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A pilot Multi-Agency Stalking Intervention Programme (MASIP), introduced in three police forces in England, provided among a range of interventions, the delivery of safety planning advice, and needs-based support for stalking victims through a bespoke advocacy service. The ultimate aim of MASIP was to equip victims with tools to manage the variety of harms caused by stalking, as well as enable them to access the criminal justice system with adequate support. This study explores the personal needs of stalking victims from the perspectives of stalking victims, advocates and stakeholders involved in the intervention program, as part of a larger evaluation study conducted by the authors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 10 stalking victims who participated in the MASIP, three advocates who directly interacted with the victims, and 19 MASIP stakeholders involved in the project. Findings revealed that overall, victims believed the advocacy service aided their ability to cope with the realities of stalking. Having a victim advocate as single point of contact made victims’ journey through the justice system easier to navigate, provided them with the emotional support that they required to deal with the harms of stalking and the practical advice offered regarding their personal safety, and allowed them to feel in control of their own risk management. Advocates reported that the multi-agency context helped in risk assessment and ability to design and deliver bespoke support plans, which uniquely improved victims’ engagement with the service. Due to the small size and possibly biased sample, our conclusions must be interpreted with caution.

Objectives This paper estimates the effect of changes in street lighting at night on levels of crime at street-level. Analyses investigate spatial and temporal displacement of crime into adjacent streets. Methods Offense data (burglaries, robberies, theft of and theft from vehicles, and violent crime) were obtained from Thames Valley Police, UK. Street lighting data (switching lights off at midnight, dimming, and white light) were obtained from local authorities. Monthly counts of crime at street-level were analyzed using a conditional fixed-effects Poisson regression model, adjusting for seasonal and temporal variation. Two sets of models analyzed: (1) changes in night-time crimes adjusting for changes in day-time crimes and (2) changes in crimes at all times of the day. Results Switching lights off at midnight was strongly associated with a reduction in night-time theft from vehicles relative to daytime (rate ratio RR 0.56; 0.41–0.78). Adjusted for changes in daytime, night-time theft from vehicles increased (RR 1.55; 1.14–2.11) in adjacent roads where street lighting remained unchanged. Conclusion Theft from vehicle offenses reduced in streets where street lighting was switched off at midnight but may have been displaced to better-lit adjacent streets. Relative to daytime, night-time theft from vehicle offenses reduced in streets with dimming while theft from vehicles at all times of the day increased, thus suggesting temporal displacement. These findings suggest that the absence of street lighting may prevent theft from vehicles, but there is a danger of offenses being temporally or spatially displaced.

Research suggests that stalking inflicts great psychological and financial costs on victims. Yet costs of victimisation are notoriously difficult to estimate and include as intangible costs in cost–benefit analysis. This study reports an innovative cost–benefit analysis that used focus groups with multi-agency teams to collect detailed data on operational resources used to manage stalking cases. This method is illustrated through the presentation of one case study. Best- and worst-case counterfactual scenarios were generated using the risk assessment scores and practitioner expertise. The findings suggest that intervening in high-risk stalking cases was cost-beneficial to the state in all the case studies we analysed (even if it incurs some institutional costs borne by the criminal justice system or health) and was often cost-beneficial to the victims too. We believe that this method might be useful in other fields where a victim- or client-centred approach is fundamental.

This paper reviews what previous research has found on the role of fear and other associated feelings in the criminal decision-making process, and the techniques that might plausibly amplify such emotions so as to reduce or disrupt intent. To this aim, we conduct a systematic review of the offender decision-making literature (23 studies), incorporating a qualitative synthesis of the role of fear in the criminal decision-making process. The results section is formed of six parts based on dominant themes identified in our eligible studies, namely evidence of fear in offender decision-making, the presumed sources of fear, variation in levels and/or the effect of fear across offenders, the specific role of fear across aspects of the crime process (before, during, after), the results of fear and offender fear management processes. We conclude with a discussion of the implication for crime prevention policies.

