The Crime Analyst's Blog

There Are Some Awfully Scary People Out There

2012-02-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Los Angeles Times had a great story yesterday that looked at the investigation behind the bombing attempt of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Washington. It also looked at the resurgence of white supremacist activity in the Pacific Northwest.

Harpham "was what we feared most, the prototypical lone wolf extremist who didn't foreshadow the event in any way," the FBI's lead agent in Spokane, Frank Harrill, said in an interview. "There had been nothing that would signal that he would conduct some vicious attempt like this."

The rush to identify a suspect — complete with an elaborate arrest plan involving a SWAT team disguised as road workers — reflected the fear that whoever was responsible might detonate a bomb somewhere else.

"We all felt, although the timeline was uncertain, that this could be a race against a second device in some venue somewhere ... so it was all hands on deck," Harrill said. "One of the big concerns was that the geographic origin of the perpetrator was unknown.... We didn't even know if it was an individual" or a group.

The whole piece is a great read. It also brings up the threat that these types of loner's with a grudge pose to our communities.

What is your agency doing to be able to respond to these kinds of incidents?

Chicago Police Program Might Produce Novelists From Cops

2012-02-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

In my years in law enforcement, I've seen departments teach reporting writing to their officers but never this: There was a piece over at the New York Times that covered a training seminar at Chicago PD that brought in novelists to teach officers how to write more than just police reports.

“Every policeman has said more than once, ‘We have got to write a book,’ ” said Sgt. Cynthia Schumann, a 26-year Chicago police veteran who said she had been jotting down her own notes, just words and bits and thoughts, for years. “People would not believe — you can’t make it up — what we’ve seen. It could be something very humorous, or it could be something very devastating and tragic.”

Sgt. Schumann's sentiment really is true. There is so much that cops see on the job that would make a great book or screen play. There have been quite a number cops who have made the jump to novelist over the years. LAPD cop turned writer Joseph Wambaugh probably did more to spark my interest in becoming a cop than anyone or anything else.

Even yours truly has a couple of half finished manuscripts in my computer. Now if I can just find the time to finish them.

While It Might Be Illegal, Do You Really Want To Pay To Enforce It?

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

CNN had a piece yesterday that had a line in it I just can't pass up commenting about. The story was about a law in New York City that bans idling vehicles in an effort to improve air quality in the Big Apple. The bit I thought was interesting was this line:

Passing laws is one thing; enforcing them is another.

That is something that legislators and city council people here in Texas would also do well to keep in mind. There are plenty of well intentioned laws on the books. However, just because there is a law on the books for something does not mean that the problem the law is to address is going to go away. In the CNN piece the story quotes NYC's Mayor with this:

"Keep in mind, enforcement costs money; the people that enforce have plenty of other things to do. (The) police department's first job is going to be worrying about more serious things."

And that is something to keep in mind; enforcing laws cost money, lots of money oftentimes. In today's fiscally lean times a community needs to ask itself where their limited law enforcement dollars are best used. Was the best way to solve this problem criminalizing the behavior and then expecting the police to "do something" about it?

In the sleepy little burg where I work, we have this law on the books:

Sec. 16-84. Riding wild horses on street.
Whosoever in this city shall ride or cause to be ridden along any street or alley, or upon the public square any wild or unbroken horse, mare, gelding or mule, knowing it at the same time to be wild and unbroken shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. (Ord. No. 91-32, § I, 5-28-91)

Even though we're in Texas, thankfully we aren't overwhelmed with unbroken horseback riding on the city streets. This is probably a good thing because if it was, we would have to make a decision about where our enforcement dollars are best spent. I don't know about you but I can think of things I'd rather tackle with our police officers than this.

More On Cops Dealing With Vets In Crisis

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a new DOJ funded initiative to train cops to deal with military veterans in crisis. Yesterday there was this great story posted over at the Fayetteville Observer that also covers this topic.

The shootout with Eisenhauer is the most public of what appears to be a surge in violent behavior and suicides among Fort Bragg soldiers and combat veterans in recent months

Like Eisenhauer, many of those soldiers suffer from depression, PTSD and other mental health problems brought on by the stresses of war and multiple deployments.

Fayetteville police Sgt. Steven Bates said he has seen the increase in violence firsthand.
"Absolutely," said Bates, who was a negotiator during the standoff with Eisenhauer. "It stands to reason. It's a statistical fact."

The entire article is worth the read. Here at my agency, we're right next to Fort Hood and regularly deal with combat veterans occasionally even the ones who have significant issues. But even if the nearest military base is hundreds of miles away from your jurisdiction, your agency is going to probably end up dealing with the minority of these vets who enter the criminal justice system at some point. I'm hoping that DOJ will fund this type of training for law enforcement agencies across the U.S.

Are You Overstaffed, Understaffed Or Somewhere In Between?

2012-02-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

The San Francisco area news outlet KGO TV had an interesting piece this weekend that covered an analysis of the San Jose Police and Fire Departments by an outside entity that came to the conclusion that both the Police and Fire Departments were overstaffed.

Right now, San Jose has just under 1,100, the same number per capita that it had in 1974 when the crime rate was three times higher. IBM says the department could drop a few hundred officers.
"I think our police department's already too small and our fire department is stretched too thin. There are better ways to deploy the resources we have. That's what we're searching for," Mayor Reed says.
Reed says cutting is not the goal, but saving money is. Unland wants assurances. "If you want to look at some of the other recommendations, go ahead. But police and fire are off-limits," he says.

The lean economic situation that many municipalities find themselves in has caused them to consider what was once unthinkable; cuts to the public safety budget. Are you surprised that both the Police and Fire associations are displeased by this study?

However, in this case, these associations are going to have to do more than just draw a line in the sand and say that cuts to police and fire are "off-limits". The idea that the police department has the same number of officers per capita as it did decades ago when the crime rate was three times what it is now is going to be hard to refute with just a blanket pronouncement of "No".

If you asked anyone at a police agency or fire service if they feel they are adequately staffed, they will nearly always say "No". However, given the economy we really need to make sure that we are being as efficient as possible in our operations. This is one area that a crime analysis function at your agency can help.

A crime analyst can help ensure that your agency is getting the most bang for it's crime fighting buck by targeting enforcement where it's most effective, identifying crime reduction strategies that work and providing the information your agency needs to make sound decisions.

What is your agency doing to make sure that your community is getting the most public safety value for it's tax dollar? Are you making sure the community is informed about what it's tax dollar buys?

Traffic Enforcement Cameras Spur A Visceral Reaction

2012-02-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday USA Today had an interesting story about the public policy debate over the use of automated traffic enforcement camera systems. In some places the public backlash over these systems has led to laws banning their use while in other places, legislative bodies have specifically sanctioned their use.

Interest in traffic camera legislation has spiked in recent years as the devices have become more commonplace, Teigen said. A handful of cities began testing cameras in pilot programs 20 years ago, but by 2000 just 25 had installed permanent red-light cameras. Over the past decade, however, that number has surged — to 550 in 2011.

Still, about 20 states, including Iowa, have no laws on the books concerning cameras at all, generally leaving their use to the discretion of local communities. Amid that ambiguity, eight Iowa cities now use red-light cameras, speeding cameras or both, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

I find it kind of interesting that the public's reaction to these devices is as all over the map as the actual use of the cameras themselves. I think that deep down, opponents of the devices feel that their use is unsportsmanlike. There are also concerns about the motivations of the government entities that install them being more concerned about profit than safety. It is never a good idea to introduce a profit motive into enforcing laws.

Do you have these devices in your community? What has been the public's reaction to them?

RAIDS Online Releases iOS App For Crime Maps

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

A little over a week ago, my agency announced that we were pushing crime data reported to our agency out to a publicly available crime mapping service, RAIDS Online. When we did this, I posted this piece on Why Public Crime Mapping Is Important. Yesterday things got even cooler with the release of the RAIDS Online Mobile application for Apple's iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPod.

The release of this application really broadens the reach of our crime maps. Given that so many people access the Internet via devices like the iPhone or iPad, I believe this is a very good thing. Generally, a native application works better at accessing these services than using the device's web browser.

I have installed it on both my iPhone 4 and my original iPad. The application is snappy and easy to use. Most of the features of the RAIDS Online website are also available on the iOS app. You can view crimes on a map or in a grid. You can also add a density layer, pick specific crime types and date ranges. You can even sign up for a geographic crime alert that will send you an email when a specific crime is reported within a specified range of a location you provide.

The only feature not available is the Analytics page that has the graphs. Most people may not even miss that as they probably just want to see crimes on the map. It's likely only a crime analyst that would miss the pie & bar charts as well as a temporal topology.

Both RAIDS Online and the RAIDS Online Mobile application were developed by Bair Analytics. At the agency where I work, we are also using their law enforcement only web based crime mapping solution ATACRAIDS as well as their desktop crime analysis software ATAC Workstation. All these products work well together and give me and my agency a full set of very capable crime analysis tools.

You can download the RAIDS Online Mobile application from Apple's iTunes AppStore at this link.

Teacher Accused Of Molesting Students, Media Firestorm Begins

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

I don't even know where to begin with this story over at CNN.

Mark Berndt, 61, was arrested on child molestation charges at his Torrance, California, home Monday and is being held pending $2.3 million bond in a Los Angeles County jail, according to Sheriff's Lt. Carlos Marquez.
He is scheduled to make a first appearance before a judge Wednesday morning on 23 counts of lewd acts on a child, according to the county's district attorney.

I'm not going to comment on the more lurid parts of this story. However, a crime such as this is going to have a huge impact on the investigating law enforcement agency. The attention by both the community and the media is liable to be intense.

I bring this up because you never know when a crime like this is going to be discovered in your community. Your agency needs to have plans in place beforehand on how to handle the media during these types of incidents. It's also important that the folks in your agency have practiced these plans beforehand.

Does your agency have a major media event plan in place? Have you practiced working with these plans?

"Intelligence Led Prosecution" Leads To Smarter Prosecutions

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

Now this is an interesting use of a crime analyst: There's a story over at the South Carolina news outlet IslandPacket.com that has this innovative use of a crime analyst's skills; helping prosecutors dig deeper into a defendant's background.

Hightower's training gives him access to SLED resources worth millions of dollars. He uses them to "dig a little deeper" and pass the information to prosecutors, so they can argue for higher bonds or for no bond at all.

And what Hightower finds out can also be used at trial to make the case for harsher sentences, Stone said.

"What I needed was an objective way to determine who is the worst of the worst and, on a real-time basis, at 7 in the morning," Stone said. "These are not the people you want out -- these are hardened criminals."

Hightower is the first SLED-trained crime analyst hired by a state solicitor's office, according to SLED spokeswoman Kathryn Richardson.

This is the first time I have heard of a crime analyst being employed directly by a prosecutor's office. Many analysts working for individual law enforcement agencies help their agency and prosecutors when working on cases that their agency has investigated. For example I regularly provide maps and other analytical products when are our cases are getting ready to go to trial.

I can see the value in having an analyst that helps prosecutors prioritize cases they have for prosecution. Just like crime analysts help cops with smarter rather than harder, a crime analyst working at a prosecutor's office can help them to be more efficient with the limited resources they have as well.

What other innovative ways have you seen crime analysts employed?

WhatRe

ad mTore e: http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/01/28/1944911/crime-analyst-helps-solicitors.html#storylink=cpy

Should A Murder Victim's Past Matter?

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

There was an AP news story over at Yahoo News this weekend that brings up the question posed in this post; Should a murder victim's past matter? The news story covers a recent change in policy by New Orleans Police who are now releasing all the details of a murder victim's past with regards to their criminal history.

New Orleans police say revealing a victim's rap sheet lets the public know that much of the violence is happening between people with similar criminal backgrounds. Families of the slain victim's say the practice is insensitive, and others outraged with the policy say it has racial overtones and sends a message that the victims got what was coming to them.
"I don't understand why they want to do it," said Kathryn White, whose 25-year-old son was gunned down in what she said was a case of mistaken identity. White said her son was arrested just once for a small amount of marijuana.
"You are already in so much pain and then you have to see people saying bad things about your dead child. What good does that do anyone," she said.

This is really a conundrum for police. Regardless of a victim's past, nothing they might have done makes it acceptable for them to die. However, certain lifestyle choices may make it more likely that one is going to become a victim of violent crime. For example, if you are not a prostitute, you are probably less likely to become the victim of a serial killer. Likewise, if you are not a drug dealer, you are probably less likely to be the victim of a drug ripoff robbery with all the violence associated with that.

Police are often stuck trying to reassure a nervous public of their safety after a lurid news story about violent crime hits the press. The news story is probably not going to tell the whole story about these crimes. When was the last time you saw a news story about a murder where the victim's mother tearfully told a reporter that her son was a drug dealer who ripped off his supplier before he was killed?

It is not possible for police to protect you from crime if you are willingly going to engage in questionable behavior. That doesn't make your death any more acceptable. However, it does explain why these awful crimes happen sometimes.

