Prospective crime mapping in operational context Final report

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Table 5.5 shows the number of tactics reported to have been used in response to theprospective maps when they were used. Those most commonly used were drive-throughpatrols in identified areas, foot patrols and the targeting of offenders known to operate in oraround the areas highlighted in the maps.Table 5.5: Number of respondents who were either involved in or responsible foremploying operational tactics, by sectionTactic either employed orinvolved in Alfreton BelperLongEaton Ripley Ilkeston TotalDrive-through patrols in hotspots 6 6 6 4 2 24Foot patrols around hotspots 5 5 1 3 1 15Targeting known offenders 1 3 4 3 0 11Repeat victimisation strategies 0 1 3 1 0 5Target-hardening 1 1 1 1 0 4Publicity campaigns 2 0 0 0 1 3Redeployable CCTV 0 0 1 1 0 2Crime prevention advice given 0 0 1 0 0 1As noted, officers were sometimes tasked to target known offenders, and although this issomething they have always done, it was suggested by some that the prospective maps hadhelped them combine the intelligence gathered on offenders by Intelligence Analysts andLIOs with the identified areas, providing an overall enhanced tactical option for catchingoffenders. In one case, one officer mentioned that “I can’t give names or give numbers but it’s[offenders who have been caught have been linked back to certain areas that were identifiedby the maps] certainly happened a few times”. Repeat victimisation strategies are apparentlycommonly used on ‘A’ Division, regardless of Promap; however, one Section Sergeant inLong Eaton mentioned that he tasked officers to revisit burgled properties to give out crimeprevention advice and this would often be done in areas identified by the maps. Targethardening also is something that is normally done on the ‘A’ Divisions; it is part of theDerbyshire Constabulary business plan. This involves a Crime Prevention Officer visiting localresidents and offering crime prevention advice and advice on having security measures fitted.If the householder wishes to have security measures installed, the crime prevention officercan arrange for this. Although respondents from each of the sections mentioned that theyused target-hardening in response to the maps, when speaking to the Sergeants in each ofthe sections, they mentioned that target-hardening was a tactic that has always been used onthe Division, regardless of Promap and thought that perhaps the respondents had recalledbeing involved in target-hardening prior to filling out the survey and thus had misconstruedusing the tactic as a result of the pilot. This, of course, serves to illustrate the importance oftriangulating evidence from different sources when completing a process evaluation.Although it was decided by the Command Team in October 2006 that it did not wish to launchany publicity campaigns in response to the pilot for fear of frightening local residents, somesections chose to put short press releases in their local paper(s) alerting residents to ‘takecare’ and make sure their property is safe and offering crime prevention advice. However,this form of publicity was not specific to the project, even if it was evoked by it.A final aspect of police working that was not highlighted in the survey, but came up a fewtimes when interviewing Section Sergeants and LIOs, concerned the planning of ‘night-timepatrols’. According to Sergeants in Alfreton, Long Eaton and Ripley, when resources55
permitted, up to four plain clothed officers were deployed at night and patrolled those areasidentified by the prospective maps. This tactic was usually done at night because the nightshift is often slow moving. Consequently, there are fewer calls for Beat Officers to respond tocompared to shifts during other times of the day, which frees up available resources forproactive patrols. Although it was not possible to enumerate the frequency with which nighttimepatrols were informed by the predictions generated, this does illustrate that whenresources were available and burglary was a priority, police officers used Promap for crimeprevention and detection purposes.As previously mentioned, during the final few months of the pilot, and during March (onemonth after the end of the pilot), the Community Safety Unit deployed a mobile police vehiclein the hotspot areas designated by the maps and distributed residential burglary crimeprevention packs door-to-door in the areas identified as being at the most risk. The dates onwhich, and the number of packs distributed were as follows:• 19 January: 70 packs;• 23 January: 35 packs;• 2 March: 100 packs;• 9 March: 90 packs;• 20 March: 45 packs.Usefulness of mapsAs can be seen from Table 5.6, 87.5 per cent of the sample who had heard