To test filter term performance against an original search strategy to identify evidence syntheses with a crime reduction outcome in the PsycINFO database, with a view to maximising efficiency and/or effectiveness in the search phase of a systematic review. A search strategy was developed to identify evidence syntheses with crime reduction outcomes. A ‘quasi-gold standard’ set of 255 relevant studies that were indexed in the PsycINFO database was derived from this initial work and was used to test various filter terms available in the database using the relative recall method. Precision and sensitivity statistics were generated for each search strategy. Seven search strategies were tested using three clusters of index terms, on (1) method filter terms, (2) topic filter terms and (3) method and topic filter terms. These were applied as filters for the original search strategy and, to facilitate comparison, against all records in PsycINFO. The most sensitive filter scored 74.1%, the most precise scored 44.1% and the best compromise between sensitivity and precision scored 53.7% sensitivity and 16.3% precision. Filter term performance in PsycINFO can be used to inform search strategies used within criminology and allied fields for systematic reviews. The variety of filter terms tested here, in the absence and presence of a keyword search, caters for researchers with different information requirements. Using an evidence-based approach to systematic searching can yield considerable resource savings in conducting a systematic review.

The What Works Centre for Crime Reduction was established in September 2013 with the aim of increasing the use of research evidence by decision-makers in policing and crime reduction. The EMMIE fra...

Policing in the UK is currently undergoing changes to the training and attained qualifications of entry level police officers. The College of Policing is in the process of developing three entry ro...

A methodologically sound systematic review is characterized by transparency, replicability, and a clear inclusion criterion. However, little attention has been paid to reporting the details of interrater reliability (IRR) when multiple coders are used to make decisions at various points in the screening and data extraction stages of a study. Prior research has mentioned the paucity of information on IRR including number of coders involved, at what stages and how IRR tests were conducted, and how disagreements were resolved. This article examines and reflects on the human factors that affect decision-making in systematic reviews via reporting on three IRR tests, conducted at three different points in the screening process, for two distinct reviews. Results of the two studies are discussed in the context of IRR and intrarater reliability in terms of the accuracy, precision, and reliability of coding behavior of multiple coders. Findings indicated that coding behavior changes both between and within individuals over time, emphasizing the importance of conducting regular and systematic IRR and intrarater reliability tests, especially when multiple coders are involved, to ensure consistency and clarity at the screening and coding stages. Implications for good practice while screening/coding for systematic reviews are discussed.

Alley gates are designed to limit access to alleys and the crime opportunities they afford. Informed by the acronym EMMIE we sought to: (1) systematically review the evidence on whether alley gates are Effective at reducing crime, (2) identify the causal Mechanisms through which alley gates are expected to work and the conditions that Moderate effectiveness, and (3) collate information on the Implementation and Economic costs of alley gating. The results of our meta-analysis suggest that alley gating is associated with modest but significant reductions in burglary, with little evidence of spatial displacement. We also identified six mechanisms through which alley gates might plausibly reduce crime, and the conditions in which such mechanisms are most likely to be activated.

This article presents a map and summary of the landscape of a systematic search of the police recruit training literature. Following the process of searching, screening, and coding both published and grey literature, a total of 109 studies met our inclusion criteria. Thematic analysis of the 109 studies led to the emergence of six broad themes and associated subthemes. The two most prevalent themes focused on ‘examining academic and/or field training’ and ‘examining a specific aspect of the training programme’, each containing 36 studies. Most of the studies were based in the USA, (n = 67). Grey literature such as dissertations, theses, and reports made up nearly half of all included studies (n = 51) and published journal articles made up the bulk of the remaining studies (n = 50). Furthermore, 56 studies (50%) used a quantitative design, 36 studies (33%) adopted mixed methods, and 19 studies (17%) employed a qualitative approach. The 109 studies were double-blind quality appraised using recognized quality appraisal tools and revealed a wide variation in the nature and quality of studies. Overall, the strength of the evidence was fragile; only 13 studies (12%) were of a ‘strong’ quality, 55 studies (50%) were ‘weak’, and the rest (41, i.e. 38%) were of ‘moderate’ quality. The article concludes with recommendations for guiding future research in police recruit training.