That being said, I think police agencies need to think long and hard about releasing information about a victim's past. Just because a murder victim got busted for weed years ago doesn't mean that he was doing anything wrong when he got killed. Releasing irrelevant information about a victim's past is only likely to hurt the victim's family and set the community where they lived against you.

Veterans In Crisis Pose Unique Challenges For Cops

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

USA Today had an interesting piece that hits close to home for my agency. The story is about a DOJ funded training program to help law enforcement agencies deal the unique challenges that military veterans with mental health problems pose for police.

Developers of the pilot program, to be launched at 15 U.S. sites this year, said there is an "urgent need" to de-escalate crises in which even SWAT teams may be facing tactical disadvantages against mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare.

"We just can't use the blazing-guns approach anymore when dealing with disturbed individuals who are highly trained in all kinds of tactical operations, including guerrilla warfare," said Dennis Cusick, executive director of the Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute. "That goes beyond the experience of SWAT teams."

The agency where I work is adjacent to Fort Hood, Texas which is one of the largest military installations in the world. It also houses quite a number of soldiers who have been deployed, often multiple times to combat. Unfortunately, we also occasionally deal with veterans in crisis. We've been very fortunate that we have not had more problems than we've had. We're also fortunate that we have a very good working relationship with the military commands at Fort Hood. This often gives us more options than an agency that has little or no military relationships or is very far away from a military installation.

One trend I have been worried about is the number of veterans that have been discharged with behavioral issues that have decided to stay in our area. In years past, if a solider misbehaved and got discharged because of this, he we back home to his home of record. However, with the economy being what it is, we are seeing more ex-soldiers who have been "chaptered out" of the Army staying in the area because there are no jobs back in Podunkville where they came from.

Anecdotally, I'm seeing more of these folks being arrested and entering the criminal justice system. Some of them are starting to become repeat customers because their mental health issues make them more likely to offend. This is doubly problematic because the poor economy has caused Texas to cut back on mental health care funding. Jails and prisons make poor substitutes for mental health care and our veterans, troubled or otherwise deserve better.

Has your agency had issues dealing with troubled veterans? Would better training help your agency deal with these vets?

Does the 5th Amendment Cover Computer Encryption?

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

This will be interesting to watch: A judge in Colorado has issued a court order for a defendant to decrypt her laptop hard drive so police can search for evidence which would likely be used against her. The tech website CNET.com has this bit:

Much of the discussion has been about what analogy comes closest. Prosecutors tend to view PGP passphrases as akin to someone possessing a key to a safe filled with incriminating documents. That person can, in general, be legally compelled to hand over the key. Other examples include the U.S. Supreme Court saying that defendants can be forced to provide fingerprints, blood samples, or voice recordings.
On the other hand are civil libertarians citing other Supreme Court cases that conclude Americans can't be forced to give "compelled testimonial communications" and extending the legal shield of the Fifth Amendment to encryption passphrases. Courts already have ruled that that such protection extends to the contents of a defendant's minds, the argument goes, so why shouldn't a passphrase be shielded as well?

I have a feeling this fight is going to last a while in the courts. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if it makes it to the US Supreme Court.

Never Underestimate The Creativity Of A Crook

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

USA Today had a story yesterday about this inventive criminal:

Police in Lynn, Mass., arrested a woman at a convenience store who allegedly used a stolen welfare benefits card to purchase $64 worth of soda, then immediately fed the full cans into an automated redemption machine to collect the nickel deposit on each can, The Daily Item reports.

Apparently 18 twelve packs of full soda cans were too much for the machine which was damaged in this episode.

Why Public Crime Mapping Is Important

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

There are times that I really enjoy my job. Today was one of those times. At the agency where I work, we had a press event to roll out a public crime mapping application. This application called RAIDS Online from Bair Analytics takes crime data from our records management application and pushes it out via a Google Maps mashup to the public.

This means that anyone going to the site can view crime data reported to my department using a web browser and a computer connected to the Internet. They can query specific types of crimes, specific date ranges and even do some basic analytics like density maps and temporal analysis.

In addition to just being some neat technology, this application is important for the community where I work. For many years, crime data has been stored and used by police agencies, but is often not available outside those agencies. By locking this information up and not allowing the public access, we reduce our ability to partner with our communities to reduce crime.

A publicly available crime mapping application like this allows the community to understand the crime problems in their community better. Unless you are really active in your neighborhood, you might not always know if one of your neighbors two blocks away was burglarized. If you aren't aware of this, you might not think to report the teenager with a backpack walking through the neighborhood during the time he should be in school.

Armed with the knowledge of what is happening in your community, you are more likely to make the connection between crime and that suspicious teenager. Then, you will be more likely to pick up the phone and call police.

A few years ago, the public was informed of a burglary problem in the city where I work. There were a number of news stories about this problem that heightened the public's awareness of the problem. When this problem was fresh on their minds we started getting lots of calls from citizens reporting suspicious activity in their neighborhoods. Before long we were catching burglars in the act right and left because of the calls of these concerned citizens. Had the public not been aware of the problem, they likely would not have made the connection and called police.

In the same way, it's my hope that making this information available to the community empowers our citizens to act in partnership with us. What is your agency doing to inform your community of crime problems in your community?

Why Do Reporters Sometimes Have Such Trouble With Crime Stats?

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

As a crime analyst I have a professional interest in news articles about crime stats even when they aren't about the city where I work. When the article is about the city where I work, I have a vested interest in them as I often have provided the stats that the article refers to.

Yesterday afternoon, I was checking articles from the local media outlets when I found one from Philip Jankowski over at the Killeen Daily Herald. The piece titled: "Killeen homicides rise in 2011" looked at homicides that occurred in Killeen in 2011. I have worked for the Police Department in Killeen for nearly 21 years so this was going to be article that covered a topic that I was very familiar with. In the story there was a statement I found very troubling:

"Aside from the Luby's massacre in 1991 when 26 people were killed at once, the last time Killeen had 15 homicides was in 1979.
Since the city had about one-third of its current population more than 30 years ago, the homicide rate nearly tripled in 2011. There were 12 reported homicides in 2010."

Source: http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=63745 as retrieved 1/22/2012 at 5:06 PM CDT.

The part that troubled me was that the statement that homicide rate in Killeen had "nearly tripled in 2011" as compared to 1979 was flat out wrong. Not just a little bit off, but completely and totally wrong. In this case, I provided the numbers that were ostensibly used to write that part of the article. Let's look a little deeper at these numbers.

In 1979 the Killeen Police Department reported 15 murders to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Program. In 2011, the department also reported 15 murders to UCR.

Obviously, the population of Killeen has changed from 1979 to 2011. In order to directly compare these numbers we need to calculate the murder rate.

Rate is the number of times an event occurs in a given population. In the case of crime rates, they are normally calculated as the number of crimes reported per 100,000 population. This allows us to determine if a crime occurs more or less often in given population even if the original population figure is different from the later.

You can think of crime rate this way, if you were to line up 100,000 residents of a city, the rate would tell you how many of them had been victim of a particular crime in a given year.

To calculate rate the formula looks like this:

(Number of Crimes / Population) x 100,000 = Crime Rate Per 100,000 population

In 2010, the population of Killeen was reported to be 127,921. In 1980, the population was reported to be 46,292. We'll have to use these population figures to calculate the rates because they are the closest available numbers to the years we are interested in. (As a side note, sometime around May of 2012 the Census Bureau will release a 2011 population estimate for Killeen. When those numbers become available I'll recalculate our crime rates.)

To calculate the murder rate for 1979 the formula would look like this:

(15/46,292) x 100,000 = 32.4 murders per 100,000 population

To calculate the murder rate for 2011 the formula would look like this:

(15/127,921) x 100,000 = 11.72 murders per 100,000 population

Clearly we see that the murder rate in 1979 is nearly three times higher than the murder rate in 2011. (If you're interested it works out to be a 63.82% decrease in 2011 as compared to 1979.) This is the exact opposite of what Jankowski reported in his story.

Now when a reporter gets crime statistics wrong in a story, there are a few possibilities about what might have happened. One, the reporter may not have understood what he or she was trying to report. Another possibility is that he or she might have been careless about his or her reporting. The other is that the facts are being deliberately being misrepresented.

In this case, the story indicates that the murder rate is much higher in 2011 as compared to 1979. However, the truth is that a citizen of Killeen was around three times more likely to be murdered in 1979 than he or she would be in 2011.

This is a huge problem. The public's perception of crime is influenced by what they see reported in the media. This perception often has significant consequences. If a city gets a reputation as having a high crime rate, how many new businesses are likely to relocate there? How, many people are going to look at that community as a place they want to live and work (and buy newspapers)?

This is one of the reasons I am passionate about accurately reporting crime statistics. When accurately counted and properly used, these statistics can tell you a lot about your community and the effectiveness of your crime fighting efforts. As I am often fond of saying: "In order to know how to get where you are going, you have to know where you have been." And you can quote me on that.

Why Do Vehicle Thefts Sometimes Increase?

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

The news website KXLY.com had a story this week on a recent spike in vehicle thefts. Inside the story was this gem from a Spokane Police analyst as she explained the trend:

“My guess is that certain people got out of jail,” Carly Cortright, strategic analyst, said. She continued, “Vehicle theft is not bonded very high. After we arrest them, they’re able to post bond and then start stealing vehicles again.”

Sometimes it really is as simple as this. Often times one or two prolific criminals can wreak havoc with your crime numbers. The trick is trying to figure out just which inmate being released might be responsible. If they are in jail for the same type of crime, that's easy. But what if they are in jail for something else entirely?

Keeping track of your prolific offenders can pay dividends. Do your detectives identify prolific offenders? If so, are they sharing this information with the rest of your agency? Does your agency have a way to monitor releases so you can get notified when one of these offenders is released? Are your folks regularly completing field interrogation reports (FIR) when they contact these folks on the streets and forwarding those FIR's to your crime analysis or intelligence unit?

Online Database Yields Clues That Point To Serial Killer

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

I love reading these kinds of stories: There's a piece over at the Columbus, Indiana Republic that details the story of an amateur crime analyst who discovered evidence of a serial killer while pouring over a database of unsolved killings.

New York authorities, asked about Fallon's discovery, are talking for the first time about the extraordinary efforts they made to solve a string of killings of women in the Rochester area that occurred in the shadow of the much-heralded arrest of "Genesee River Killer" Arthur Shawcross. He died in prison in 2008 after confessing to 11 murders.
Fallon detected a second group of strangulations of women, whom police say were mostly prostitutes, killed after Shawcross was apprehended.
"Yes, we did have a second serial killer," said Capt. Lynde Johnston of the Rochester Police Department's homicide division. "I think we all agreed that he had killed seven. Some of us think eight."
Retired FBI supervisory special agent Gregg McCrary, who worked as a profiler in the Shawcross cases, remembers the second series of killings vividly.
"What are the chances of having two of these guys in the same city?" McCrary asked. "The focus was on the Genesee River Killer. But we had an unsettling feeling that something else might be going on."

I this shows that there is some value to publicizing data on cold cases where having as many eyes as possible on the data might yield insights that may have gone unnoticed. It also demonstrates how collecting the data through programs like FBI's ViCAP are worthy endeavors.

If you want to look at the Scripps-Howard Serial Killer database referred to in the Republic story, you can access it here.

Data Driven Approach Helps Reduce Corpus Christi Car Burglaries

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

There's a story over at the Corpus Christi Caller that talks about the success the Corpus Christi Police Auto Theft Task Force has had by switching to a data driven approach to solving a car burglary problem.

Auto Theft Task Force officers teamed up with crime analysts in the fall to keep tabs on those who break into vehicles the most, after former Police Chief Troy Riggs challenged the department for more data-oriented policing.
"In the past we'd put out a bait vehicle and just wait for the criminals to come to us," said Lt. Kelly Isaacks, who recently was put in charge of the unit. "That's just not very productive."
Now a crime analyst works side by side with auto crimes detectives. They comb pawnshop databases, arrest reports and other documents, looking for those who make a living off ripping off car owners.

Their comments about bait cars are pretty consistent with other agencies' findings in that area. Bait cars are just not very cost effective ways to combat these types of crimes by themselves. It's better to handle nearly any problematic crime with a more holistic, studied approach.

The Problem Oriented Policing Center has a great POP Guide Thefts of and from Cars on Residential Streets and Driveways that covers strategies for reducing these kinds of larcenies.

Has your agency had to deal with a car burglary problem? What approaches did you find worked for you?

Combatting Copper Thefts By Changing Technology

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

PC World had a short piece that covered a promising solution to copper thefts that have plagued utility providers.

The GroundSmart Copper Clad Steel cable is probably the most radical solution yet devised to copper theft in that it removes almost all of the copper grounding (in the U.K., "earthing") metal of the sort commonly used in networks to return current to earth for safety reasons.

Unlike conventional cables made from solid copper, the GroundSmart consists of a steel core around which is bonded a copper outer casing, forming an equally effective but far less valuable cable.

This makes a lot of sense. The high prices for copper have driven the market for stolen copper wire. As these cables are replaced, taking most of the copper out of the replacement cables will remove the monetary incentive for thieves to take the cable in the first place.

