvable before.

� Better management and accountability. The CPD could now provide millions of files at officers’ fingertips, monitor in real time the effectiveness of plans to address crime and disorder problems, and make adjustments as needed to COPPS initiatives and to officer deployment.

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Exhibit 5-2 Baltimore “Intersects” Traffic Crash and Crime Hot Spots

The connection between traffic law enforcement and the detection of criminal activity has long been known; aggressive officers look beyond the license plate at traffic stops, often leading to major arrests, case clearances, and an effective way to interdict drugs, guns, and wanted criminals. With 800,000 citizens to protect, recently the Baltimore County, Maryland, Police Department (BCOPD) and its 1,900 sworn officers began designing its own study of data relevant to this correlation, look- ing to tie together crash problems and crime issues in areas that were experiencing both. The Crime Analysis Section identified roadways having significant levels of both traffic crashes and criminal incidents. Software was used to generate maps that identified overlapping crime (robberies and burglaries in particular) and crash areas. Six corridors were selected, with the objective of reducing crashes, robberies, and burglaries by 5 percent over a 10-month period. The level of enforcement was significant, with more than 65,000 enforcement contacts being made—traffic stops in the tar- get area increasing 83 percent above normal—which resulted in 1,169 arrests ranging from impaired driving and other traffic violations to robbery, weapons, drugs, and outstanding warrants. Meanwhile, personal-injury crashes decreased by 15 percent, robberies declined by 14 percent, and burglaries increased by 2 percent. The BCOPD believes that this approach provides a means to deploy limited resources into areas that have shown long-term traffic- and crime-related problems.

Source: Howard B. Hall, “Targeting Crash and Crime Hot Spots in Baltimore County,” The Police Chief (July 2009): 24–7.

� Stronger partnerships. Information is now shared with every law enforcement agency in Illinois.

Source: Adapted from Chuck Wexler, Mary Ann Wycoff, and Craig Fischer, Good to Great: Application of Business Management Principles in the Public Sector (Washington, D.C.: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Police Executive Research Forum, 2007), pp. 41–42.

CRIME MAPPING

Conclusive evidence from clay tablets found in Iraq proves that maps have been around for several thousand years—perhaps tens of millennia.12 A relatively recent development in policing is comput- erized crime mapping, which has become increasingly popular among law enforcement agencies.13

In fact, a federal study found that departments with one hundred or more officers used computer crime mapping 35 percent of the time.14 Computerized crime mapping combines geographic infor- mation from global positioning satellites with crime statistics gathered by the department’s CAD sys- tem and demographic data provided by private companies or the U.S. Census Bureau. (Some agencies acquire information from the Census Bureau’s Internet site.) The result is a picture that combines disparate sets of data for a whole new perspective on crime. For example, maps of crimes can be overlaid with maps or layers of causative data: unemployment rates in the areas of high crime, locations of abandoned houses, population density, reports of drug activity, or geographic features (such as alleys, canals, or open fields) that might be contributing factors.15 Furthermore, the hard- ware and software are now available to nearly all police agencies for a few thousand dollars.

Exhibit 5-2 describes an innovative yet very practical use for crime mapping: discovering where traffic crashes and crime hot spots are combined to cause many problems.

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Exhibit 5-3 ARJIS: Power of the Web

The Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) was the first multiagency, interactive, publicly accessible crime-mapping Web site in the nation, serving only San Diego County. ARJIS has now evolved into a complex criminal justice enterprise network used by 71 local, state, and federal agencies in the 2 California counties that border Mexico; it integrates more than 6,000 workstations, and there are more than 11,000 authorized users generating more than 35,000 transactions daily.

ARJIS is used for much more than crime mapping: tactical analysis, investigations, statisti- cal information, and crime analysis. ARJIS is responsible for major public safety initiatives, including wireless access to photos, warrants, and other critical data in the field, crime and sex offender mapping, crime analysis tools evaluation, and an enterprise system of applications that help users solve crimes and identify offenders. ARJIS also serves as the region’s information hub for officer notification, information sharing, and the exchange, validation, and real-time upload- ing of many types of public safety data.