Objective This paper reports the findings of a systematic review on the effectiveness of Electronic Monitoring (EM) on reducing recidivism. It identifies mechanisms through which EM is expected to produce reductions in recidivism rates, under what conditions, and at what cost. Methods Eligible studies were identified through a search strategy and quality appraised. The review uniquely combines findings of a meta-analysis alongside a realist-inspired qualitative synthesis. Results 34 studies met our inclusion criteria. Meta-analytic results from 18 studies found that although overall the effect of EM on recidivism was favourable, heterogeneity between studies meant that the effect was significant for studies using hazard ratios but non-significant for those using proportional data. Findings indicated statistically significant reductions in recidivism for sex offenders; when EM is compared to the alternative of prison; and in European settings. Situational and behavioural mechanisms that might plausibly reduce recidivism were identified. EM is cheaper than prison but more expensive than ordinary probation or parole. Conclusions The study illustrates the complexity of implementing EM. We present a theory of change for EM in the form of logic models and discuss the implications of the interaction between identified factors on implementation of EM to achieve desired outcomes.

Evidence-based policing (EBP) is an important strand of the UK’s College of Policing’s Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF), itself a component of a professionalisation agenda. This article argues that the two dominant approaches to EBP, experimental criminology and crime science, offer limited scope for the development of a comprehensive knowledge base for policing. Although both approaches share a common commitment to the values of science, each recognizes their limited coverage of policing topics. The fundamental difference between them is what each considers ‘best’ evidence. This article critically examines the generation of evidence by these two approaches and proposes an extension to the range of issues EBP should cover by utilizing a greater plurality of methods to exploit relevant research. Widening the scope of EBP would provide a broader foundational framework for inclusion in the PEQF and offers the potential for identifying gaps in the research, constructing blocks for knowledge building, and syllabus development in higher level police education.

Evidence-based policing is the use of the best available research on the outcomes of police work to implement guidelines and evaluate agencies, units, and officers. This chapter considers the main sources of research evidence available to support decision-making in the crime prevention field. It discusses four main sources of research evidence: practitioner reports, primary evaluation studies, systematic reviews, and reviews of reviews. The chapter focuses on a sample of systematic reviews of single crime prevention interventions and, using the EMMIE framework. It explores the extent to which the reviews adequately report information on the Effect of intervention, the Mechanisms through which interventions are believed to work, Moderators that may influence the impact of intervention, Implementation issues that may impede or facilitate the intervention, and the Economic costs of interventions. The chapter argues that increase the value of evidence reviews in support of crime prevention. It discusses some practical steps to increase the likelihood of future evidence reviews incorporating the features.

This paper explored how city-level changes in routine activities were associated with changes in frequencies of police searches using six years of police records from the London Metropolitan Police Service and the New York City Police Department. Routine activities were operationalised through selecting events that potentially impacted on (a) the street population, (b) the frequency of crime or (c) the level of police activity. OLS regression results indicated that routine activity variables (e.g. day of the week, periods of high demand for police service) can explain a large proportion of the variance in search frequency throughout the year. A complex set of results emerged, revealing cross-national dissimilarities and the differential impact of certain activities (e.g. public holidays). Importantly, temporal frequencies in searches are not reducible to associations between searches and recorded street crime, nor changes in on-street population. Based on the routine activity approach, a theoretical police-action model is proposed.

In the United Kingdom, since 2011 data regarding individual police recorded crimes have been made openly available to the public via the police.uk website. To protect the location privacy of victims these data are obfuscated using geomasking techniques to reduce their spatial accuracy. This paper examines the spatial accuracy of the police.uk data to determine at what level(s) of spatial resolution – if any – it is suitable for analysis in the context of theory testing and falsification, evaluation research, or crime analysis. Police.uk data are compared to police recorded data for one large metropolitan Police Force and spatial accuracy is quantified for four different levels of geography across five crime types. Hypotheses regarding systematic errors are tested using appropriate statistical approaches, including methods of maximum likelihood. Finally, a “best-fit” statistical model is presented to explain the error as well as to develop a model that can correct it. The implications of the findings for researchers using the police.uk data for spatial analysis are discussed.

In the original publication of the article, the Acknowledgement section was missed. The Acknowledgement section should read as: Acknowledgements This research was funded by the Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).

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.

Since December 2008, police forces in the UK have published crime statistics using an online crime mapping tool (www.police.uk). The drivers behind this were to help improve the credibility and confidence that the public had in police-reported crime levels, address perceptions of crime, promote community engagement and empowerment, and support greater public service transparency and accountability. This article captures the policy rationale behind this initiative, and draws together the research evidence on its impact. We argue that many of the original objectives relating to improving engagement and empowerment have yet to be realized, poor cartographic discipline has led to misinterpretation and confusion, and that the initiative instead has primarily become a tool for promoting political transparency. We suggest that future focus should be on improving the quality and cartographic visualization of the published information alongside the integration of social media functionality to enrich local dialog on crime issues.

