Chapter 9: Evaluating intelligence-led policing

1. Chapter 9: Evaluating intelligence-led policing

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. Interpret Impact Influence Two structures to evaluation Information structures Criminal environment Analysis Decision-maker

5. Interpret Impact Influence Two structures to evaluation Organizational structures Criminal environment Analysis Decision-maker

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. Volume and type of anonymous drug tip

10. 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, 10:1, pp. 60.

11. 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!

12. Realistic evaluation • Pawson and Tilley’s 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Weekly burglary frequency in the ACT

16. 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 • AU$2,400 per burglary • AU$2,000 per residential burglary • AU$4,500 per non-residential burglary • Total saving for Operation Anchorage • AU$7,125,600 • AU$1,257,600 during Anchorage • AU$5,868,000 benefit after Anchorage

17. Financial benefits of Operation Anchorage

18. 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…

19. Incarceration rates

20. Impact of recidivist incarceration

21. 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

22. Cost-effectiveness of the use of CIs Adapted from Dunnighan and Norris (1999)

23. 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 US$20 million of Colombian drug cartel money • Led to arrest of seven of the Cali drug cartel’s top financial managers, the seizure of more than US$50 million in assets worldwide, and the arrest of 177 people • United Nations estimated Cali cartel profits to be about US$30 billion a year

24. RCMP Disruption Attributes Tool

25. 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

26. Unintended consequences of measures • Tunnel vision • Sub-optimization • Myopia • Measure fixation • Misrepresentation • Misinterpretation • Gaming • Ossification • Demoralization • Discreditability