Source: Automated Regional Criminal Justice Information System, “What is ARJIS ?” http://www.arjis.org/WhatisARJIS/ tabid/54/Default.aspx (Accessed October 29, 2009).

The importance of crime mapping is evidenced by the fact that in 1997 the NIJ established the Crime Mapping Research Center (CMRC) to promote research, evaluation, development, and dissemination of geographic information systems technology for criminal justice research and practice. The CMRC holds annual conferences on crime mapping to give researchers and practitioners an opportunity to gain both practical and state-of-the-art information on the use and utility of computerized crime mapping.16

Exhibit 5-3 describes what has become a powerful Web-based crime-fighting tool that pro- vides mountains of information to the police and the public: the Automated Regional Justice Information System, or ARJIS, based in San Diego County, California; the system affords tactical, investigative, statistical, and crime analysis information to police, and offers a wealth of informa- tion to the public, including crime mapping.

Another excellent example of mapping success is the New York Police Department’s Compstat program, which provides up-to-the-minute statistics, maps, and patterns and estab- lishes causal relationships among crime categories. Compstat also puts supervisors in constant communication with the department’s administration, provides updates to headquarters every week, and makes supervisors responsible for responding to crime in their assigned areas.17

CRIME ANALYSIS: REVISITING S.A.R.A.

In Chapter 3, we discussed at some length the analysis stage of the S.A.R.A., the problem-solving model. Here we expand somewhat on that discussion, bringing technologies to the subject.

A critical aspect of the problem-solving process, as we noted in Chapter 3, is crime analysis, which may be simply defined as “the collection and analysis of data pertaining to a criminal incident, offender, and target.”18 The greater the extent of collecting, analyzing, and relating all data to the components of the crime triangle (victim, offender, and location, as dis- cussed in Chapter 4), the better equipped the police will be to develop innovative solutions that include the full spectrum of suppression, intervention, and prevention options.19

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It is very important for officers who are engaged in problem solving to understand how, when, where, and why criminal events occur rather than merely responding to them. In this vein, we do not mean to say that patrol officers should develop expertise in understanding the mental processes and theories that are involved in a person’s choosing to commit crimes (although crim- inology or psychology courses at a college or university would certainly benefit the problem-solving officer); rather, we are referring to what might be termed street-level criminology. It requires that police learn more about crime occurrences through analysis and experimentation with the problem-solving process.

The collection and analysis of data spanning a long period of time result in strategic crime analysis. This type of analysis is research focused because it includes the use of statistics to make conclusions. This analysis can be useful to departments in terms of forecasting crime trends or estimating future crime based on past trends. (Note: Although we will not delve into it at this point, it should be mentioned that the Microsoft Word Excel function is very useful for making forecasts of crime trends; this task can be accomplished fairly easily.)

While strategic crime analysis involves the review of data spanning generally a year or more, tactical crime analysis uses real-time data spanning several days. One of its principal uses involves problem identification, or the pattern detection of multiple offenses over a short period of time that have common characteristics, such as the type of crime, modus operandi, and type of weapon used.20 One example of tactical crime analysis that is discussed later in this chapter is geographic profiling, which can be used to suggest the likelihood of where an offender resides based on the pattern of where victims and offenses occur. Linkage analysis involves connecting a suspect to a series of incidents based on commonalities in modus operandi and suspect descriptions as well as known offenders who live in close proximity to a given area. For example, many states search their databases of registered sex offenders when a series of sexual offenses is identified.21

Not to be overlooked in crime analysis is the use of community surveys—discussed in Chapter 3—to identify or clarify problems.

We recommend an excellent resource for one who is engaged in COPPS initiatives and needs to know more about how to use technologies and tools for analyzing crime: Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps, published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; it is also available online at: http://www.popcenter.org/learning/60steps/22

NEW MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS TOOLS: USING IT TO MANAGE CRIME

CompStat, Intelligence-Led Policing, and Predictive Policing

COMPSTAT. A relatively new crime management process used in the problem-solving process is known as CompStat—for comparative or computer statistics—which is designed for the collec- tion and feedback of information on crime and related quality of life issues.