It's pretty obvious that stronger laws for metal thieves aren't having a huge deterrent effect because the economic benefit for the thief outweighs the cost of doing business. If his benefit is lessened then the cost/benefit ratio will swing back in our favor.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen the industry try to replace copper in wiring. Remember aluminum wiring? If it hadn't been for it's tendency to cause electrical fires it might have caught on too. Lets hope this solution works out better.

DNA Doesn't Always Make Cold Cases Easy To Prosecute

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

If you've followed the blog for any length of time you know I have an interest in cold cases. The New York Times had a great piece last week that looked at the difficulty faced in prosecuting decades old cases even with DNA evidence.

With the advent of DNA science and other technological advancements, it is no longer unusual for juries to see evidence from crimes that happened as long ago as the 1970s. But old cases present unique challenges for prosecutors and defense lawyers: Key witnesses may have moved or died, documents could have disappeared, and evidence collection standards are now much stricter.
“The farther back in time you’re talking about, the more those things fray and disintegrate,” said Rob Owen, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in death penalty cases.

I've been trying to compile an accurate list of unsolved homicides at the department where I work. We had records in paper files and indices, on microfiche and two different computer databases. After chipping away at this project for some time I managed to cobble together a complete list going back 40 years or so. I am sure that things at my agency are not that unusual from any other agency.

When you consider that not only are a police department's records important for a successful prosecution but so are the prosecutor's, medical examiner's, and a myriad of other old records you can see how difficult these old cases could be.

And Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay?

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

CNN had an interesting story that looked at the economic impact Somali pirates were having on Somalia.

"There is a very clear trickle-down effect," said author Anja Shortland, of Brunel University in the United Kingdom, who based her conclusion on everything from satellite pictures to local cattle prices.
High-resolution satellite imagery shows construction in the inland towns of Garowe and Bosasso, including radio towers, walls and new buildings, she said.
She's not seeing much construction on the coast itself, she said.
"There are no light emissions on the coastal villages. But the settlements inland ... that's probably where the money is going," she said of the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars Somali pirates have claimed in the past several years.

In nearly every type of crime there is an economic impact.

It's Official, You're Even Less Likely To Die Of Murder

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

More evidence that crime is on the decline came in the form of a report from the US Centers For Disease Control that revealed that murder has dropped from the top 15 causes of death in the United States for the first time in decades. USA Today had a story that included this bit:

Of the 2.4 million total deaths reported in 2010, there were 16,065 homicides, down from 16,799 a year earlier.

Included in that number, firearm-related homicides also declined to 11,015 from 11,493 in 2009, according the report which gathers data from death certificates provided by the states.

Out of the top 15 leading causes of death all but two are diseases. The two exceptions are Accidents (unitentional injuries) at number 5 and Intentional Self Harm (Suicide) at number 10.

If you're interested you can grab a copy of the entire CDC report here.

The Law, Sex Offenders And Unintended Consequences

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

USA Today recently had a piece about an unintended consequence of sex offender registration laws; the clustering of sex offenders in trailer parks and motels. This is causing legislators to consider more knee-jerk legislation to "fix" the problem.

Experts who study the issue say the new laws may make problems worse by forcing sex offenders into homelessness or isolating them from social services and jobs.

"The larger the buffer zone and the more densely populated the area is, the more difficult it is for them to find housing," said Jill Levenson, an associate professor of psychology at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., who specializes in sex crime policy.

A study in Orange County, Fla., found 99% of residential housing is off-limits to sex offenders, she said.

"It's a real quandary," Levenson said. Clustering laws that bar sex offenders from living together narrow the options even more. "Where do we think these people are going to go?"

While I am sure that many people would just like sex offenders to disappear this is not going to happen and is not realistic. The intent of these laws was to protect citizens from these offenders. However, the very laws intended to protect us make end up making us less safe if sex offenders are placed in a no-win situation with no place to live and are unable to work which may make them more likely to re-offend.

In the community where I work sex offenders are prohibited from residing within a certain distance of playgrounds, day care centers, schools, school bus stops, etc. Like Orange County, Florida this makes a majority of the city off limits or so it would seem at first glance. However, it does not apply to sex offenders who already reside in those areas and it certainly doesn't prohibit them from driving, walking, skateboarding, or bicycling in those areas. If this is the case then the law makes us feel like we've done something without actually making anyone safer.

If the law you pass to fix a problem just makes the problem worse then maybe you need to rethink that one.

When The Fear Of Crime Meets The Reality Of Crime

2012-01-10T06:19:00.000-06:00

The Los Angeles Times had a great article that looked at the practical implications of crime statistics and the fear or crime and how they affect communities. I've seen quite a number of articles in the news that have shown how crime has dropped for the past few years.

The perception of safety is as important as statistics. That's what draws us out from behind locked doors and window bars; gives us license to walk our dogs, take our children to the park and trust our subways on a night out.

But it's the stats, city officials say, that promote civic pride and pay financial dividends through increased investment and tourism hikes.

Sometime this month, police agencies across the United States will close the books on their 2011 crime stats. In most cases, these agencies will likely see less crime than they have in years past. In a few cases an agency might see an increase either in a specific category or in a few categories.

But while lower Uniform Crime Report numbers may be a win for police administrators, that doesn't automatically translate to a win for the community if they don't feel safe living, working and playing in their neighborhoods.

One thing I have noticed is that it is often little things that improve people's perception of their community and reduce their fear of crime. Things like tackling graffiti, code enforcement issues, aggressive panhandlers or nuisance abatement can play a role in reducing fear.

The US Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services Office has a publication Reducing Fear of Crime: Strategies for Police that has this salient point in it:

People will not become less fearful unless they know that the sources of their fear have been addressed. Fear is based on perception, so police intent on reducing fear have to follow through and make sure that the public sees, hears about, or otherwise recognizes when problems have been fixed, conditions improved, etc.

It's very important that police agencies are adept at communicating with the communities they serve. One way to communicate with an end towards fear reduction is through the use of social media. Social media allows a department to quickly communicate when community problems have been addressed and in a very public way.

If a citizen communicates a concern to a law enforcement agency through social media, and the agency responds positively to that concern, not only does the citizen originally bringing up the concern get the response but every other person on that social media outlet gets to see that the agency is responsive to the community's concerns. This is a very good thing.

What are you doing to reduce the fear of crime in your community? How are you integrating social media in your fear reduction strategy?

iPhones And iPads Are Changing The Way Police Work

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

There's a marketing piece over at Apple.com about how the Redlands, CA Police Department is using iPads and iPhones to make their officers more efficient in the field. While it is a marketing piece from Apple, it's interesting enough to be worth a look.

Whether on foot, on a bicycle, in a patrol car, or on a Segway in the downtown district, Redlands police officers use iPhone and iPad to access, send, and receive the rich stream of data they need to keep tabs on potential issues. “It allows them to look at satellite maps, access the Internet, send emails, and take photos of victims or potential suspects.” Bueermann says.
“Having all this information at your fingertips and being able to share it instantaneously with other officers in the field is invaluable,” Catren agrees. “We have had many cases where officers have been able to quickly identify perpetrators, or transfer video that's led to the capture of suspects.”

We're seeing quite a number of iPads, iPhones and other similar devices at my agency. Most of them are personally owned devices, but even so they are changing the way officers work. It's not uncommon for officers to email or text suspect pictures to one another, or to view emails and BOLO's in the field.

How is your agency integrating this kind of technology into it's operations? Are your officers encouraged or discouraged from experimenting with these types of devices?

Thanks to the ESRI.com News Room for the heads up.

Even In Death Texas Prison System Charged With Providing For Inmates

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

The New York Times had a great story yesterday that looked at the Texas prison system's cemetery for inmates who die while incarcerated and are unclaimed by their families.

An inmate crew from the nearby Walls Unit prison cleans the grounds, mows the grass and trims trees four days per week. The inmates dig the graves with a backhoe and shovels, serve as pallbearers and chisel the names on the headstones by hand using metal stencils and black paint. The cemetery was named for an assistant warden at the Walls Unit who helped clean and restore the graveyard in the 1960s, and even today, the warden or one of his deputies attends every burial.
“It’s important, because they’re people still,” said the warden, James Jones. “Of course they committed a crime and they have to do their time, and unfortunately they end up dying while they’re in prison, but they’re still human beings.”

What a sad way to go.

Young Mom Kills Burglar, Now His Accomplice Charged In Dead Burglar's Death

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

There was an interesting story over at NPR that looked at a deadly home invasion in Oklahoma. An 18 year old mother was home alone with her baby when two men broke into the home. The young mother ended up killing one of the intruders.

Now there's this legal twist: According to The Oklahoman, "the dead man's [alleged] accomplice in the home invasion is being implicated in his death." Authorities say Dustin Louis Stewart, 29, was with Martin and was also trying to break into the home.
"When you're engaged in a crime such as first-degree burglary and a death results from the events of that crime, you're subject to prosecution for it," Grady County Assistant District Attorney James Walters told the newspaper.

It's ironic how the law of parties works sometimes.

To What Lengths Should We Go To Identify Unidentified Deceased Persons

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

There was an interesting AP story over at Yahoo News about the Milwaukee County, WI Medical Examiner's Office that is publishing photos of unidentified deceased persons online in an effort to identify these John (and Jane) Does.

Forensic investigator Michael Simley knows some people will find the photographs unsettling, but he said he decided to post them online for an important reason: the bodies are unidentified. All were found in Wisconsin's most populous area, Milwaukee County, and have been without names for years — decades, in some cases — and Simley said he's desperate to find answers.

"We're not doing these people justice to let them go unidentified. These are family members, friends, people who are missed," Simley said. "Everyone deserves to be recognized as who they were in life. Being buried as a Jane or John Doe doesn't sit well with me."

The story highlights the fact that not everyone agrees with these photos being posted, even if their intentions are laudable. But there is some value to crowd sourcing this problem. In most cases nearly anything that draws attention to them is a good thing. By the time that it gets to this point, all other avenues have likely been exhausted.

What do you think, should these pictures be posted online if it helps to identify these unidentified deceased persons?

Lethality Assessments Try To Reduce Deadly Domestic Violence Incidents

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Dallas Morning News had a great story on efforts by Dallas Police to intervene in domestic violence cases before these incidents turn deadly.

"You've got to figure out a way to catch that flag - that individual that's escalating to murder," Brown said, cautioning that he didn't want to create a system in which detectives overlooked something just because it didn't show the standard warning signs. "You've got to treat them all as a priority."

Domestic violence cases are often difficult to work as the victims are often reluctant to cooperate with police. Fortunately laws regarding domestic violence have improved over the years to allow prosecution even in cases where the victim will not cooperate.

Here in Bell County we've had a domestic violence task force formed that brings police, prosecutors, social workers and other interested groups together to try and reduce domestic violence and it's effects.

What is your agency doing to reduce domestic violence in your community?

If It's Not Recorded, Did A Crime Happen?

2012-01-02T08:23:00.000-06:00

Last week there was this piece over at The New York Times that looked at reports of NYPD officers shirking reports. Reports of officers not taking reports from crime victims isn't new and the article hints at a possible reason.

Crime victims in New York sometimes struggle to persuade the police to write down what happened on an official report. The reasons are varied. Police officers are often busy, and few relish paperwork. But in interviews, more than half a dozen police officers, detectives and commanders also cited departmental pressure to keep crime statistics low.

We've seen allegations of this kind of crime statistical chicanery before, not only at NYPD but also at other police agencies. Yet, shirking reports creates problems for the police department.

One, not taking a report from a crime victim leaves the victim with a terrible impression of the department. While the crime the victim is trying to report is probably no big deal to the officer, it's a big deal to the victim. By not taking their problem seriously, you have essentially told that victim they are unimportant. Don't be surprised if the victim returns the favor next time your department is trying to drum up community support for a pay raise or for a budget increase to buy new equipment. If the victim has to take their complaints to the mayor or city council, don't you think this makes an impression on these community leaders when they are considering what budget items to cut?

Two, by not taking these reports you are shooting your agency in the foot when it comes to having an accurate picture of crime in the community. These crime reports will often times tell your agency what areas of town are beginning to experience problem crimes. While sometimes not every crime ends up getting reported to the police, your crime analysis unit needs to have as much data as possible to analyze in order to draw accurate conclusions about what is occurring in your community.

What is your agency doing to ensure the accuracy of crime reports in your community?

The Year's Top Trends in Crime Analysis

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

This is the last post for 2011 here on the blog. I think it’s worth taking a little time to look back at a few of the things I think are the most important crime analysis / policing topics of the year.

Predictive Policing
Predictive policing uses computer statistical algorithms to predict areas where certain types of crimes are more likely to occur. This works best for property crimes such as burglaries and larcenies. Given that these types of crimes make up the bulk of crimes reported to police their reduction could lead to significant crime reductions.

