A review of GIS-based information sharing systems

GIS-based information sharing systems have been implemented in many of England and Wales' Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). The information sharing role of these systems is seen as being vital to help in the review of crime, disorder and misuse of drugs; to sustain strategic objectives, to monitor interventions and initiatives; and support action plans for service delivery. This evaluation into these systems aimed to identify the lessons learned from existing systems, identify how these systems can be best used to support the business functions of CDRPs, identify common weaknesses across the systems, and produce guidelines on how these systems should be further developed. At present there are in excess of 20 major systems distributed across England and Wales. This evaluation considered a representative sample of ten systems. To date, little documented evidence has been collected by the systems that demonstrate the direct impact they are having in reducing crime and disorder, and the misuse of drugs. All point to how they are contributing to more effective partnership working, but all systems must be encouraged to record how they are contributing to improving community safety. Demonstrating this impact will help them to assure their future role in their CDRPs. By reviewing the systems wholly, several key ingredients were identified that were evident in contributing to the effectiveness of these systems. These included the need for an effective partnership business model within which the system operates, and the generation of good quality multi-agency intelligence products from the system. In helping to determine the future development of GIS-based information sharing systems, four key community safety partnership business service functions have been identified that these systems can most effectively support. These functions support the performance review requirements of CDRPs, operate a problem solving scanning and analysis role, and offer an interface with the public. By following these business service functions as a template will provide for a more effective application of these systems nationally

Profiling Illegal Waste Activity: Using Crime Scripts as a Data Collection and Analytical Strategy

The illegal treatment and trade of waste is an international problem which is widely assumed to be both evolving and growing. Emergent forms of criminality such as this often have the problem of data being in scarce supply, and as a result are difficult to study, and subsequently understand. In this paper we introduce the methodological concept of script analysis to assist a more objective assessment and understanding of illegal waste activity. This includes using crime scripts in two ways; to help identify data requirements, and as a tool to analyse illegal waste processes. We illustrate the utility of this methodology using waste electrical and electronic equipment. In doing so, we argue that this approach elicits a specific, focused account of what illegal activity has occurred, and nests it within the wider context of the waste management system. We anticipate that using this methodology will provide academics and practitioners a means of enhancing the investigation, detection and prevention of illegal waste activity

Integrating environmental considerations into prisoner risk assessments

Reducing re-offending amongst ex-prisoners is of paramount importance for both penal and societal reasons. This paper advances an argument that the current prisoner risk assessment instruments used in the UK neglect to account for environmental determinants of re-offending. We frame this position within the growing literature on the ecology of recidivism, and use the principles of environmental criminology to stress the importance of the opportunities for crime that are present in an ex-prisoners’ neighbourhood. We conclude by considering the implications for policy and discuss how these might conflict with the practical realities of managing ex-prisoners

Problem Solving for Neighbourhood Policing

Problem Solving for Neighbourhood Policing is a short guide for police officers and others on neighbourhood policing teams who want to tackle local crime and disorder problems. The guide explains why solving problems is important, how to use the Scanning–Analysis–Response–Assessment (SARA) process for solving problems, how to understand a problem in depth and how to co-operate with other organisations to help solve problems. The guide also includes links to further resources

A quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of forensic property marking in decreasing burglaries

Property marking is a popular tool used by police agencies in burglary prevention programmes. 345 property marking kits were distributed to households in a treatment area in an English city. Changes in burglary in the treatment area were compared to three control areas. Crime type displacement to vehicle crime, criminal damage and violent crime, and changes in crime while controlling for geographic displacement were examined. Burglary decreased significantly by 82% in the treatment area in comparison to control areas during the first six months of the intervention. A significant diffusion of benefit effect to vehicle crime and criminal damage was also observed. The decreases, however, were short-lived with burglary levels returning to pre-intervention levels in the treatment area after 12 months

Project MARGIN: Cartography of survey-based experiences of victimisation and police recorded crime data for Catalunya, England and Wales, France, Hungary and Italy, and Barcelona, Budapest, London, Milan and Paris

This report is designed to meet deliverable D3.1: Cartography of objective and subjective measures of insecurity: a digital map showing the results of the comparison between CVSs data and police recorded crime. Crime victimisation survey (CVS) data and police recorded crime (PRC) data were provided to UCL from the other MARGIN project partners for the Spanish region of Catalunya, England and Wales, France, Hungary and Italy. In addition, CVS and PRC data were provided for Barcelona and London, and PRC data were provided for Budapest, Florence, Milan and Paris. Even though further research (WP4 and WP5) is only planned for one Italian city (Milan), this report also includes information from Florence to offer further comparisons with the five MARGIN city study areas. Section 2 of the report provides information on the crime categories chosen for analysis and cartographic presentation. Section 3 illustrates the differences in incidence rates determined from CVS and PRC data for the five MARGIN countries for each crime category, and also illustrates differences in the dark figure of crime for these countries. In addition, as data on CVS and PRC were provided for Barcelona and London, the dark figure for these two cities are also presented. Section 4 illustrates differences in the incidence rates from PRC data for each city, by each crime categor