Project Management and Evaluation
"The Role of Critical Analysis in Crime & Disorder Reduction"
Programme Item
Programme Item
Workshop 3
"The Role of Critical Analysis in Crime &
Disorder Reduction"
Steven O’Keeffe, Cumbria Partnership Support (CUPS)
Key points from the presentation:
CUPS offer data capture, monitoring and evaluation services for 6 Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRP’s) in Cumbria. This gives added value the resource/contribution that CDRP’s could give individually.
Particular interest is paid to Geographical Information Systems. The CUPS website contains maps and analysis, at ward level, for all areas of Cumbria. CUPS are able to manipulate data to provide analysis of any defined area.
The amount of data available has grown enormously from a range of sources (e.g. Police, Health, Education etc.), all with differing data capture models, which CUPS then has to harmonise.
The first step in analysing data from many sources is to agree a common definition of e.g. Anti Social Behaviour, between the agencies involved. The same process has been followed between CDRP’s to offer a county perspective.
Information sharing protocols have been developed with key agencies, including Health, where CUPS can "cleanse" data (for confidentiality purposes) prior to it leaving Health services.
There are limitations to the model: it is an event based approach, not person based; and, the context of events is difficult to measure, e.g. the number of incidents taking place within a nightclub may be known, but not the number of people in the club.
CUPS can offer critical analysis at any point in a project’s life - beginning, middle and end. Examples were given of all 3 stages:
Workington Specials Project
The project initiator approached CUPS before the project went live. This allowed baselines to be set before any intervention had taken place, which then allowed outputs and outcomes to measured against the baseline.
Reclaim - Barrow in Furness
Project managers were questioning the effectiveness of the scheme for monitoring purposes, and in anticipation of future evaluation needs. CUPS collected and analysed 3 sets of data in order to meet this request.
CCTV Assessment
CUPS measured the level of offending in an area before and after the installation of CCTV, in order to determine its effectiveness.
Key points from the discussion:
The importance of data analysis was discussed, and some CDRPs have crime analysts in the team to facilitate this.
Information sharing is not as progressive as it could be in some areas, or between some agencies. Protocols and data cleansing can alleviate fears. Data providers have to be convinced that there is a benefit to them.
Lack of co-terminosity can make data analysis difficult. However, this model can be based on areas and crimes defined by the user, e.g. communities. This fits with the new Ethical Monitoring System used by Police to record crime.
There needs to be discipline in using definitions, agreed at strategic level, at operational level.
There can be a tendency to see crime fields as too large to tackle, e.g. Anti Social Behaviour. Recoding crimes into smaller descriptive units, e.g. graffitti, can be useful in improving responses, or desire to respond.
Sustainable funding for projects such as data monitoring can be difficult to secure.
There is an absence of common data capture models within and between partnerships.
Links
Cumbria Partnership Support Website: http://www.cups.org.uk
Date modified: 3 November 2003
Review date: November 2004
Originator: Crime Reduction Centre
Last update: 03/11/03