This technology holds a lot of promise because it will help law enforcement agencies focus proactive efforts in areas where it will have the greatest effect. With the nation’s poor economy, most agencies are having to “do more with less”. Predictive policing could lead to a more efficient policing strategy. If officers are more effective and drive property crimes down, they will then have more discretionary time to devote to other proactive enforcement efforts which in turn could lead to further crime reductions.

Falling Crime Rates
There have been a number of news stories out this year, and even this week about the fall in crime rates as reported by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program. Quite a number of the stories have speculated as to the “why” of this trend.

My opinion is that widespread adoption of data driven strategies by law enforcement has played a role in reducing crime. Nearly every law enforcement agency regardless of size has adopted one of these strategies whether it be called COMPSTAT, DDACTS, POP, or any of the other myriad of acronyms for them.

Regardless of what you call your program, the important thing is that they are data driven so that an agency can focus their limited resources where they will have the greatest effect. You are seeing more agencies include a crime analysis function in their operations to help analyze the data. This is a really good thing.

As researchers and criminologists spend more time looking at the “why” behind the falling crime rates we might see more of a consensus about what works. Then, whatever that turns out to be, we need to do more of it.

Social Media
We’ve seen a widespread adoption of social media by law enforcement agencies. While this trend didn’t start in 2011, it surely accelerated. In my county alone we’ve got agencies from a small four man department to the largest agency in the county with a Facebook and/or Twitter presence.

Given the huge numbers of folks on these social media sites, it’s important for law enforcement agencies to have a presence on them as well. If your agency is going to interact with the citizens you serve, you have to go where those citizens are.

What do you think the most important crime analysis or law enforcement topics were for the year?

Missing Persons Detectives Often Start From Scratch

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week the Austin American Statesman had this interesting story about Austin PD's Missing Persons Unit.

When missing-persons investigators take on a case, they have nothing but a blank slate. There is no crime scene, like in homicide or narcotics cases. No body to examine, or drug route to track. No informant. No evidence.

Sometimes, it has been weeks since a loved one disappeared. Other times, it's months. Often the caller has only a vague notion of where the person was last seen or might be headed. In the most difficult of circumstances, relatives have needed help looking for a family member who "stopped calling a few years ago and might have once lived in South Austin — or wait, maybe it was North — they're not sure," Gann said.

"We have to start from scratch: building who this person is, asking what are their habits, where would they often go," Gann said. That is when the little things matter most: Did she or he have a favorite place that friends can remember? What words were exchanged before the disappearance? Was the person right-handed or left?

The vast majority of missing persons cases involve juvenile runaways. The good thing is that in most cases, they will be located or come home on their own volition. The more difficult cases often involve missing adults.

Not every police agency has a dedicated missing persons unit. One important resource for any police agency in Texas that is working a difficult missing persons case is the Texas Department of Public Safety's Missing Person's Clearinghouse. They can provide invaluable assistance in working these cases.

Looking Back As Crime Continued To Decline in 2011

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

As the calendar counts down towards the end of 2011 we're seeing the inevitable bunch of retrospective news stories about the events of 2011. One subject that I think is important is the continued decrease in crime nationwide. The Washington Post had a piece looking back at this subject.

Between 1991 and 2010, the homicide rate in the United States fell 51 percent, from 9.8 per 100,000 residents to 4.8 per 100,000. Property crimes such as burglary also fell sharply during that period; auto theft, once the bane of urban life, dropped an astonishing 64 percent. And FBI data released Dec. 19 show that the trends continued in the first half of 2011. With luck, the United States could soon equal its lowest homicide rate of the modern era: 4.0 per 100,000, recorded in 1957.

I don't doubt that within a couple of days after the start of the New Year, my Chief will be marching to my office to get an idea of what our stats books will look like since we'll have closed the books on 2011. This is something that is likely to be repeated in police department's across the country.

In some agencies, their local trends will be good, in others theirs will be bad and in many they'll be mixed. The good thing is that as a whole, crime is down in the United States. The challenge for us in 2012 is to continue this progress. Sure, we face challenges with the economy. But if we continue to work smarter and let the data drive our operations we'll keep driving crime down. This is a crime trend worth keeping.

Popularity of Online Purchases Mean More Porch Pickings

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

Like lots of folks, I find myself purchasing more and more items online rather than from traditional "brick and mortar" stores. The boom in packages being delivered has also started a trend in "porch picking" thieves who are taking these unsecured deliveries from the porches of victims. There was a piece over at the Boston Globe that looked at these types of thefts.

The dismal state of the economy - and the uptick in online shopping and shipping - seems to be making conditions ripe for porch-picking.
“There seems to be more of a rash this year,’’ said Quincy Police Captain John Dougan, who considers the thefts crimes of opportunity.
An October consumer survey found that nearly 47 percent of consumers intended to do at least some of their shopping online, up from 44 percent last year, the National Retail Federation reported. That makes for plenty of deliveries: The United Parcel Service, alone expects to deliver some 120 million packages this week - with its peak day exceeding a normal day’s volume by 60 percent, said Ronna Branch, UPS spokeswoman.

Even in the sleepy little burg where I work, I've noticed a few more incidents of these types of thefts lately.

The solution to this crime problem is likely going to lie in encouraging potential victims to better protect themselves by taking some common sense precautions if they are expecting a package to be delivered such as have the items delivered to their workplace or requesting that the package be held at the delivery terminal. Insuring purchases or expensive items can save them from taking a hit should their item get stolen.

Has your agency seen an increase in "porch picking"? What strategies have you found to be most effective in combatting these types of thefts?

Anonymous Tips Solve Crimes Especially Through Social Media

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

There was a story last week over at the Maine Public Broadcasting Network that detailed the way police in Maine are using anonymous tips to solve crimes in their communities. From the story:

"We've gotten tips on things like homicides all the way down to panhandlers bothering people," says Portland Police Commander Vern Malloch. His department allows people to text anonymous tips to police. Malloch says that thousands of tips have come through Text-A-Tip more than a year after the program started.
"It's helped us solve other crimes, like burglaries and things like that," he says. "Folks provide the information but don't want to get involved beyond that."
Other departments around Maine are trying to generate tips by harnessing social media such as Facebook. "A lot of what we use it for is if we're looking for a suspect and we have still photographs or something that we're trying to identify," says Andy Robitaille, a crime analyst for the Lewiston Police Department who helps oversee a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and a newly-launched Google+ page.

In the sleepy little burg where I work, we've had good success with using anonymous tipster programs like CrimeStoppers to solicit tips and solve crimes. One use that has been particularly successful is to use CrimeStoppers to locate and arrest wanted fugitives. In fact, in one recent case with had tipsters calling within minutes after posting information about a fugitive on our CrimeStoppers Facebook page.

We'll cross post information about crimes and fugitives on both our agency's Facebook page and the CrimeStoppers page to get the most exposure. These posts are also sent out via our department's Twitter feed.

We've found that using social media to publicize these crimes work well because it often times bypasses the editorial filter imposed by traditional media. This isn't to say that traditional media isn't important but you can't rely on them to place the same importance on your press release about a wanted check forger as you do. On a slow news day they may run a piece on it, but if something bigger happens elsewhere in the world, your press release will likely end up in the trash.

If you have worked to develop an engaging social media presence, your audience will still get the message that you are looking for information on that criminal even if a natural disaster half a world away diverts the attention of your local newsroom.

What are you doing to encourage citizens in your community to provide tips on local crimes and criminals? How do you integrate this into your agency's social media presence?

More Officers Dying In Ambushes, But Why?

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

USA Today had a good story on an awful topic: the increase in police officer deaths due to ambush style attacks. From the story:

Yet in 63 of the 65 shooting deaths that the Justice Department has analyzed this year, 73% were the result of ambush or surprise attacks, said Josh Ederheimer, deputy director of the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services Office.

"It is an incredibly large number," Ederheimer said.

Earlier this year, a USA TODAY review of officer deaths highlighted a rising number of ambush slayings. In that August review, nearly 40% of the shooting deaths at that time were attributed to ambush or surprise attacks. That number was up from 31% in all of 2009, according to the most recent FBI study.

Let's hope we can get to the bottom of this trend and reverse it. If ever there was a trend that needed to be reversed, this would be it.

Sleepy Cops Are Bad News

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

NPR recently had a piece about a unique study of how the lack of sleep affects police officers. Anyone who has worked in law enforcement will tell you, shift work, long hours and unpredictable schedules wreak havoc on your sleep patterns. The study listed these findings:

Those who screened positive for a sleep disorder had a 25 percent higher risk of expressing uncontrolled anger to a suspect or citizen, and a 35 percent higher chance of having a citizen complaint filed against them.
Sleep-deprived officers had 51 percent greater odds of falling asleep while driving on duty.
One in three officers has sleep apnea – waking up repeatedly because breathing has temporarily stopped. That's at least 8 times higher than the rate among the general population.
They had a 43 percent higher chance of making a serious administrative error.

This story comes on the heels of recent FAA rules that limit the amount of hours a pilot can work to reduce the chances that a sleep deprived pilot will make a fatal error.

Of course, while there are rules about how long a pilot or a truck driver can work without rest, there are no rules about how long a police officer can work without sleep. Yet, the idea that a sleep deprived officer will suddenly be called to make a split second life or death decision is pretty scary indeed.

Back when I was a sworn officer, the longest stretch I worked without a break was 36 hours straight. I can't imagine that by the time the 35th hour rolled around I was in too good a shape to make any serious life or death decision. In fact, I can't imagine I was in any shape to even make a decision about where to get a cup of coffee.

While agencies may have their own rules about how long an officer can work without rest, there are likely many agencies that have no such rules. Maybe it's about time they do.

Bill Bratton On Why Crime Continues To Go Down

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I posted about the FBI's release of the preliminary 2011 Uniform Crime Report numbers that showed crime was still on the decline for the first half of 2011. CBS had this story with a good quote from former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton on why crime numbers continue to drop in spite of the poor economy.

"In the 1990s, policing got it right," Bratton told "Early Show" anchor Chris Wragge. "We began to focus once again on preventing crime; '60s, '70s, '80s, we focused on responding to crime. It's a lot different to try to prevent it, and we've become very successful at preventing it."

Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox disputes the popular myth that crime should be going up in a bad economy.

"They're using technology; they're using data, crime patterns, maps to figure out where are the hot spots, what's the trend in terms of crime and trying to be proactive," Fox said of law enforcement agencies. "People are either criminals or not, independent of whether they have a job.

Crime analysis really shows it's worth in helping law enforcement agencies to more efficient in their policing mission by letting the data drive their operations.

What are you doing to help your agency be more proactive?

The First Half of 2011 Was Good, What Will The Second Half Hold?

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

As the year winds down, many law enforcement agencies are getting ready to put their end of the year crime statistics together. In a taste of what's to come for 2011 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) numbers, the FBI released the preliminary report for the first half of 2011. CNN had this in their story on the release:

Overall, violent crimes were down 6.4%, while property crimes fell 3.7% when compared with figures from the first six months of 2010.
...
"Although we can all be encouraged that violent crime rates continue to decline nationwide, it is clear that we must remain vigilant and more work remains to be done," said Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement released with the semiannual statistics. "In recent months, we have seen an alarming spike in law enforcement fatalities and the number of line-of-duty law enforcement deaths. This is appalling and unacceptable."

For the most part, things are looking good at my agency. How's the 2011 numbers looking at your agency? In what ways are you letting the data drive your operations?

If You Think Your Old UCR Rape Numbers Were Bad, Just Wait

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

Last week the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) released a report detailing the results of a survey they did looking into intimate partner violence. One part of the survey dealt with the prevalence of rape. The numbers are alarming with nearly 1 in 5 women reporting that they had been the victims of rape at some point.

In what's probably going to lead to even more shocking statistics, the Director of the FBI just approved changing the archaic, 1930's era Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) definition of rape. The Baltimore Sun had a piece on this change that included this:

Since the 1920s, rape has been defined as forcible penile penetration of a female. The definition does not include oral and anal penetration, penetration when a victim was unconscious or male victims.
The new definition includes "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

The changes in this definition are long overdue. In the sleepy little burg where I work we had a serial rapist who had attacked several female victims. Because of the way that some of the attacks were committed, not all of his attacks were counted as part of our annual UCR Rape numbers that year. This is a travesty.

While the changes are long overdue, I don't know if the public is really ready for the huge uptick in rape numbers in their community. Just like the CDC numbers were pretty shocking, I think the new UCR numbers will be as well. Hopefully, this will lead to providing adequate resources to combat the problem of sexual assault.

Is your agency ready to explain the difference in your rape statistics once the new UCR definition takes effect?

Las Vegas Cops Go To Great Lengths To Nab Boosting Rings

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I posted about organized shoplifting rings in Oregon. Later, I found this story at the Las Vegas Sun about how Las Vegas area cops are combating this problem in their jurisdiction with an approach I haven't seen before.

Enter the Retail Apprehension and Prevention team, or RAP for short. The new undercover initiative operates on a similar premise: Plainclothes officers work in teams, blending in as customers while scouring stores for the crime rings, Seifert said.

It’s a hunting game as officers discreetly track the suspects from one store to another, watching as they steal hordes of goods, police said. Once officers determine the suspects have established a pattern, they drop their shopper façades and make arrests.

