Chapter 9: Evaluating intelligence-led policing

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Chapter 9 Evaluating intelligence-led policing
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Evaluation is key to crime control

• Five features of a rational approach to crime
  control
• Adequate investment in measuring and monitoring
• Open access to crime and justice information
• Reliance on evidence in the development of policy
• Commitment to rigorous evaluation
• A flexible and eclectic approach to control
• Weatherburn, D. (2004) Law and Order in
  Australia Rhetoric and Reality (Sydney
  Federation Press) pp.36-38.

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Basics of evaluation

• Did you get what you expected?
• Was the program implemented as expected?
• Did it crime reduce? If so
• Compared to what?
• What is the baseline null hypothesis situation
  that makes a good comparison?

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Two structures to evaluation
Information structures
Criminal environment
Analysis
Decision-maker
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Two structures to evaluation
Organizational structures
Criminal environment
Analysis
Decision-maker
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Two types of evaluation

• Outcome evaluation
• Tells you whether a process had the desired
  effect, i.e. that crime was reduced
• Process evaluation
• Can tell you why the outcome occurred. Examines
  the operation to see why an observed outcome
  happened

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Operation Vendas

• Pilot informally assessed as successful, but
  Operation Vendas did not have desired impact
• New South Wales, Australia
• Sought to increase the risk and speed of capture
  for offenders by boosting the volume of forensic
  evidence collection and reducing the time to get
  samples analyzed
• Process evaluation
• Found stated aim of crime scene examinations
  never attained
• Discovered a lack of forensic resources
• Identified training problems

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Operation Safe Streets

• Philadelphia Police Department
• Placed officers on permanent post at over 200
  drug corners in the city
• Outcome evaluation found officers had a localized
  dampening effect on crime
• Giannetti (2007) reports that
• Officers began to take calls away from corners
• Foot patrols reverted to roving car patrols
• Incentive to arrest was removed and information
  flow to detectives reduced

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Volume and type of anonymous drug tip
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Analytical skills for evaluation

• Some skills that may be required
• Analytical dexterity
• Proficiency in non-parametric and regression
  interpretation
• Spatial analysis
• Interrupted time series analysis
• Crime mapping
• quite soon, crime mapping will become as much
  an essential tool of criminological research as
  statistical analysis is at present
• Clarke, R.V. (2004) 'Technology, criminology and
  crime science', European Journal on Criminal
  Policy and Research, 101, pp. 60.

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Maryland Scientific Methods Scale

• Scale of zero (no confidence in the findings) to
  five (high confidence in the results)
• A hierarchy of evaluation standards (top to
  bottom)
• Randomized, controlled, double-blind trials
• Quasi-experimental studies (experiments without
  randomization)
• Controlled observational studies
• Observational studies without a control group
• Expert opinion!

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Realistic evaluation

• Pawson and Tilleys realistic evaluation or
  scientific realist approach
• Researchers should
• Investigate the relationships between context,
  mechanism and outcome
• Study using more qualitative, narrative, and
  ethnographic research techniques.
• Understand that the key is to clarify how the
  choices that people make affect the outcome of
  the programs under examination

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Operation Anchorage

• Canberra, Australia Australian Capital
  Territory (ACT)
• February 2001 to end of June 2001
• Significant problem with burglary
• Anchorage placed significant emphasis on
• Senior leadership
• Targeting of recidivist offenders through crime
  and intelligence analysis
• The development of joint operations across
  different branches of ACT Policing

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Operation Anchorage

• Four teams of 10-12 investigators
• 6 police analysts
• New targets were circulated every two weeks
• Anchorage came on the heels of two relatively
  unsuccessful operations, called Chronicle and
  Dilute

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Weekly burglary frequency in the ACT
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Economic and social costs of crime

• In Australia, a 2003 estimate of the cost of
  burglary to society found a cost in Australian
  dollars of
• AU2,400 per burglary
• AU2,000 per residential burglary
• AU4,500 per non-residential burglary
• Total saving for Operation Anchorage
• AU7,125,600
• AU1,257,600 during Anchorage
• AU5,868,000 benefit after Anchorage

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Financial benefits of Operation Anchorage
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Studying recidivists

• 232 people arrested during Anchorage
• 119 had committed at least one offence before
  1999
• Chart their aggregate number of days in prison or
  on remand

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Incarceration rates
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Impact of recidivist incarceration
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Measuring success in different ways

• In regard to major criminal and terrorist
  operations
• Not only are we expected to anticipate the next
  move, but we also have to do something about
  bringing those involved to justice. This
  highlights one of the fundamental differences
  between intelligence that aims to warn and
  prevent, and investigations for which success is
  measured by successful prosecution and
  conviction
• Mick Keelty, Australian Federal Police
  Commissioner, 2004

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Cost-effectiveness of the use of CIs
Reward cost only Full cost
Cost for each arrest 54 (87) 697 (1,125)
Cost for each crime clearance 27 (44) 348 (561)
Value of property recovered to cost ratio 34 (55) to 1 2.60 (4.20) to 1
Adapted from Dunnighan and Norris (1999)
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Operation Green Ice

• Operation Green Ice
• DEA set up their own bank in a sting operation to
  tempt drug traffickers into money laundering
• Undercover agents laundered US20 million of
  Colombian drug cartel money
• Led to arrest of seven of the Cali drug cartels
  top financial managers, the seizure of more than
  US50 million in assets worldwide, and the arrest
  of 177 people
• United Nations estimated Cali cartel profits to
  be about US30 billion a year

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RCMP Disruption Attributes Tool
Core business Financial Personnel
Attribute description The instruments / process central to the criminal enterprise Financial capacity / status of the group including profits / financial assets gained through organized crime Individuals employed through organized crime
High Removed the capacity to supply/operate Removed and/or interrupted the organizations financial ability to mount their large scale operations Arrested and/or charged individuals with the majority of the knowledge, contact, expertise, experience, and executive influence
Medium Interrupted production and/or distribution of supply network Seizure / restraint of significant proceeds of crime relative to the financial scope of the organization Arrested and/or charged support personnel/skilled operators with expertise, knowledge and contacts
Low Seized commodities without disrupting production and/or distribution Seizure / restraints of minor proceeds of crime or interruption of the means to launder and/or legitimize proceeds of crime Arrested and/or charged replaceable unskilled operators / street level operators / couriers
Nil No commodities seized No profits / financial assets seized No individuals arrested
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Performance anxiety

• Some performance areas are so vague as to create
  huge numbers of performance measures.
• UK government priority areas include
• reducing crime
• investigating crime
• promoting safety
• providing assistance
• citizen focus
• resource use
• local policing

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Unintended consequences of measures

• Tunnel vision
• Sub-optimization
• Myopia
• Measure fixation
• Misrepresentation
• Misinterpretation
• Gaming
• Ossification
• Demoralization
• Discreditability