of the pilot foundthat prospective maps were either easy or fairly easy to interpret, whereas only 12.5 per centfound the maps to be either fairly difficult or difficult to interpret. In terms of how useful officersfound the maps to be, although 67.5 per cent of the sample found the maps to be either veryor at least somewhat useful, 32.5 per cent (10) found them not to be very useful. Similarly,when asked whether or not the maps identified risky areas that respondents would have nototherwise have considered risky, 47.5 per cent (19) of the sample felt that the maps ‘never’identified unknown risky areas, whereas 42.5 per cent (17) felt that the maps ‘sometimes’identified risky areas that they would not have otherwise considered as such. In relation tothis point, research conducted by the authors of this report (McLaughlin et al., 2006)demonstrates that whilst police officers often have a good impression of where burglarygenerally occurs, they are less accurate at identifying where it recently took place. Theimplication is that they are unlikely to be able to anticipate where it will next occur. Moreover,interviews with LIOs and the analysts, suggested that although the maps often identifiedpriority areas in known risky neighbourhoods, the precise location or timing of elevations inrisk were not always expected.Table 5.6: The interpretation and usefulness of prospective mapsNumber %Interpretation of mapsEasy 10 25.0Fairly easy 25 62.5Fairly difficult 4 10.0Difficult 1 2.5Usefulness of mapsVery useful 4 10.0Somewhat useful 23 57.5Not very useful 10 25.0Not useful 3 7.556
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1. UCL JILL DANDO INSTITUTE OF CRIM
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ContentsAcknowledgementsExecutive s
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2.5 Illustration of a simple neares
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Project outcomesPatterns of burglar
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those that involved collaboration w
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1. IntroductionThis report represen
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optimally calibrated system, the go
Page 16 and 17: e ij = n .j x n i.nWhere, e ij is t
Page 18 and 19: Table 2.2: Knox ratios for Mansfiel
Page 20 and 21: Table 2.6: Monte-Carlo results for
Page 22 and 23: Table 2.10: Weekly Knox ratios for
Page 24 and 25: Table 2.14: Monte-Carlo results for
Page 26 and 27: Figure 2.1: The five policing areas
Page 28 and 29: The results for area 5 again demons
Page 30 and 31: The bandwidth used to generate the
Page 32: a densely populated urban area this
Page 35 and 36: Table 2.24: Average number of crime
Page 37 and 38: Patrolling efficiencyAs discussed e
Page 39 and 40: 3. Tactical options and selecting a
Page 41 and 42: Selecting a pilot siteThe decision
Page 43 and 44: Table 3.2: Tactical options matrixT
Page 45 and 46: Type ofinterventionStudyUse ofintel
Page 47 and 48: Other potential tactical optionsAt
Page 49 and 50: 4. System development and evolution
Page 51 and 52: the same time of day as each other
Page 53 and 54: unfortunately, implementation or us
Page 55 and 56: any tactical options were employed
Page 57 and 58: the end of the pilot. In addition t
Page 59 and 60: Figure 5.1: Promap dissemination pr
Page 61 and 62: the busy schedule of the new Divisi
Page 63 and 64: Tactical deliveryCommand Team daily
Page 65: Table 5.3: Number of respondents wh
Page 69 and 70: observation made by those who used
Page 71 and 72: A simple time-series analysis (see
Page 73 and 74: Two approaches were used to compute
Page 75 and 76: Figure 6.3: Changes in the proporti
Page 77 and 78: Figure 6.5: Changes in the proporti
Page 79 and 80: With respect to implementation real
Page 81 and 82: ReferencesAggresti, A. (1996) An In
Page 83 and 84: Johnson, S.D., Summers, L., and Pea
Page 85 and 86: Appendix 1. The information technol
Page 87 and 88: Figure A1.2: Stand-alone applicatio
Page 89 and 90: Recommendations that may be realise
Page 91 and 92: Section 1: knowledge and understand
Page 93 and 94: Extra Comments (please outline any
Page 95 and 96: In relation to the evaluation of in
Page 97 and 98: Time-series analysisFor the purpose
Page 99 and 100: Figure A3.1: Changes in the spatial
Page 101 and 102: Figure A3.2: Lorenz curves showing
Page 103 and 104: To recapitulate and elaborate, the
Page 105 and 106: Concluding comments on methodThe te
Page 107 and 108: Figure A5.2: An enlargement of the
Page 109 and 110: Figure A5.6: Prospective map magnif
Page 111: Produced by the Research Developmen
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Prospective crime mapping in operational context Final report

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