This approach may only make sense in areas with a high concentration of organized shoplifting rings. However, if your jurisdiction is being ate up with boosters, then it might be worth exploring. I'm sure your retailers would appreciate the help.

Organized Shoplifting Requires An Organized Response

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

Shoplifting is a problem for retailers all year long but the problem becomes particularly acute during the busy holiday shopping season. Oregonlive.com has this story about the problems the Pacific Northwest region is having with organized shoplifting rings.

"The bad guys don't have jurisdictional boundaries," said Tacoma Police Officer Scott Stanley, who created the nation's first multi-state alliance against organized retail theft. The alliance has a list of more than 600 retail members -- car shops, mall stores and supermarkets -- in states ranging from Washington and Oregon to California and Alaska.

"The Pacific Northwest is unique: Nowhere else that I've studied sees so much mobility of thieves," Stanley said. "These guys can start in Seattle in the morning, hit I-5 and wind up in California by the end of it, stopping at every store along the way."

Better communications between retailers likely to be victimized and law enforcement is critical to shutting down these organized criminals. Even if your jurisdiction doesn't have a significant problem with organized retail theft rings, a partnership between retailers and police can pay dividends in combatting retail theft.

The Center For Problem Oriented Policing has a POP Guide covering shoplifting with great information on various responses to retail thefts.

What is your agency doing to partner with retailers in response to retail thefts?

You Can Find Anything On Craigslist, Even Victims

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Las Vegas Sun had an article that pointed to a trend we are even seeing in the sleepy little burg where I work, that is robbers setting up victims by luring them with offers of cheap merchandise on Craigslist.

The setup goes something like this: A “seller” posts an ad for an item such as an iPad or an expensive watch — often at an incredibly low price. He lures in a prospective buyer then arranges a meeting, perhaps in a remote parking lot in the evening.
When the buyer shows up with the cash, instead of getting a great deal, he gets a gun pointed in his face and is robbed.

For some reason, it seems like the victim's normal sense of caution goes out the window when they are getting a "deal" on Craigslist. It's likely that one of the most effective way of dealing with these types of robberies is to educate potential victims on safe ways to pursue these types of transactions so they can avoid becoming a victim in the first place.

Have you seen many Craigslist related robberies reported to your agency? How is your agency working on educating the public about these types of crimes?

Tuba Thefts Plague High School Bands

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

I hadn't heard of this trend but it makes sense. Apparently, tubas are such a hot commodity in the southern California area that their popularity has created a rash of tuba thefts according to this piece over at the LA Times.

Those are just the latest in what police and music instructors are describing as a rash of unsolved tuba thefts at high schools in southeast Los Angeles County. The thefts, according to band leaders, were probably spurred by Southern California's banda music craze, as well as the high prices the brass instruments fetch on the black market. A high-quality tuba can cost well more than $5,000, but even an old, dented tuba can sell for as much as $2,000, music teachers say.

I posted before about the acronym CRAVED that is used to describe items that are hot commodities for thieves. The acronym stands for:

Concealable. Things that can be hidden in pockets or bags are more vulnerable to shoplifters and other sneak thieves. Things that are difficult to identify or can easily be concealed after being stolen are also more at risk. In some cases, thefts may even be concealed from the owners of goods, as when lumber or bricks left lying around on building sites are stolen.
Removable. The fact that cars and bikes are mobile helps explain why they are so often stolen. Nor is it surprising that laptop computers are often stolen since these are not only desirable but also easy to carry. What is easy to carry depends on the kind of theft. Both burglars and shoplifters steal cigarettes, liquor, medicines, and beauty aids from supermarkets, but burglars take them in much larger quantities.
Available. Desirable objects that are widely available and easy to find are at higher risk. This explains why householders try to hide jewelry and cash from burglars. It also helps explain why cars become more at risk of theft as they get older. They become increasingly likely to be owned by people living in poor neighborhoods with less off-street parking and more offenders living nearby. Finally, theft waves can result from the availability of an attractive new product, such as the cell phone, which quickly establishes its own illegal market (see box).
Valuable. Thieves will generally choose the more expensive goods, particularly when they are stealing to sell. But value is not simply defined in terms of resale value. Thus, when stealing for their own use, juvenile shoplifters may select goods that confer status among their peers. Similarly, joyriders are more interested in a car's performance than its financial value.
Enjoyable. Hot products tend to be enjoyable things to own or consume, such as liquor, tobacco, and DVDs. Thus, residential burglars are more likely to take DVD players and televisions than equally valuable electronic goods, such as microwave ovens. This may reflect the pleasure-loving lifestyle of many thieves (and their customers).
Disposable. Only recently has systematic research begun on the relationship between hot products and theft markets, but it is clear that thieves will tend to select things that are easy to sell. This helps explain why batteries and disposable razors are among the most frequently stolen items from American drug stores.

This comes from Chapter 31 of the excellent book Crime Analysis For Problem Solvers. Knowing what items are CRAVED in your area can help you focus on strategies to combat these types of crimes. In this instance, since we know that school bands are most likely to have this CRAVED item, we could focus prevention efforts on hardening the target locations and instituting practices that might make these types of thefts harder to pull off.

What items are CRAVED in your jurisdiction right now?

A Small Town In The Middle Of New York City

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

The New York Times had a piece this weekend on a side of New York City I never knew existed. Roosevelt Island is a small island between Manhattan and Queens. The part that struck me was that because of it's unique geography, Roosevelt Island was more like a small town than an area in one of the world's largest most cosmopolitan cities.

It is a law enforcement curiosity. Technically part of Manhattan, Roosevelt Island pays for its own Public Safety Department and 37 peace officers. They are trained by the state with special New York City patrolman status, meaning they can make arrests and issue summonses. Three are plainclothes detectives. All are unarmed.

“This is New York City,” Chief Guerra said, “so crime does occur here.” A given week might bring a graffiti complaint or a small-bore drug arrest. But seven burglaries in and around the same apartment complex in June constituted a full-blown crime wave.

This is definitely not what I think of when I think of Main Street, USA.

As If Katrina Wasn't Enough, Killings Soar In The Big Easy

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

The New York Times had a great piece yesterday on New Orleans struggle with a off the charts homicide rate.

Of all the challenges facing the city of New Orleans, none is as urgent or as relentlessly grim as the city’s homicide rate. It was measured at 10 times the national average in 2010, long before shootings on Halloween night in the crowded French Quarter revealed to a larger public what was going on in poor neighborhoods around the city every week. There were 51 homicides per 100,000 residents here last year, compared with less than 7 per 100,000 in New York or 23 in similar-size Oakland, Calif.
“From September of last year to February of this year,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a recent speech, after reciting a litany of killings from one city high school, “a student attending John McDonogh was more likely to be killed than a soldier in Afghanistan.”

Unfortunately, for the citizens of New Orleans, they're in the middle of a perfect storm. A dysfunctional and sometimes corrupt police department, poverty and societal upheaval have fostered a lack of trust between citizens and the government entities that should be working to make their community safer. Until the police and the community can work together, it's not likely that they are going to get a handle on this anytime soon.

It makes me glad I work in a community that has a much better relationship with the citizens we serve.

Metal Theft Causes Lots Of Problems For Public Agencies

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

The San Francisco Chronicle had this story about the problem metal thefts are becoming for public agencies like the Bay Area Rapid Transit system or BART. A recent theft on a BART transportation project caused a $500,000 loss and a 10 month delay after thieves stole cables for their copper.

BART officials said they intend to spearhead a task force on metal theft in hopes of reducing a problem vexing numerous public agencies, utilities and businesses, costing millions of dollars a year.
One potential partner: Vallejo, where city officials said Tuesday that thieves have stripped copper wire from 77 streetlights and signal lights at five intersections since May. The cash-strapped city has been unable to replace much of the wiring, plunging some streets into darkness and forcing three of the intersections to be turned into four-way stops.

The thefts in the bankrupt city of Valejo has left traffic signals out after thieves stealing $25 worth of copper are causing tens of thousands in damages that the city can't afford to fix.

The piece goes on to quote Brandon Kooi who authored the Problem Oriented Policing Center POP Guide The Problem of Scrap Metal Theft. This POP Guide is a good place to start if you are trying to develop a problem oriented policing strategy for dealing with metal thefts in your area.

When Times Are Tight You Gotta Cut Somewhere, Even Funeral Escorts

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

This isn't the first story from cash strapped Detroit, but there was a story over at the Detroit News where they indicated that to save money Detroit Police are no longer going to provide police escorts for funeral processions in most cases.

"Most police departments provide escorts based on the availability of officers, and our members are seeing that there just aren't as many officers available as there used to be," said Douma.
Budget-conscious, manpower-strapped police departments have ended funeral accompaniments. Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles are among the cities that have stopped providing escorts in recent years, except for funerals of police officers, firefighters or soldiers killed in battle.

Earlier this year, Detroit Police announced that they were moving to a verified response policy for handling alarm calls in order to save money.

If there is a silver lining to the poor economy one thing has to be that police are rethinking if they services they currently provide really are part of their mission. In the case of funeral escorts, does making sure that everyone gets from the funeral home to the graveside in an orderly procession really contribute to the mission of crime suppression? If it doesn't, then why were we doing it in the first place?

If times were tight at your agency, what services could you cut without impacting your primary mission of crime suppression or public safety?

Most Shoplifted Product: Meat

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

Adweek had an interesting piece last week that looked at some of the stats behind shoplifting. Some of them, including the top ten most shoplifted items were interesting.

"Seventy percent of shoplifters tell us they didn't plan to shoplift," says Barbara Staib, spokesperson for the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention.

We also know that three-quarters of shoplifters aren't troubled teens; they're adults--most with jobs. And 35 percent of losses will happen with the help of a corrupt employee.

The article also states that retailers expect to lose $119 billion dollars this year due to shoplifters.

The Center For Problem Oriented Policing has a POP Guide for Shoplifting. Many of the responses recommended are not so much issues for the police as for the retailers themselves. That being said, it's important for local police to work with retailers to help reduce their victimization.

How does your agency reach out to local businesses to help them prevent retail theft?

Your Car May Save You From A Redlight Runner

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

Wired.com had a piece this weekend about researchers from MIT who have developed an algorithm to predict vehicles that are likely to run a red light. Previous attempts at predicting this behavior weren't accurate enough to make the technology viable. It appears that researchers have gotten it down to an algorithm with an 85% accuracy.

“Even though your light might be green, it may recommend you not go because there are people behaving badly that you may not be aware of,” said Jonathan How, an aeronautics and astronautics professor who co-created the algorithm.

One of my favorite mantras is that you "can't always arrest you way out of a crime problem". This also goes for traffic problems. It may be that the solution to the danger of red light runners isn't writing more tickets, but instead finding ways for people to avoid dangerous situations in the first place.

Better engineering has significantly improved highway safety whether it's better designed cars or better designed roadways. It also doesn't have the stigma that's associated with traffic enforcement, that is, that traffic enforcement is more about revenue generation and less about making roadways safer.

"Big Data" Holds Promise For Police Too

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

This isn't directly related to crime but does have an indirect application to crime analysis. NPR had a story this week on how companies are searching for people with analytical or mathematical expertise to analyze the large data sets they collect.

"There's one common element across all these people that stands out above everything, and that's curiosity," Patil says. "It's an intense curiosity to understand what's behind the data."
He compares raw data to clay: shapeless until molded by a gifted mathematician. A good mathematician can write algorithms that can churn through billions or trillions of data points and show where patterns emerge.

Not only do businesses have troves of "big data" they can mine for information, but most law enforcement agencies do as well. For instance I put together a data set of over 1 million of our Call For Service records the last time I redrew our beat boundaries. This is why the field of predictive policing looks so promising. The big data we hold is the key for making our agencies better at solving crime problems in our community.

Of course most agencies aren't in a position to hire a mathematician to mine their data. However, as the technology matures it should trickle down to where we can get at it. This makes me hopeful that we can use these techniques to serve our communities.

How does you agency use your "big data" to drive your operations?

Getting The Edge On Drug Trafficker Whac-A-Mole In Mexico

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

Slate Magazine had this article on using computer models to predict where drug traffickers will move their shipment routes to in response to enforcement crackdowns in Mexico.

Dell uses Dijkstra’s algorithm first to model the routes that cost-minimizing traffickers would take on Mexico’s roadways and then to predict how these paths would change if disrupted by PAN victories along a route. It turns out that this model—combining simple assumptions about traffickers’ transport costs with an exercise in using Google Maps—is remarkably predictive of how trafficking routes are affected by PAN-led crackdowns that effectively sever paths on the road network: Drug confiscations in the communities where Dell predicts traffickers will relocate to following a crackdown increase by about 20 percent in the months following close PAN victories. It’s a reminder that crime fighting is a bit like Whac-A-Mole—smothering traffickers’ activities in one locale merely causes them to shift their operations elsewhere. Dell finds that drug-related homicides also go up in places that her model predicts will lie on traffickers’ new paths from Mexican drug labs to the U.S. border. (And she finds tentative evidence that towns on newly created routes see a decline in informal sector wages, presumably since drug traffickers also run protection rackets along their smuggling routes, which primarily victimize small shopkeepers and others in the informal economy.)