Since being introduced by the New York City Police Department in 1994, CompStat has been widely adopted: A national survey found that 58 percent of large agencies (those with 100 or more sworn officers) had either adopted or were planning to implement a CompStat-like pro- gram.23 The key elements of CompStat are as follows:

• Specific objectives • Accurate and timely intelligence • Effective tactics • Rapid deployment of personnel and resources • Relentless follow-up and assessment24

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CompStat pushes all precincts to generate weekly or monthly crime activity reports. Crime data are readily available, offering up-to-date information that is then compared at citywide, patrol, and precinct levels.

Under CompStat, police begin proactively thinking about ways to deal with crime in terms of suppression, intervention, and prevention. Commanders must proactively respond to crime problems, and explain what tactics they have employed to address crime patterns, what resources they have and need, and with whom they have collaborated. Follow-up by top brass further ensures accountability.

INTELLIGENCE-LED POLICING. ILP originated in Great Britain, where police believed that a relatively small number of people were responsible for a comparatively large percentage of crimes; they believed that officers would have the best effect on crime by focusing on the most prevalent offenses occurring in their jurisdiction.25

The word “intelligence” is often misused; the most common mistake is to consider “intelli- gence” as synonymous with “information.” Information is not intelligence; rather, “information plus analysis equals intelligence,” and without analysis, there is no intelligence. Intelligence is what is produced after collected data is evaluated and analyzed by a trained intelligence professional.26

Exhibit 5-4 explains the views of the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance concerning the need for and the development and functions of ILP.

To better comprehend what is meant by ILP is to break it down into its core components. For example, many police agencies have both crime analysts and intelligence analysts. Crime analysts keep their fingers on the pulse of crime in the jurisdiction: which crime trends are up, which ones

The ARJIS system of San Diego County affords tactical, investigative, statistical, and crime analysis information to police, and a wealth of information to the public. Here, a map shows East Escondido citizens the locations of residential burglaries during a recent one-month time frame Courtesy ARJIS Crime Mapping Research Center.

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Exhibit 5-4 Intelligence-led Policing: Origins and Functions

ILP, while a relatively new concept in the United States, was an outcome of British efforts during the late 1990s to manage law enforcement resources efficiently and to respond effectively to seri- ous crime. In 2000, the National Criminal Intelligence Service published the National Intelligence Model (NIM) that established the following priorities for British police service:

� Target prolific offenders through overt and covert means � Manage crime and disorder hotspots � Identify and investigate linked series of crime or incidents � Apply prevention measures that include working with a broad range of other disciplines

NIM priorities were grounded in experience and solid research. Several authoritative longi- tudinal projects, in America and the United Kingdom, have convincingly demonstrated that a small minority of offenders commit a majority of crimes. It is well known that crime reports and service calls often cluster predominately at specific locations; research has shown that violent crime and neighborhood disorder can be reduced by focused, multiagency efforts in which law enforcement plays an important, if not exclusive role.

ILP does not replace the concepts of problem-solving policing or the community involve- ment and neighborhood maintenance theories (broken windows), nor the police accountability and information sharing practices (CompStat). It builds on these concepts to keep pace with changes in society, technology, and criminal behavior. ILP encourages greater use of criminal intelligence; attends to offenders more than offenses; and offers a more targeted, forward-thinking, multijurisdictional and prevention point of view to the business of policing.

As such, successful adoption of ILP will generally involve the following practices:

� Information collection is part of the organizational culture—led by the chief executive, supervisors, and managers encourage line officers and investigators to regularly collect and forward intelligence.

� Analysis is indispensable to tactical and strategic planning—record management sys- tems are robust, analysts are well-trained and equipped, actionable intelligence products are regularly produced to inform both tactical and strategic decisions.

� Enforcement tactics are focused, prioritized by community harm assessments and pre- vention-oriented; operations are mounted against repeat or violent offenders; serious organized (gang, trafficking, etc.) groups are identified and dismantled; and traffic vio- lations are enforced at dangerous intersections or roadways.

