Policing
Targeted Policing: Techniques and Tools
Introduction
This short paper gives an overview of some of the key issues relating to targeted policing. It is intended to present a few ideas and a way of thinking about tackling crime, it is not meant to be prescriptive. It should be read in conjunction with Beating Crime, the 1998 HMIC thematic inspection report which gives a more thorough and detailed explanation of this policing approach. There is also much useful material on car crime contained in Tackling Vehicle Crime, A Practical Guide for Local Community Safety Partnerships produced by Crime Concern, The European Secure Vehicle Alliance and Vauxhall.
Targeted policing is about the effective, efficient and focused deployment of resources needed to deal with the problem. Targeting may be on offenders, places or victims. The claim to target a particular offence type may be true in a general sense but would, in practice, be reducible to the targeting of offenders, places or victims involved in that offence type.
Not all successful crime prevention involves targeting. Where remedies are cheap, they can be universally (or at least more widely) applied. Examples of successes of this kind come from the decline in credit/debit card fraud in the early 90s by simple security measures universally taken by the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS), and the reduction in obscene calls by call tracing.
Appropriate technology makes certain forms of targeting possible, but must be incorporated within an overall plan to deliver targeted policing. Thus, for example, a sophisticated geographical information system may make targeting by location better, but that targeting is not achieved by the GIS, merely made possible by it. CCTV makes location or offender surveillance possible, but needs supplementary decisions, e.g. where to point the camera, when to alert patrolling officers etc.
As targets, offenders, victims and locations are often interdependent. Locations may be targeted if they are known to be frequented by prolific offenders. Victims may be targeted for similar reasons. Offenders may be targeted because they prey on particular victims or places.
The first part of this paper sets out five targeting tactics, three (to varying degrees) evidence-based. The fourth and fifth are promising but rely on recent developments, so no evidence has yet been gathered for it. The second part of the paper sets out a partial tool-kit for crime reduction, from which elements could be chosen to form a strategy and includes brief summaries of award winners in the Tilley Award.
By way of caveat, thinking of targeting offenders by offence type is likely to be misleading, although it does feature in what follows. Prolific offenders are versatile, and it may, for example, be tactically preferable to target some offenders through one offence type even though a different offence type is of focal concern. (This could be called the ‘Al Capone’ gambit).
1. Targeting the most prolific offenders
A common means of targeting used by the police is the specification of ‘core nominals’ or ‘top ten’ offenders in an area. There have been, to our knowledge, only two analyses of the effectiveness of this, both unpublished. One was in Bradford, one in Leeds. Both showed a burglary reduction linked to the number of core nominals at large. Thus, for example, in the Leeds study every offender that was at liberty for a week cost, on average, 1.3 burglaries. The figures in Bradford were higher. Clearly the numbers will vary according the accuracy with which police forces can identify their prolific offenders: It is likely to be more productive in larger areas, where officers strain less to select offenders eight, nine and ten in their top ten.
The surveillance of active offenders is resource-intensive and carries the risk of crossing the line to become harassment.
2. Crackdowns as a Starting Point for Targeting
A review of crackdowns suggests that the expected outcome will be a reduction in crime lasting twice as long as the crackdown. Crackdowns could be on the most prolific offenders, on hot spots, on the market in stolen goods, or could use more indirect approaches.
Typically, crackdowns provide a window of opportunity in which consolidation may occur, but usually this opportunity has been lost. Studies have showed that a crackdown could have its effects consolidated by a process of repair and community development. The crackdown-consolidation cycle offers a way of thinking about crime strategically, with (for example) the next crackdown occurring when crime creeps up to, say, 90% of its level before the most recent crackdown. It could thus provide a deployment algorithm not subject to local political pressure. The crackdown-consolidation process is similar to the much more ambitious US Weed and Seed programme, which was developed independently of it.
3. Repeat Victims as a Starting Point for Targeting
There is now a very large published literature over some fifteen years showing that crime can be reduced by concentrating on the prevention of repeat victimisation (see toolkit). This appears true for both property and violent crime, and is a tactic particularly appropriate for domestic violence. Prevention can occur through the dissuasion of less dedicated offenders and/or the detection of the more committed. Since repeat victimisation is highest in hot spots, targeting victims in this way also targets crime-prone locations. In addition, recent research suggests that repeat victimisation is disproportionately the work of prolific offenders, so that additional detection efforts applied to incidents of repeat victimisation will elegantly (and relatively cheaply) target prolific offenders.
4. Other Ways of Tackling Prolific Offenders
Besides prioritising repeat victims, and thereby prolific offenders, there are other ways in which DNA could be used to target prolific offenders: for example, the use of scene-to-scene DNA matches, and the flagging of cases where there were, say, three such matches, where no offender has yet been identified. The scrutiny of the MO and other incidental information would then help to provide links to the MO of known offenders not yet DNA tested. This is not yet a proven approach. However, data to hand shows that scene-to-scene matches do highlight prolific offenders (even where their identity is not known), and there are rapidly developing means of matching offenders by distinctive MO features. Alternative, indirect means of delivering prolific offenders would involve targeting the kinds of things they typically do. This could include actions which are in themselves relatively trivial (e.g. parking in disabled bays). One in five of such people are also the targets of police attention for other reasons (such as driving offences or having a warrant outstanding).
5. Denial of Benefits
The market reduction approach to property crime is being trialled in Kent and Stockport. Other means of denying benefits are possible, such as the BT Stealthguard product, where protected electronic goods work only in the place where they ought to be. In brief Stealthguard, makes electronic goods location-aware. Other developments might involve a different way of recording stolen goods. Information (in the formal sense) involves reduction of uncertainty. Uncertainty as to the provenance of an item is reduced to the extent to which it is rare. While this is intuitively recognised in the theft of art works, it is not reflected in volume crime. Put concretely, what ought to appear in a crime report as stolen goods is not "50 CDs" but "50 CDs including one of Elkie Brooks at the Salford Apollo with a cracked perspex cover". Routine chipping of goods does not deny benefits directly but will increase their indirect denial through the increased likelihood of detection.
The Tool-Kit
There is a variety of techniques that can be used, many tried and shown to be successful. Not all the tools involve targeting. In this kit, set out in the following matrices, the distinction is made between prevention and detection. (This conventional separation between prevention and detection is misleading, since the purpose of detection is prevention. However, it will suffice for this purpose.) The techniques are also classified according to who is necessarily involved in their implementation. Some of the divisions are arbitrary and the kit is not meant to be a full or rigorous analysis. Instead, as indicated in paragraph 1, it is intended to present a few ideas and a way of thinking about crime problems. Not every technique is included; the matrices are by way of example only.
Caveat
Not all of these techniques will work in every circumstance and examples of implementation failure are not unknown. However, such failures do not necessarily mean that the measures involved are of no value. The key to success is to analyse the problem and then carefully tailor the most appropriate techniques to the particular problem. Care should be taken when combining more than one technique. For example, it is usually not cost-effective to combine techniques intended to prevent crime with those intended to aid detection.
Vehicle Crime |
Prevention |
Detection |
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| Property Crime | Prevention |
Detection |
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| Personal Crime/Disorder | Prevention |
Detection |
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Last update: 26/06/03