The whole piece is an interesting read on just how economics plays a role in criminal enterprises like drug trafficking. I think it also shows the promise that technology like GIS can have in understanding and ultimately interrupting these illicit economies.

Whose Really To Blame For Crime Ridden Apartments?

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

The UPI website had this interesting crime story on a study of crime at apartment complexes in Ohio. University of Cincinnati doctoral student Kathleen Gallagher looked at the correlation between apartment complexes with high crime and disorder and the prevalence of tenants on Section 8 or public assistance.

"Several owners had high numbers of properties with Section 8 tenants and with crime, but we found that these owners also had high crime properties without Section 8 tenants," Gallagher said in a statement.

"This suggested that the property owners themselves might have created or allowed environments where offenders felt comfortable committing crime."

In other words, problem landlords seemed to be the root of the problem, not whether residents were using Section 8 housing vouchers or not, Gallagher said.

What I found most interesting is that it wasn't the tenants that were the root of the problem but the management of these complexes. There are a lot of similarities between crime and disorder problems at apartment complexes and similar problems at budget motels.

In fact, Gallagher's findings are similar to findings on studies of disorder at budget motels that was published in the Problem Oriented Policing Center's POP Guide Disorder At Budget Motels that had this bit:

Motels attract crime, in that people inclined to commit it are drawn to them because their conditions and reputations are favorable for doing so. Poorly managed motels also enable crime by attracting offenders to a location with weak oversight.

There is also a similar conclusion in the POP Guide Drug Dealing in Privately Owned Apartment Complexes.

If we remember the Crime Triangle we know that for crime to occur we have to have a motivated offender come together with a suitable victim in time and place.

Applying the Crime Triangle to look at crime and disorder at these apartment complexes or at budget motels we will probably find that many of these problematic locations have different offenders and different victims coming together in these locations. The one constant is the location. When management of the location is inadequate in extending control over the place these locations will make it easier for offenders and victims to come together and for a crime to occur.

If we are going to be effective at tackling crime and disorder problems at apartment complexes that have a disproportionate amount of police calls, we're going to have to convince landlords to change the environment in their complexes.

What has your agency done to motivate the owners of troubled apartments to work with you in solving crime and disorder problems at these locations?

Thanks to Julie Wartell on the IACA mailing list for the heads up on the Ohio study story.

There's More Than One Way To Reduce Inner City Crime

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Slate Magazine had an interesting article last week that looked at John Jay College professor David M. Kennedy's book Don't Shoot. The piece is a good read and had this interesting bit:

Don’t Shoot is Kennedy’s journey into the bizarre and often counterintuitive world of criminal justice policy. Kennedy, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is best known for helping to bring about the so-called “Boston Miracle.” In1990, youth homicide in Boston had reached historic heights and trust between cops and minority residents was at a nadir. Kennedy’s team mined the data to find that a small, hard-core group of offenders were committing the vast majority of Boston’s violent crime. They brought this “moneyball” approach to police and community leaders, and soon they were reaching out to the perpetrators in open town hall meetings. They adopted a carrot-and-stick approach: one more homicide and the police will make nightly arrests, confiscate drugs, call in the Fed, and do whatever else it might take to bring down profits and make life miserable. No killings and you’ll get services, housing subsidies, and help finding jobs.

This is an interesting approach, one that is much more nuanced than the typical "get tough" approach to crime that we hear from politicians here in Texas. While the idea of negotiating with criminals isn't very palatable, engaging the entire community in dealing with crime problems would probably make that part a bit easier to take. If we are really going to be effective in dealing with nagging crime problems we have to get everyone involved.

The piece from Slate is worth the read. Hit the link to read it.

Predictive Policing Roundup

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

There were a number of stories in the news this weekend that talked about predictive policing. Here is a roundup of some of the more interesting ones:

The first piece over at NPR has this bit:

UCLA anthropologist Jeff Brantingham says he's not surprised. Human behavior, especially when in search of resources, follows very predictable patterns. For his doctoral work, Brantingham studied foraging strategies of ancient hunter-gatherers in Mongolia.
"It's surprising how similar the problems are," he said. "How it is that ancient hunter-gatherers found gazelles on the Mongolian steppes is very similar to how it is that offenders find a car to steal."

I'd have never guessed how similar thieves are to ancient Mongol hunter-gatherers. NPR also has a companion audio piece of an interview with former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton where he talks about how predictive policing fits into the future of policing.

The Mercury News has a piece on Santa Cruz Police and their predictive policing program being named by Time Magazine as one of the year's top inventions. In the story is this bit:

The program can also help ease the pain of departments dealing with shrinking staffing due to budget cuts, a matter of increasing importance given the nation's economic troubles.
"Technological programs like this can help equalize the gap there," said Friend.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel also mentioned Santa Cruz PD's predictive policing program in this story that looked a some crime numbers from Santa Cruz.

I think the next few years are going to be very interesting where predictive policing technology is concerned. Now if I can just apply some of this ancient Mongolian hunter-gathering mojo to some of the crooks in my jurisdiction.

Happy Thanksgiving From The Crime Analyst's Blog

2011-11-24T07:00:00.000-06:00

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

While you're enjoying your time with family and friends this Thanksgiving, don't forget to say a prayer of thanks for all those in law enforcement who'll be working today. While they would probably rather be watching football, eating and drinking with their loved ones, they will dutifully be on the job to keep your community safe.

Does The Public Really Have A Right To Listen To Police Radios?

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

USA Today had a story this week that indicated that more law enforcement agencies are encrypting their police radio transmissions to thwart eavesdroppers with malicious intent. What I thought was interesting in the article was this bit:

The transition to encryption has put police departments at odds with the news media, who say their newsgathering is impeded when they can't use scanners to monitor developing crimes and disasters. Journalists and scanner hobbyists argue that police departments already have the capability to communicate securely and should be able to adjust to the times without reverting to full encryption.

Should the police make decisions about their practices based on whether it makes it easier for the media to do their jobs (and ultimately make a buck), or if it will give hobbyists something to do? It seems to me that the primary role of the police is to suppress crime and make their communities a safer place to live. It's arguable whether making things easier for a reporter to get the scoop on crime stories has much of an effect on this role.

As a twenty year law enforcement veteran I have seen quite a number of instances where the bad guys have been listening in on our radios. Fortunately where I work these incidents don't happen every day. So realistically, it's not a huge threat, but it is a threat nonetheless. The part I have trouble with is that our tactical decisions should be based on what's best for us and our community, not what is easiest for a news reporter.

When we start basing tactical decisions on what makes for good TV we end up with this kind of nonsense.

Less Cops Equals Less Arrests

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

An Associated Press story over at NJ.com has an analysis that isn't really too surprising, the consequences of police layoffs in New Jersey have led to a reduction in arrests for minor offenses.

An Associated Press analysis of municipal court data shows that when police are laid off, department priorities shift: Arrests and summonses of all kinds drop, with enforcement for minor crimes and traffic violations suffering the most as police focus their remaining resources on more serious offenses.

The strategy may make sense, but experts say it leaves a troubling gap in law enforcement.

"People are committing crimes and they're not suffering the consequences for it," said Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk. "I think it has emboldened those who are committing the crimes. They do not get arrested, and consequently, they continue committing these crimes."

Of course this doesn't bode well for the future if this continues. There is a belief that pursuing criminal cases for relatively minor quality of life issues can lead to declines in other types of crimes. This theory is sometimes referred to as the "broken windows theory". Additionally, arrests for minor offenses are a tool to take serious criminals off the streets. This keeps them from committing more serious crimes.

Either way, there are real consequences to the drastic cuts we saw take place in New Jersey and other cash strapped municipalities. While we can strive to be as efficient as possible and stretch our budget dollars, there does come a point where a reduction in budget monies will lead to a reduction in police services.

For the public, they have to decide what level of police services they are willing to pay for.

Shoppers Aren't The Only Bargain Hunters During The Holidays

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Merced Sun Star had a piece last week on the increase in certain types of crime in the Merced, California area during the holidays.

Sheriff's Cmdr. B.J. Jones said the spike in crime is also in large part due to a lack of awareness by holiday shoppers. "It is absolutely a known fact that during the holidays, a lot more burglaries occur based on the shopping season," he said. "All the thieves know to go to the malls and the shopping centers and they look in cars and people don't secure their items in there -- they don't hide them."
Criminals will also take advantage of expensive gifts left under Christmas trees, Jones added. "Thieves definitely take advantage of the holidays to victimize people," he said.

At the agency where I work, we are already gearing up for the holidays with our annual program of high visibility patrols in and around our major shopping and retail areas. A conversation that came up during a recent planning meeting was that not only was it important to prevent crimes in and around these areas, but it is also just as important to reduce the public's fear of crime in these areas during this time of year.

Crimes related to the holidays aren't the only type of seasonal crimes. Some types go up in the summer, others at other times of year. Some are unique to communities that have regular big events such as Mardi Gras. The good thing is that since these events regularly occur, we can plan ahead for them.

What kinds of seasonal crimes spike in your community? What are you doing to help combat these crimes?

Thief Barbecues Neighbor's Goat, Gets Charged With Felony

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

From the "Only in Texas" file comes this story over at the Austin American Statesman:

Aguirre told the detectives he stole the goat and took it to a home where it was butchered, the affidavit said. Aguirre told them the goat was barbecued and served to people in the Apache Shores neighborhood near Lake Travis, the affidavit said.
He told detectives he took that goat because it was “very gentle, like a dog,” the affidavit said.

That is gonna turn out to be some very expensive cabrito.

More On Predictive Policing

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

Computerworld had a story this week on efforts at developing predictive policing technology by both Los Angeles Police and Santa Cruz Police. The article is worth the read and had some good info in it, including this bit:

The theory is that predictive analytics might work better on property crimes because the targets are stationary and the nature of the targets doesn't change that much over time, he says, unlike crimes where the victims are mobile and change their behaviors.

Criminologists find it's easier to predict these types of crimes because there are patterns regarding where and when they occur. For example, burglaries tend to be clustered in terms of time and location and the individuals committing these crimes tend to have predictable patterns--usually they commit them somewhere near their homes or near familiar locations.

Additionally, property crimes are not displaceable crimes, which means if police departments target these crimes in particular areas, the criminals won't simply move two miles to another location.

I've covered predictive policing in a number of previous posts. Like many crime analysts, I am waiting for the methodology to trickle out to the masses as it's something I'd like to be able to implement at my agency. Of course, I'd also like to be able to do it on the cheap, because like nearly every other law enforcement agency in the country, I don't have the budget to be able to purchase an expensive commercial data mining software package.

Lodi Police Officer Turns Journalist To Get The Message Out

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Lodi News-Sentinel has a column called Behind The Badge that is written by Lt. Chris Piombo of the Lodi, California Police Department. In this piece, Piombo analyzes local vehicle burglary trends in order to get the word out to the community he serves.

There were 38 auto burglaries in the city of Lodi between Oct. 8 and Nov. 8. That's about one burglary per day in a city of over 60,000 residents. Pretty good. And that's the second-lowest monthly total for the past year. Pretty good times two.

Here are some shared factors I found among those 38 burglaries. Think about them as you decide where to park your car.

As expected, the vast majority of the burglaries occurred at night. Suspects mostly broke into cars parked on the street or in the driveway. Thirteen of the thefts occurred during the daylight hours. Sixteen break-ins occurred in shopping center, restaurant, or bank parking lots. Parking lots open to the public, with customers walking around pushing shopping carts. We often wonder how the thieves do it. Are they specters who materialize in our dimension for a nanosecond, bust your window, swipe your purse, then slither back into that parallel universe where Spock wears a moustache?

The piece offers a good analysis of the vehicle burglary problem in Lodi along with information on how the public can avoid becoming a victim of this crime. Both Lodi Police and the Lodi News-Sentinel are doing a great job in informing the community of crime problems in the community with this column.

Many police agencies are harnessing tools such as social media in order to better communicate with the citizens they serve. Becoming a regular news columnist with the local paper is another way to connect with the community, albeit a pretty unique one.

How is your agency communicating with the community you serve?

Would You Trade Cops For Security Guards?

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

The nation's economic woes have hit quite a number of city governments. We've seen a bunch of drastic measures that cities have taken in order to cut expenses and stay afloat. Employee layoffs, reduced services and program cuts have all been tried by various cities. USA Today had a story yesterday that detailed plans by the city of Foley, Minnesota to replace their police force with private security guards.

Since it disbanded its police department in 2003, Foley has contracted with the Benton County Sheriff's Office to have three deputies patrol the city, providing coverage for about 17 hours a day. This year, the city paid $24,694 a month for the contract.

After cuts in state aid and uncertainty about future funding, the Foley City Council started looking at options to save money on policing. The city decided to contract with General Security Services Corp. to provide 24-hour coverage starting in January for about $16,000 a month.