Source: Adapted from Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, “Intelligence-led Policing,” http://www.ojp. usdoj.gov/BJA/topics/ilp.html (Accessed September 20, 2010).

are down, where the hot spots are, what type of property is being stolen, and so on. Intelligence analysts, on the other hand, are likely to be more aware of the specific people responsible for crime in the jurisdiction: who they are, where they live, what they do, who they associate with, and so on (see Exhibit 5-4). Integrating these two functions—crime analysis and intelligence analysis—is essential for obtaining a comprehensive grasp of the crime picture. Crime analysis allows the police to understand the “what, when, and where,” while intelligence analysis provides an under- standing the “who”—crime networks and individuals.

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As shown in Figure 5-2, the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP)27 categorizes the intelligence gathering process into six steps: planning and direction, collection, processing/ collation, analysis, dissemination, and reevaluation.

PREDICTIVE POLICING. Have you ever logged onto a Web site to purchase an item and seen something like “other customers who placed similar orders also ordered these items”? Or entered an online auction service and been provided with some items you might also be interested in bid- ding on? Essentially, in these cases private businesses are harnessing social sciences to predict human behavior. The processes used in predicting your shopping behavior are the same ones used to determine criminal behavior, only they are using different data sets (bearing in mind, however, that private industry may be able to use more personal data than a police agency can).28

Welcome to the world of predictive analysis, where the next generation of police problem solving could combine existing technologies like computers, crime analysis, and police reports with a few newer technologies such as artificial intelligence. The future may well bring a system that can predict crimes before they happen—with predictive analytics acting as a force multiplier that are focused on problem solving.29 Of course, high-tech tools alone cannot solve crimes, but when trained crime analysts and police management combine the tools with their ingenuity, any- thing is future in this high-tech world.

The term “predictive policing,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), is a rel- atively new law enforcement concept that “integrates approaches such as cutting-edge crime analysis, crime-fighting technology, intelligence-lead policing, and more to inform forward thinking crime prevention strategies and tactics.”30 The DOJ states that, ultimately, predictive policing is intended as a framework to advance strategies like community policing, problem-oriented policing, ILP, and hot spots policing.31

FIGURE 5-2 The Intelligence Gathering Process

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, p. 6, http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/ncisp.pdf (Accessed December 7, 2009).

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The police have always known that robberies surge near check-cashing businesses, that crime spikes on hot days and plummets during the rain, that residential burglaries often occur on Sunday mornings (while people are attending church services), and that Super Bowl Sunday is usually the slowest crime day of the year.32 But officers’ minds can store and remember only so much data. So when the police monitor crime data and query a computer system for historical and real-time patterns, they can predict, more systematically, over a bigger area, and across shifts and time spans, where crimes are likely to occur. More Important, the crime-analysis software does not forget details, get sick, take vacation, or transfer to a different precinct.

Thus, if commercial robberies were high in, say, March 2010, their software would predict another spike in March 2011, and the police could then look at the types of businesses that were hit, their locations, and time of day. The system can even analyze a robber’s modus operandi— what was said, type of weapon used, and so on.33

How might predictive policing work for the street officer? Well, imagine that you are dis- patched to a domestic dispute that involves a man and woman.You arrive at the home, knock on the door, are escorted into the living room, and all is going as it has gone on such calls a thousand times—but now you are engaged in a struggle for your life. Do you believe that you might have approached this call differently if, upon being given the call, your mobile computer had awakened with the following flurry of information? The male subject you are about to confront has been pre- viously arrested for assaulting officers in another jurisdiction and was recently arrested for driving under the influence. Or, if you know there have been copper thefts from construction sites in your city, would it not be better to know the patterns of such thefts so as to predict when and where they are likely to happen, rather than having to rely on parking the patrol car in various areas and hop- ing for blind luck? These are just a few simple examples of how predictive policing can be applied— simply by looking at patterns of behavior—to the patrol officer in addition to crime analysts.