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.

Recently, against a backdrop of general reductions in acquisitive crime, increases have been observed in the frequency of metal theft offences. This is generally attributed to increases in metal prices in response to global demand exceeding supply. The main objective of this article was to examine the relationship between the price of copper and levels of copper theft, focusing specifically on copper cable theft from the British railway network. Results indicated a significant positive correlation between lagged increases in copper price and copper cable theft. No support was found for rival hypotheses concerning U.K. unemployment levels and the general popularity of theft as crime type. An ancillary aim was to explore offender modus operandi over time, which is discussed in terms of its implications for preventing copper cable theft. The authors finish with a discussion of theft of other commodities in price-volatile markets.

Crime analysts attempt to identify regularities in police recorded crime data with a central view of disrupting the patterns found. One common method for doing so is hotspot mapping, focusing attention on spatial clustering as a route to crime reduction (Chainey & Ratcliffe, 2005; Clarke & Eck, 2003). Despite the widespread use of this analytical technique, evaluation tools to assess its ability to accurately predict spatial patterns have only recently become available to practitioners (Chainey, Tompson, & Uhlig, 2008). Crucially, none has examined this issue from a spatio-temporal standpoint. Given that the organisational nature of policing agencies is shift based, it is common-sensical to understand crime problems at this temporal sensitivity, so there is an opportunity for resources to be deployed swiftly in a manner that optimises prevention and detection. This paper tests whether hotspot forecasts can be enhanced when time-of-day information is incorporated into the analysis. Using street crime data, and employing an evaluative tool called the Predictive Accuracy Index (PAI), we found that the predictive accuracy can be enhanced for particular temporal shifts, and this is primarily influenced by the degree of spatial clustering present. Interestingly, when hotspots shrank (in comparison with the all-day hotspots), they became more concentrated, and subsequently more predictable. This is meaningful in practice; for if crime is more predictable during specific time-frames, then response resources can be used intelligently to reduce victimisation.

This special edition of Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal comprises selected papers presented at the 15th Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis (ECCA) seminar held at University College London, UK in July 2007. ECCA appears to be entering a new phase of growth, in terms of both participating members and research agenda. The 2007 seminar served as an international forum to discuss, exchange and reflect on the developments, research direction and advancements in environmental criminology and related areas such as situational crime prevention and offender profiling.

Hotspot mapping is a popular analytical technique that is used to help identify where to target police and crime reduction resources. In essence, hotspot mapping is used as a basic form of crime prediction, relying on retrospective data to identify the areas of high concentrations of crime and where policing and other crime reduction resources should be deployed. A number of different mapping techniques are used for identifying hotspots of crime – point mapping, thematic mapping of geographic areas (e.g. Census areas), spatial ellipses, grid thematic mapping and kernel density estimation (KDE). Several research studies have discussed the use of these methods for identifying hotspots of crime, usually based on their ease of use and ability to spatially interpret the location, size, shape and orientation of clusters of crime incidents. Yet surprising, very little research has compared how hotspot mapping techniques can accurately predict where crimes will occur in the future. This research uses crime data for a period before a fixed date (that has already passed) to generate hotspot maps, and test their accuracy for predicting where crimes will occur next. Hotspot mapping accuracy is compared in relation to the mapping technique that is used to identify concentrations of crime events (thematic mapping of Census Output Areas, spatial ellipses, grid thematic mapping, and KDE) and by crime type – four crime types are compared (burglary, street crime, theft from vehicles and theft of vehicles). The results from this research indicate that crime hotspot mapping prediction abilities differ between the different techniques and differ by crime type. KDE was the technique that consistently outperformed the others, while street crime hotspot maps were consistently better at predicting where future street crime would occur when compared to results for the hotspot maps of different crime types. The research offers the opportunity to benchmark comparative research of other techniques and other crime types, including comparisons between advanced spatial analysis techniques and predic-tion mapping methods. Understanding how hotspot mapping can predict spatial patterns of crime and how different mapping methods compare will help to better inform their application in practice.