Apparently not everyone thinks this is a real good idea. The story also had this bit about the plan:

In an Oct. 25 letter, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson warned that the city is opening itself up to "financial exposure." She cited the potential for lawsuits for false imprisonment as one example.

Swanson wrote that private security employees may carry a firearm but can use it only in self-defense. Private guards do not have the authority to make arrests other than citizens' arrests, cannot pursue fleeing suspects, make DWI arrests or even traffic stops. There's also the issue of whether self-incriminating statements or evidence taken from a suspect by a security officer could be used in court, she wrote.

Of course this brings up the subject of who is going to investigate and/or prosecute crimes that are discovered by these rent-a-cops. If there is a murder in Foley can the Sheriff's Office really refuse to investigate it? All the security guards can do in that situation is call for real cops. It seems that the Sheriff's Office is going to be forced to handle it even without the contribution they were getting when the city was paying for Deputies to provide policing services. It looks like the city is going to get off on the cheap and the Sheriff's office is going to end up having to deal with it anyway.

I sure hope that we don't see more of this kind of thing.

For Detroit, Being Number 1 Is A Community Tragedy

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Homicide is one of those crimes whose statistics don't seem to make sense. Sometimes you can have a banner year for all other crime stats and the homicide numbers end up going the other direction. There was a story this weekend over at the Detroit Free Press this weekend that looks at the tragedy these statistics often represent for Detroit.

"You have a window that's real small to be able to get as much as you can," Jimenez said. "You do your best work on a case in the first 48 hours because it just happened. Your witnesses are fresher. Your witnesses haven't talked to other people." In the past decade, Detroit's yearly homicide closure rate has ranged from 35% to 45%, but climbed to 54% in 2010, Godbee said. The national average is 65%. For cities with populations of 500,000 to 1 million, the closure rate was 57% in 2010. In 2010, the city recorded 308 homicides, according to the department -- a 15% decline from 2009 and the fewest since 1967, a year of rioting and accelerated flight from the city.
But the number of killings has spiked this year. The department recorded 301 homicides through Nov. 6, a 19% increase for the same period year over year.
"When you slow down the bodies coming in the front door, it gives your investigators more time to actually work on cases," Godbee said. "But when you got two, three, four bodies coming in a night and you have to stop your workload to go triage those cases and start your investigation on those, that has an effect on the ability for the homicide investigator to really dig into their cases."

The entire article is a good read. You can read it here. Looking at the crushing workload they have there in Detroit this year, it makes me glad I work in the sleepy little burg where I do. We may have a bump in the numbers on occasion, but nothing like they have had.

Austin's Serial Tire Slasher Sent To Prison

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Since the mid 1990's residents of the Hyde Park area of Austin have been victimized by a serial tire slasher. Over his rather prolific career, Tommy Joe Kelley has allegedly been responsible for damaging hundreds of tires in the neighborhood. The Austin American Statesman has a story on Kelley's recent trial where he was found guilty and sentenced to the maximum of 10 years in prison. The story included this bit of testimony from convicted slasher.

Kelley, who represented himself during the trial, called the evidence against him circumstantial and said he had been unfairly targeted by police and neighborhood residents because of a 2006 American-Statesman article noting an arrest for criminal mischief.
"Ever since that point, I've been under real tight scrutiny," said Kelley, also known as Tommy Joe Adams.
During his rambling testimony, which was uninterrupted by questioning, Kelley told jurors about what he described as numerous assaults on him that went unpunished and improper arrests by police.
At one point, he said: "I don't walk around carrying a (expletive) knife. I can't. I get stopped so much. I tell you, I get stopped so much I quit buying weed."

Wow, to be so scrutinized that you can't even buy marihuana. What an injustice.

Law Enforcement Should Be A Partnership Not An Occupation

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ruben Navarrette over at CNN had a thought provoking opinion piece yesterday titled: Are Police Becoming Militarized? While I don't entirely agree with the whole piece, I think the piece does make a valid point about the role of police in society.

"There's a sense among new recruits that police work is about soldiering," my friend lamented. "And we don't discourage it. In fact, we encourage it -- when (in reality) about 90% of what we do is community relations."

He's right. Law enforcement isn't about kicking down doors. It's about building and maintaining relationships.

Police officers have the power to either make their job simpler or more difficult. If they treat people well and build relations, people will cooperate. They'll have leads, witnesses and informants. But if they see the people they're supposed to "protect and serve" the way an occupying army sees the native population, they're going to encounter resistance, suspicion, defiance and other things that make their job harder. That's a recipe for chaos.

As a former SWAT officer, I understand the need for police agencies to be adequately equipped to handle a variety of situations. That sometimes means very dangerous looking assault rifles, body armor and the occasional armored vehicle. But the employment of resources like this should be rare.

Crime suppression is much more effective when then citizens being protected are partners in the effort. There is a line in the Declaration of Independence that says:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The public is much more likely to give their consent if they feel like government, in this case the police, are public servants working on their behalf to make their community safer. This means that they have a say in determining our priorities and our methods. It doesn't mean they entirely dictate these priorities and methods, but, it does mean that we need to have a dialog with them about it. That's what a partnership is.

What are you doing to partner with the community you serve?

The Dying Art Of Lush Workers

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

I always enjoy reading about unusual crimes and unusual criminals. There was a piece last week over at the New York Times that looked at the dying art of "lush workers". Lush Workers are a special type of pickpocket thieves that use a razor blade to literally cut the pockets open of their drunken victims.

“It’s like a lost art,” the lieutenant said. “It’s all old-school guys who cut the pocket. They die off.” And they do not seem to be replacing themselves, he said. “It’s like the TV repairman.”

Lush workers date back at least to the beginning of the last century, their ilk cited in newspaper crime stories like one in The New York Times in 1922, describing “one who picks the pockets of the intoxicated. He is the old ‘drunk roller’ under a new name.” While the term technically applies to anyone who steals from a drunken person, most police officers reserve it for a special kind of thief who uses straight-edge razors found in any hardware store.

Given the dearth of subways in the sleepy little burg where I work, we don't see many lush workers or even pickpockets for that matter. That's probably a good thing too.

I also want to give a tip of the hat to security expert Bruce Schneier for the heads up on the NY Times story.

From Copper To Grease, Thieves Will Take It

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

NPR had a story yesterday on the rise in thieves targeting used cooking oil collected by restaurants. Given the increased demand for used cooking oil to be recycled into bio-fuels, this isn't too surprising.

Restaurants and grease recyclers have been forced to move barrels inside, lock them up, or install surveillance cameras, according to Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association in Alexandria, Va. "It's become the new copper," a commodity that also attracts thieves, Cook tells The Salt.

Yellow grease, the proper name for cooking oil that's had the food and trash filtered out of it, is selling for about 40 cents a pound, almost five times what it was a decade ago. That means a gallon of yellow grease today sells for more than $3 a gallon — on par with a gallon of milk.

When looking at any crime problem, it often helps to look at it using The Crime Triangle. In repeat theft cases like this, the common denominator is often the place/victim. The first step in dealing with this crime problem is probably to get the victims to exercise better guardianship over their property. This could go a long way towards changing the cost/benefit ratio for the grease thief to one that isn't in his favor.

Any outreach effort focusing on restaurants should also probably include obtaining reliable after hours contact information for the business. That way if an enterprising Patrol Officer catches someone making off with barrels of grease behind the business at 3AM, they can get the victim to respond so a criminal case can be made against the thief.

Has your jurisdiction had success in dealing with grease thieves? What strategy was the easiest and most effective to implement?

What If The City Can't Pay The Light Bill?

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Austin American Statesman had a piece this weekend about the plight faced by Highland Park, Michigan who after huge budget problems not only turned off their street lights, but ripped the poles out as well in order to save money on the light bill.

Highland Park's decision is one of the nation's most extreme austerity measures, even among the scores of communities that can no longer afford to provide basic services. But unlike many other cutbacks that can easily be reversed, this one appears to be permanent.

The city is $58 million in debt and has many more people than jobs, plus dozens of burned-out or vacant houses and buildings. With fewer than 12,000 residents, its population has dwindled to half the level from 20 years ago.

Faced with a $4 million electric bill that required $60,000 monthly payments, Mayor Hubert Yopp asked the City Council to consider reducing lighting. Council members reluctantly approved the plan, even in an election year.

The economic crisis has been pretty severe for many rust belt communities. With drastic measures such as this, it will be interesting to see just how these municipal governments survive.

While we've seen some tighter budgets in the sleepy little burg where I work, we haven't had to deal with anything like this. I also hope we never do.

Popular Products Also Popular With Thieves

2011-11-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Apple Computer products such as the iPhone and iPad are wildly popular with consumers. I also have to admit, they are also popular in the Department where I work. One downside to this kid of cult like popularity is the fact that this kind of popularity also means the devices are popular with thieves. Yesterday there was a trio of stories, including two from central Texas regarding thieves targeting the devices, or their owners for crimes.

The first from the tech website Cult of Mac is one where scam artists were targeting people in parking lots offering to sell iPads to passersby. After being show a real iPad in the box, the thieves would substitute an iPad box with a dummy iPad when the purchase was being consummated.

The second story over at the Austin American Statesman detailed an man who arranged to purchase or sell iPhones on Craiglist and then robbing the seller or purchaser at gunpoint when they showed up in a sketchy area to complete the deal.

The last one, also at the Austin American Statesman details a group of thieves in the sleepy little burg where I work, who managed to steal 38 iPads from a Wal-Mart display case and get them out the door.

A while back I covered a chapter in the book Crime Analysis For Problem Solvers where they used the acronym CRAVED to describe some items popular with thieves. The acronym stands for:

Concealable. Things that can be hidden in pockets or bags are more vulnerable to shoplifters and other sneak thieves. Things that are difficult to identify or can easily be concealed after being stolen are also more at risk. In some cases, thefts may even be concealed from the owners of goods, as when lumber or bricks left lying around on building sites are stolen.
Removable. The fact that cars and bikes are mobile helps explain why they are so often stolen. Nor is it surprising that laptop computers are often stolen since these are not only desirable but also easy to carry. What is easy to carry depends on the kind of theft. Both burglars and shoplifters steal cigarettes, liquor, medicines, and beauty aids from supermarkets, but burglars take them in much larger quantities.
Available. Desirable objects that are widely available and easy to find are at higher risk. This explains why householders try to hide jewelry and cash from burglars. It also helps explain why cars become more at risk of theft as they get older. They become increasingly likely to be owned by people living in poor neighborhoods with less off-street parking and more offenders living nearby. Finally, theft waves can result from the availability of an attractive new product, such as the cell phone, which quickly establishes its own illegal market.
Valuable. Thieves will generally choose the more expensive goods, particularly when they are stealing to sell. But value is not simply defined in terms of resale value. Thus, when stealing for their own use, juvenile shoplifters may select goods that confer status among their peers. Similarly, joyriders are more interested in a car's performance than its financial value.
Enjoyable. Hot products tend to be enjoyable things to own or consume, such as liquor, tobacco, and DVDs. Thus, residential burglars are more likely to take DVD players and televisions than equally valuable electronic goods, such as microwave ovens. This may reflect the pleasure-loving lifestyle of many thieves (and their customers).
Disposable. Only recently has systematic research begun on the relationship between hot products and theft markets, but it is clear that thieves will tend to select things that are easy to sell. This helps explain why batteries and disposable razors are among the most frequently stolen items from American drug stores.

It pays to keep up with items that are CRAVED by thieves in your community. Identifying these items can help you focus your efforts and preventing, interrupting or reducing crimes that involve them.

What items are CRAVED by thieves in your jurisdiction?

Every Now And Then The Police Need A Helping Hand

2011-11-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the police need a bit of help in catching the bad guys. In this instance, fate lent a hand to Hurst, Texas Police as they tried to catch two car thieves during a high speed pursuit. From the story over at the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

A Jefferson man in a stolen car led Hurst police on a brief chase Tuesday afternoon before he and a passenger took a wrong turn and abandoned the car in the wrong place: the Hurst Police Department parking lot.
Doh!
One suspect made it about a hundred yards and the second got about 60 before Hurst police came pouring out of the police station and municipal court to apprehend the duo.

At least the drive to the jail didn't take long.

Should a $50 Theft Really Be A Felony?

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

The nation's poor economy continues to cause people to rethink criminal justice policy. This is probably a good thing. What was once unthinkable, such as questioning the wisdom of harsh prison sentences for minor drug offenses, is now being discussed in many circles. Even staunch law and order conservatives are wondering if the cost of incarceration is worth the huge sums of money it takes to clothe, house and feed prisoners convicted of minor offenses.

There's a story over at USA Today that indicates some states that are reconsidering the felony classification of certain property crimes in order to save money by prosecuting these crimes as misdemeanors.

State officials and criminal justice analysts said budget crises have forced state lawmakers, sometimes at political risk, to enact less punitive measures for criminal offenders. "Clearly one of the motivating factors is cost," said Alison Shames, associate director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections for the Vera Institute of Justice, an advocacy group. "States are looking at the numbers of people in prison for property crimes and asking themselves a simple question: Does everybody really need to be there?"