Other Applications: Geographic Profiling and Hot Spots

GEOGRAPHIC PROFILING. Geographic profiling, or the combined use of geography, psychology, and mathematics to identify the location of an offender, is most commonly associated with tracking down serial killers, rapists, and arsonists. However, it is a useful investigative tool in any case in which an individual offender has committed criminal activity across a series of locations. Geographic pro- filing suggests investigative alternatives based on the “hunting behavior”of the offender. Leading geo- graphic profiler Kim Rossmo argues that criminals are no different in their pattern of carrying out their offenses than ordinary citizens are in going about their day-to-day activities.34

Following this principle, geographic profiling uses the nearness principle as a key rule. The nearness principle argues that offenders will remain within a limited range that is comfortable to them when committing their offenses, just as animals will forage within a limited range from their base. This principle has led to the creation of a computerized geographic profiling worksta- tion that includes statistical analyses, geographic features, and database management to aid in calculating investigative suggestions. Crime scenes are broken down by type and entered by loca- tion, and addresses of suspects can be evaluated based on their probability of being the actual offender. This can help investigators sort through existing records, such as registered sex offend- ers, and other information.35

Counterterrorism Analysis

In the wake of attacks by terrorists on U.S. soil, the role and function of crime analysts have become even more crucial. Crime analysts’ approach to counterterrorism involves two major areas—investigation and prevention:36

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Exhibit 5-5 Neighborhood eWatch Fights Crime in Minnesota

Ramsey County, Minnesota, recently created a virtual neighborhood watch network composed of 30 surveillance cameras targeted at criminal hot spots. Deputies can access live video feeds from their patrol cars and substations.

With Neighborhood eWatch, the public can log onto the site and enter “public” for the username and password. On the Web site (www.ramseycountysheriffwebcop.com), users gain access to 14 of the county’s surveillance cameras set up in various public areas. If users spot any suspicious activity, they contact the East Metro Real-Time Information Center (EMRIC), where analysts can pan, tilt, and zoom in on potential incidents and dispatch deputies as needed.

Proponents argue that these digital tools assist agencies to solve problems faster. As an example, the Neighborhood eWatch program helped Ramsey County deputies arrest an auto thief who had been working parking lots for weeks. The Web site also provides information about other criminal activities, a “most wanted” section, and the option for citizens to register to receive e-mail crime reports. A live video from one of the sheriff ’s cars—which Ramsey County touts as the first in the nation—provides viewers the chance to periodically “ride along” on patrol and see for themselves what is occurring on the county’s streets and highways.

Source: Adapted from Russell Nichols, “Neighborhood Watch Goes Digital in Ramsey County, Minn.” Government Technology, http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Ramsey-County-Minn-Neighborhood-eWatch.html (Accessed September 20, 2010).

• Investigation. Terrorists operate according to rules and principles that can be identified, analyzed, and predicted. Although they can be fanatical and fiendish, they behave in a logi- cal fashion, picking their targets with precision. This makes them more vulnerable in the sense that analysts can predict their behavior and disrupt their efforts. Analysts must never work alone, however; they must coordinate with the appropriate federal agency, most often the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

• Prevention. Prevention is accomplished by denying the terrorist the opportunity to attack in the first place. The process begins with a threat assessment of the jurisdiction: identifying and evaluating the risk of targets, and constructing countermeasures by using the S.A.R.A. process. Analysts can scan for vulnerabilities, analyze these methods of attack to determine counter- measures, respond by allocating the necessary police resources to try to thwart an attack, and assess by performing periodic readiness tests and exercises to determine effectiveness.

Internet/Intranet and COPPS

The Internet has also proven to be an important mechanism for furthering police agencies’ COPPS objectives. Important features that are used by many departmental Web sites in reaching their citizens include the following:37

• Libraries devoted to crime prevention and safety tips (including information about known scam cases operating within the jurisdiction)

• Virtual tours of the department • Recent jurisdictional and neighborhood crime statistics (including crime maps) • Departmental wanted lists and upcoming court cases • Capability for citizens to anonymously report crime or complaints about officer conduct

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Exhibit 5-6 Social Networking and Crime Analysis