BackgroundSome local authorities have reduced street lighting at night to save energy, but little is known about impacts on public health or about public concerns about impacts on well-being.AimTo evaluate the effect of reduced street lighting on crime and road traffic injuries.DesignA mixed-methods study comprising a rapid appraisal, a controlled interrupted time series analysis and a cost–benefit analysis (CBA).SettingEngland and Wales.Target populationResidents and workers in eight case study areas; road traffic casualties and victims of crime.Interventions evaluatedSwitch-off (i.e. lights permanently turned off), part-night lighting (e.g. lights switched off between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.), dimming lights and white lights/light-emitting diodes (LEDs).OutcomesPublic views about implications on well-being; road traffic injury data (STATS19:http://data.gov.uk/dataset/road-accidents-safety-data) obtained for the period 2000–13; crime data (Police.uk:data.police.uk) obtained for the period December 2010–December 2013. Detailed crime data were obtained from one police force for a methodological study of the spatial level at which Police.uk data are valid for analysis.Statistical methodsRoad traffic collisions were analysed at street segment level. Regression models were used to estimate changes in daytime and night-time collision rates associated with lighting interventions. The ratio of night-time and daytime changes was considered the best estimate of change in night-time collisions following each lighting intervention. Police.uk crime data were found to be reliable when analysed at middle super output area (MSOA) level. For crime, the analysis used the proportion of total km of road in each MSOA with each lighting intervention. Regression models controlled for yearly and monthly trends and were fitted in each geographical region and police force. Effect estimates were pooled in random-effects meta-analyses.ResultsPublic concerns centred on personal security, road safety, crime, fear of crime, sleep quality and being able to see the night sky. Street lighting reductions went largely unnoticed or had only marginal impacts on well-being, but for a minority of people switch-off and part-night lighting elicited concerns about fear of the dark, modernity and local governance. Street lighting data were obtained from 62 local authorities. There was no evidence that reduced street lighting was associated with road traffic collisions at night. There was significant heterogeneity in the estimated effects on crime at police force level. Overall, there was no evidence that reduced street lighting was associated with crime. There was weak evidence for a reduction in crime associated with dimming [rate ratio (RR) 0.84, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.70 to 1.02] and white light (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.03). The CBA suggests that part-night lighting may represent a net benefit to local authorities.LimitationsThe study did not account for the impacts of other safety/crime prevention initiatives (e.g. improved road markings; closed-circuit television), and so associations may be partly attributable to these initiatives. The CBA was unable to include potentially important impacts such as fear of crime and reduced mobility.ConclusionThis study found little evidence of harmful effects of switch-off, part-night lighting, dimming or changes to white light/LEDs on levels of road traffic collisions or crime in England and Wales. However, the public were also concerned about other health outcomes. Research is needed to understand how lighting affects opportunities for crime prevention and how these vary by context. Research is needed also on other public health impacts of light at night.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

Background Many local authorities in England and Wales have reduced street lighting at night to save money and reduce carbon emissions. There is no evidence to date on whether these reductions impact on public health. We quantified the effect of 4 street lighting adaptation strategies (switch off, part-night lighting, dimming and white light) on casualties and crime in England and Wales. Methods Observational study based on analysis of geographically coded police data on road traffic collisions and crime in 62 local authorities. Conditional Poisson models were used to analyse longitudinal changes in the counts of night-time collisions occurring on affected roads during 2000–2013, and crime within census Middle Super Output Areas during 2010–2013. Effect estimates were adjusted for regional temporal trends in casualties and crime. Results There was no evidence that any street lighting adaptation strategy was associated with a change in collisions at night. There was significant statistical heterogeneity in the effects on crime estimated at police force level. Overall, there was no evidence for an association between the aggregate count of crime and switch off (RR 0.11; 95% CI 0.01 to 2.75) or part-night lighting (RR 0.96; 95% CI 0.86 to 1.06). There was weak evidence for a reduction in the aggregate count of crime and dimming (RR 0.84; 95% CI 0.70 to 1.02) and white light (RR 0.89; 95% CI 0.77 to 1.03). Conclusions This study found little evidence of harmful effects of switch off, part-night lighting, dimming, or changes to white light/LEDs on road collisions or crime in England and Wales.

(2007). Mapping out crime prevention. Criminal Justice Matters: Vol. 69, Prevention, pp. 32-33.