Investigative Intelligence- Chapter 8 Lecture Notes
REVISITING THE CRIME FUNNEL
• Important to note that the numbers flow downwards in the funnel, not upwards. In other words, a number is constrained to a maximum value of the number above it, so changing a number has impacts downwards, but not necessarily upwards. A top‐down effect flow.
• One problem with arresting much of the low‐hanging fruit of the criminal world has been the creation of a criminal elite who have avoided capture.
a. Estimating prevention benefits
• Impacts higher up the crime funnel will have greater benefits throughout the whole criminal justice system.
• Any reduction is actual crime will reduce reported crime, provide more opportunity to concentrate on prolific offenders, and allow the criminal justice system to concentrate on the most serious offenders.
REDUCTION, DISRUPTION AND PREVENTION
• The distinction between crime reduction, disruption and prevention is rarely considered in operational strategies, however considering these components individually has the benefit of opening up more potential strategies.
• Although few enforcement executives consider prevention, the three levels of crime prevention each provide opportunities for long‐term crime prevention resulting directly from intelligence‐led policing related activities.
THE CHANGING LEADERSHIP ROLE
• Many police executives were promoted under different policing paradigms, and have not had the opportunity for training in POP or intelligence‐led policing.
• Workplaces have also changed. Rather than ‘squads’, it is more common to form ‘teams’. Less autocratic workplaces are much more common, even within the existing rank structure.
• Some police department award promotion purely based on examination results, with little regard for the ability of the individual to be conversant with crime reduction knowledge or demonstrate leadership potential.
b. Steering the rowers in the right direction
• Too many analysts attempt to influence the thinking of ‘rowers’ while they should try and identify the ‘steerers’ who can use resources to have an impact on the criminal environment.
• While not the case with all prosecutors or district attorneys, too often in American jurisdictions the chief law enforcement officer has a legal background and no exposure to the potential benefits of disruption or prevention.
• The legal training of chief law enforcement officers blinkers them to possibilities outside use of the criminal justice system.
THE POLICE IMPACT ON CRIME
a. Does police targeting prevent crime?
• While the Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment has been criticized for methodological grounds, it was a pretty severe indictment of the idea that random patrol decreases crime significantly.
• Studies suggest that while generally increasing numbers of police can help, it is more useful to consider how officers are deployed.
b. Does increasing arrests reduce crime?
• Targeted arrests reduced crime in the state of New South Wales, Australia, but the increased incarceration did place additional pressures on the criminal justice system. It may not have been the most cost‐effective way to reduce crime.
c. Intelligence‐led crime reduction
• The University of Maryland review has not been replicated since published in 1998, however the Campbell Collaboration conducts crime prevention related systematic reviews.