Police officers today are more connected and have access to more information than ever before. Social networks are the newcomers to online communities. If a citizen is following the local police department on, say, Twitter, then the citizen will receive all of the police “tweets” on the user’s Twitter home page in their e-mail, or on a mobile phone or PDA. If the police are looking for an offender, they can send a message to their community followers. Amber Alerts for missing children, pursuit-in-progress notices, reports of persons apprehended, reminders of neighborhood watch meetings, or other relevant bulletins can also be provided. Citizens can reply to these messages using the same system. Facebook, also free, is also used to advantage, by promoting community events, drawing attention to its podcasts, and adding video clips it has produced. Blogs—sort of an online diary—are an excellent means for police to elevate their community profile as well; it can serve as a daily “police blotter,” a log of what officers are doing; they can include photos and YouTube video clips. When a new blog is posted, citizens can be alerted to it on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Tim Dees, “Social Networks for Better Policing: Facebook Twitter, Blogs, and Google Voice,” Law and Order, November 2009, pp. 32–34.

Many agencies are also establishing an intranet for their employees. Through the intranet, a department is able to supply a number of important informational needs through access to the following:38

• Problem-solving system. A searchable database of problems that officers have worked on over the past few years can be accessed.

• Property evidence system. A searchable database on property and evidence in the depart- ment’s custody can be used.

• Calls for service. A searchable database on CFS by several categories would be accessible. • Records management system. There would be online access to RMS and a wide range of

search capabilities for offense reports. • Computer-aided dispatch system. Online access to CAD system records, including active

call information, would be available. • Gang database. There would be online access to the agency’s gang information.

The Internet also contains several other means of collecting and analyzing information, as well as communicating with the public: social networking sites that are free and whose members now proliferate; some of these networking sites are discussed in Exhibit 5-6.

Summary This chapter has revisited the S.A.R.A. problem-solving process discussed in Chapter 3, examining how tech- nologies and other tools can assist with what is con- sidered to be the heart of the problem-solving process: the analysis of crime data. This discussion included the kinds of methods and technologies— including various forms of computer hardware and

software—that are now in the analyst’s quiver and are being applied to COPPS.

It should be abundantly clear now, after read- ing this chapter, that these are most certainly chal- lenging times for those persons who are charged with trying to determine the who, what, when, where, why, and how of crime.

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Items for Review 1. How should a large police department go about

establishing a decision making structure for an IT project?

2. Describe the functions of the three basic means for engaging in crime analysis: computer-aided dispatch, mobile computing, and records management systems.

3. Explain how crime mapping can assist in general with COPPS, and how crime patterns can be geomapped.

4. Review the basic functions of three relatively new man- agement tools: CompStat, intelligence-led policing, and predictive policing.

5. Explain how COPPS and IT can assist with counterter- rorism analysis.

6. Distinguish between the Internet and an intranet in terms of how they apply to policing and crime analysis.

7. Describe how social networking sites are assisting with community partnership endeavors.

Learn by Doing 1. Today some people indicate concerns with the number

of technologies now in use: invasion-of-privacy issues, reducing police interactions with the public, and so on. How would you justify the general use of technologies in policing, and with COPPS initiatives in specific? Do you see any potential problems with police using these technologies?

2. As part of a criminal justice honor society poster proj- ect to be presented at a local conference, you opt to

illustrate how an IT decision making structure might be configured. Describe how your poster would look when completed.

3. As discussed in the chapter, the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) is used for much more than crime mapping. Go online to the ARJIS Web site and locate figures and illustrations that depict at least four functions that ARJIS is capable of providing.

Notes 1. National Commission of Law Observance and

Enforcement, Report on Police (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931), p. 140.

2. Kelly J. Harris and William H. Romesburg, Law Enforcement Tech Guide: A Guide for Executives, Managers and Technologists (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2002), p. 23; also available at: http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/ric/Publications/ lawenforcementtechguide.pdf (accessed July 13, 2010).

3. See William H. Romesburg, Law Enforcement Tech Guide for Small and Rural Agencies: Guide for Executives, Managers and Technologists (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2005).

4. Harris and Romesburg, Law Enforcement Tech Guide: A Guide for Executives, Managers and Technologists, pp. 27–31.

5. At www.popcenter.org. 6. See, for example, http://www.hendonpub.com/

publications/publicsafetyit/ (accessed July 15, 2010).

7. Philip Canter, “Using a Geographic Information System for Tactical Crime Analysis,” in Victor Goldsmith, Philip G. McGuire, John H. Mollenkopf, and Timothy A. Ross (eds.), Analyzing Crime Patterns: Frontiers of Practice (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000), pp. 3–10.

8. Timothy C. O’Shea and Keith Nicholls, Crime Analysis in America: Findings and Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, March 2003), p. 7.

9. Heath J. Grant and Karen J. Terry, Law Enforcement in the 21st Century (Boston, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 2005), pp. 329–330.

10. Ibid., p. 330. 11. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community

Oriented Policing Services, Law Enforcement Tech Guide: How to Plan, Purchase, and Manage Technology (Successfully!) (Washington, D.C.: Author, 2002), p. 247.

12. U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Crime Mapping and Analysis by Community

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Organizations in Hartford, Connecticut (Washington, DC: Author, March 2001), p. 1.

13. Donna Rogers, “Getting Crime Analysis on the Map,” Law Enforcement Technology (November 1999): 76–79.

14. U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Crime Mapping Research Center (Washington, DC: Author, 2000), pp. 1–3.

15. Lois Pilant, “Computerized Crime Mapping,” Police Chief (December 1997): 58.

16. U.S. Department of Justice, Crime Mapping Research Center, pp. 1–3; the CMRC Web site address is http:// www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc.

17. Pilant, “Computerized Crime Mapping,” pp. 64–65. 18. Philip Canter, “Using a Geographic Information

System for Tactical Crime Analysis,” in Victor Goldsmith, Philip G. McGuire, John H. Mollenkopf, and Timothy A. Ross (eds.), Analyzing Crime Patterns: Frontiers of Practice (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2000), pp. 3–10.

19. Grant and Terry, Law Enforcement in the 21st Century, pp. 329–330.

20. Canter, “Using a Geographic Information System for Tactical Crime Analysis,” p. 5.

21. Grant and Terry, Law Enforcement in the 21st Century, p. 331.

22. Ronald V. Clarke and John E. Eck, Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2005).

23. Daniel DeLorenzi, Jon M. Shane, and Karen L. Amendola, “The CompStat Process: Managing Performance on the Pathway to Leadership,” The Police Chief (September 2006), http://www.Theiacp. org/foundation/Foundation.htm (accessed July 6, 2009).

24. Heath B. Grant, and Karen J. Terry, Law enforcement in the 21st Century (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005), pp. 329–330.

25. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intelligence- Led /Policing: The New Intelligence Architecture (Washington, D.C.: Author, 2005), p. 9.

26. Ibid., p. 3. 27. See U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, p. 6; http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/ncisp. pdf (accessed December 7, 2009).

28. Eric Mills, “An Ounce of Prevention,” Law Enforcement Technology, September 2009, pp. 60–64.

29. Ibid., p. 63. 30. Ibid., pp. 12–13. 31. Ibid., pp. 10–11. 32. U.S. Department of Justice, “Predictive Policing: A

National Discussion,” http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/ archives/385 (accessed February 11, 2010); also see U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, “Predictive Policing Symposium: Agenda,” http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/law-enforcement/ predictive-policing/symposium/agenda.htm (accessed February 11, 2010).

33. U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, “Predictive Policing Symposium: The Future of Prediction in Criminal Justice,” http://www.ojp. usdoj.gov/nij/topics/law-enforcement/predictive- policing/symposium/future.htm (accessed February 17, 2010).

34. A. Onion, “Coordinates of a Killer: A Mathematical Method Can Help Investigators Locate Killers,” http://www.abcnews.com (Accessed October 8, 2002).

35. Grant and Terry, Law Enforcement in the 21st Century, p. 340.

36. Dan Helms, “Closing the Barn Door: Police Counterterrorism After 9-11 from the Analyst’s Perspective,” Crime Mapping News 4 (Winter 2002):1–5.

37. Grant and Terry, Law Enforcement in the 21st Century, pp. 346–347.

38. Darrel W. Stephens, “IT Changes in Law Enforcement,” in Ronald W. Glensor and Gerard R. Murphy (eds.), Issues in IT: A Reader for the Busy Police Chief Executive (Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 2005), pp. 7–29.

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