Of course, the unspoken secret is that many of these "felony" offenses aren't really being punished as felony offenses. In the sleepy little burg where I work it's not unusual to see probation being handled out for second and third offenses of Burglary Of A Habitation which here in Texas is a second degree felony. For reference, Murder is a first degree felony.

I guess if you call it a second degree felony but the offender never makes it to the state prison then the lawmakers can call themselves tough on crime without actually having to write the check to pay for it. The offender gets a felony on his record and the county gets to pick up the cost of prosecuting said felon and housing him in the county lockup until he gets sentenced to probation.

And here in Texas we love to classify offenses as felonies even if we don't punish them like they're felonies. By some counts we're already up to over 2,000 felony offenses on the books. Maybe one day we'll rethink how we classify offenses and actually have a little truth in sentencing. Severe where it needs to be, but reasonable where it should be.

How To Explain Predictive Policing

2011-11-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

There have been quite a number of news stories about predictive policing. I've written about so many recently, that I had to give my posts about them their own category tag. But the potential for predictive policing has been hard to explain.

This past weekend there was a story over at the Orlando Sentinel looking at Palm Beach County's experiment with predictive policing. In the piece there was this bit:

"If you're driving a car, [current data analysis] is a rear-view mirror," Palm Beach County Sheriff's Maj. Karl Durr said. "Predictive policing is looking forward in the front windshield.
"Law enforcement is constantly looking in rear-view mirror," he said, "and now we're looking forward."

That's probably the most concise analogy for the potential that predictive policing holds for law enforcement that I have seen so far.

No Crime Is Unimportant To The Victim

2011-10-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

The New York Times had a story this weekend about the family of a murder victim and what they went through in dealing with this crime. There was a quote from the victim's son in the story that I thought was worth exploring.

“There are hundreds of cases a year that go unsolved,” he said. “It’s a small homicide case. It’s not high-profile. But to me, it’s the biggest thing in the world.”

Deep down inside the most jaded cop, if they were honest they would likely say that they got into law enforcement because they wanted to help people, or as I used to half jokingly tell people, "to crush crime and evil and to make the world safe for women and babies".

Something that we would do well to remember in all our work is that no matter how ordinary a crime might seem to us, it's an extraordinary event to the victim and their family. They deserve our compassion and they deserve our best work.

Fear, Reality and Crime Statistics

2011-10-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

There was a piece over at the Indiana news outlet WLFI.com about crime numbers in Lafayette, Indiana. What I found interesting about this was the difference between the public's perception of crime in the community and what an analysis of crime statistics by Lafayette Police's crime analyst revealed.

A police action shooting that killed a man after he stabbed an officer in his face left a woman saying, "How horrible Lafayette is turning out!" Some others NewsChannel 18 spoke with around town had similar concerns about the crime rate.

"It's a little bit more crime than when I used to come here and visit my grandma when I was a kid," said Allen Ferguson, who now delivers pizza around West Lafayette.

But Lafayette Police Crime Analyst Steve Hawthorne said those concerns are unfounded.

"I would certainly disagree with them," Hawthorne said. "We've certainly been seeing the crime decrease over the years, steadily for the past five years or so. Now we do see some inconsistency by month, but that's typical."

There are probably a number of reasons why the public's perception of crime doesn't square with reality. The media probably plays a role in this, after all their job is to get people to buy their papers or to watch their news broadcast. Lurid crime stories tend to draw readers/viewers so there is a natural tendency for people to focus on these events.

The media is also more ubiquitous than ever before with smartphone apps, websites, Twitter, Facebook etc. People now spend more time immersed in news stories from all over the globe within minutes of an event occurring. This constant barrage of crime stories reinforces the mistaken perception that crime is "everywhere" and getting worse.

We also have a tendency to want to believe the worst. If there is a murder in your community, how many times do you find yourself thinking "What's this world coming to?" But according to the 2010 Uniform Crime Reports the reality of murder is this:

An estimated 14,748 persons were murdered nationwide in 2010. This was a 4.2 percent decrease from the 2009 estimate, a 14.8 percent decrease from the 2006 figure, and an 8.0 percent decrease from the 2001 estimate.

According to Centers For Disease Control statistics, In 2009 there were 16,591 deaths due to assault/homicides. However, the leading cause of death was heart disease with 598,607 deaths. Homicide isn't even in the top ten leading causes of death (it's #15). In fact, you're more likely to die of Parkinson's disease, high blood pressure, liver disease, suicide, the flu, diabetes, accidents, cancer, etc. than for you to have murder listed on your death certificate.

So next time you see a crime story that gets your anxiety level up, take a deep breath and remember the reality is probably not as bad as we perceive it to be.

Hell Hath No Fury

2011-10-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

It's not too uncommon for someone to accuse a former flame of a crime in order to get back at them or otherwise make their life miserable. However, it's not often that they go to the lengths this woman is accused of going. The Los Angeles Times has a great piece on what one man went through after he was accused of abducting, torturing and sexually assaulting the mother of his child.

She said Gonzalez ambushed her in the garage, dragged her to an upstairs bedroom, hogtied her with her clothes, singed her with matches and assaulted her vaginally and anally with a wooden coat hanger. Then, she said, he forced a plastic bag over her head and held it tight, and she feigned unconsciousness until he left.

The really terrifying part was that none of it was true.

The detective tried to imagine West hating her son's father enough to injure herself in such a methodical way. Tying the cord around her own neck, cutting off clumps of her hair, battering her own face, burning her own skin … and the other things. His mind strained at the effort.
He'd seen people give themselves a scratch or bruise, to impersonate victims, but nothing like this. "My God," he said, "to this extent?"

The whole piece by Christopher Goffard of the LA Times is worth the read. Hit the link to read it. I'm just glad that this kind of thing is a rarity. There's enough real violent crimes for the police to investigate.

More Cops Dying, But Why?

2011-10-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

CNN has a story covering remarks by Eric Holder at this week's International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. In the story there was this:

"Law enforcement fatalities are nearly 20 percent higher than this time last year. And gunfire deaths have increased by nearly 30 percent," Holder said.

"Today, line-of-duty officer deaths are approaching the highest rates we've seen in almost two decades," Holder told the police chiefs. "This is a devastating and unacceptable trend, and each of these deaths is a tragic reminder of the threats that law enforcement officers face each day."

There is also more information contained in a story posted yesterday at the FBI's website. The story highlights some of the data contained in the Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted (LEOKA) report for 2010 which was released yesterday.

"Hey, let's be careful out there."

What Level of Service Will You Pay For?

2011-10-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

There were a couple of sources commenting on a new Department of Justice report looking at the affect the economic downturn is having on police. A USA Today article had this bit:

"The effects of the economic downturn on law enforcement agencies may be felt for the next five to 10 years, or worse, permanently,'' the report concluded, adding that the days when local governments allocated up to 50% of their budgets for public safety are "no longer a fiscal possibility.''

The article also stated that 12,000 police officers will have lost their jobs by the end of the year and another 30,000 positions will remain unfilled by law enforcement agencies across the country.

This information comes from a DOJ report that is due to be released at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference today. The DOJ report titled The Impact of the Economic Downturn on American Police Agencies can be obtained here.

A couple of interesting bits from the report are how the economy has affected the services police provide or no longer provide as the case may be.

Eight percent of departments surveyed are no longer responding to all motor vehicle thefts.
Nine percent of departments are no longer responding to all burglar alarms.
Fourteen percent of departments are no longer responding to all non-injury motor vehicle accidents.

I would imagine that these numbers are only going to rise. I know that we've had discussions about changes in the services we provide here in the sleepy little burg where I work. We've been pretty fortunate that we have not had to make significant changes yet, but I have a feeling that we will have to make some hard decisions in the future.

That being said, it's important that law enforcement agencies work to be as efficient as possible if they are going to survive. It's also important that we are able to determine what level of service our communities are willing to pay for.

Are you ready to discuss what level of service your community is willing to pay for? Have you identified services that could likely be curtailed with the least effect on public safety?

Prevention Is Always Cheaper Than Incarceration

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

USA Today recently had an article looking at the impact that life prison sentences was having on states' corrections budgets. Inside the article was this great quote from one of Texas' own state legislators.

"The challenge for us is to distinguish between the offenders we are afraid of — those who deserve to be locked up for life — and those who we are just mad at and who can be handled outside of prison," Texas state Sen. John Whitmire said.
Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, helped lead an effort to divert hundreds of offenders to less expensive treatment programs outside of prison. He said the cost of basic housing for an inmate serving life — calculated at $30,000 per year — can easily top $1 million over the inmate's lifetime.

Of course, there is also something to be said about trying to divert or discourage people from entering the criminal justice system altogether. That would ultimately be the cheapest option. Yet in an era when nearly every politician regardless of party affiliation wants to be seen as tough on crime, often at the expense of social programs, it's hard for the value of some programs to get through the rhetoric.

For example, providing accessible and effective drug and alcohol treatment programs can help keep people with substance abuse issues out of the criminal justice system. Yet, these types of programs are often the first to be cut when times get tight.

Let's just hope that our cost cutting doesn't prove to be awfully expensive in the long run.

Compassionate Parole Denied For "Onion Field" Cop Killer

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Back when I was a young criminal justice student, I read all of Joseph Wambaugh's books and absolutely loved them. One of the best was Wambaugh's book The Onion Field which was one of Wambaugh's few non-fiction books. The book chronicles an incident in 1963 where two Los Angeles Police officers were kidnapped by two criminals, driven to an onion field where one of the officers, Ian Campbell was executed and the other, Karl Hettinger managed to escape the same fate as his partner.

There's a story over at The Los Angeles Times where they note that the lone remaining cop killer who is now 78 and dying of cancer was denied release on a compassionate parole.

But during an hourlong hearing in the state capital, no one spoke on Powell's behalf.

In fact, authorities asserted, he prefers to die in prison. Members of the victim's family and the law enforcement community told commissioners that was just fine with them.

"The only way Gregory Powell should leave prison is in a body bag," said Pat Corral, a niece of Ian Campbell, the slain officer.

Scott Rate, a director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said Powell's life sentence "is not a sentence of 'imprisonment until a terminal illness develops.' It should be expected that he spend his last waking moments deprived of freedom."

It's awful hard to extend compassion to someone who showed no compassion to Officer Ian Campbell or Officer Karl Hettinger.

Murder Victims Should Never Be Forgotten

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Matthew McGough over at Miller-McCune has an outstanding story on the genesis of Los Angeles PD's Cold Case Homicide squad. In nearly every police department in the United States there are unsolved homicides that are years or even decades old. LAPD was no different. In fact, the nearly 10 year old Cold Case squad has nearly 9,000 unsolved homicides to work dating back to the 1960's. That unit was started by now retired LAPD detective David Lambkin.

But Lambkin felt there was no more dignified work than trying to solve murders that society seemed to have forgotten. For victims’ families, he says, “this stuff never goes away. After awhile, they get tired of dealing with the department, and they quit calling. So there’s a huge moral reason to be looking back at them, now that we have these new tools.” The new tools were the revolutionary DNA, ballistics, and fingerprint databases that had come online in the 1990s. Lambkin had avidly followed their evolution. He knew these databases were rapidly improving detectives’ ability to identify people who very likely believed that they’d gotten away with murder.
In countless cases, Lambkin had seen firsthand how technology had made it possible to divine new leads from old crime-scene evidence. Given the number of long-unsolved murders on the LAPD’s rolls, and how much unanalyzed evidence the department was sitting on, Lambkin had no doubt that a cold case unit would be successful. For almost a decade, he’d lobbied for the LAPD to create one.

McGough does a really good job of documenting the huge undertaking that starting the unit was for Detective Lambkin. It is definitely worth reading the whole piece. It's also informative for those who don't realize just how labor intensive solving homicides can be, especially cold case homicides.

When I first was transferred from a detective position to the crime analysis unit in the sleepy little burg where I work, I set out to catalog a definitive list of all the cold case homicides we had. I spent quite a bit of time in our records vault pouring over microfilms and going through our homicide books to come up with a list of cold cases dating back to the early 1970's. Recently our Major Crimes Unit has added more names and case numbers to that list.

I found digging through these old files to be fascinating. I also found it heartbreaking that so many of these victims had the story of the end of their lives relegated to dusty files and microfilms.

What's your agency doing with the cold case homicides gathering dust in your files?

Arrest Not Always The Answer To Every Crime Problem

2011-10-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

USA Today had a great piece on how Providence, Rhode Island Police have used the "High Point" strategy to turn a formerly violent housing project into a safe place for people to live. From the story:

Non-violent, low-level dealers are called in to meet with police, prosecutors, community members and social service agencies. They're shown video and other evidence of their dealing. The dealers are told that if they're caught selling drugs again, they'll be prosecuted based on the case police have built against them. "Banking" that case allows police to make a credible prosecution threat, Kennedy said.

Community members tell the dealers to stop because they're destroying their neighborhoods and families. Social workers promise to help them get straight.

People who live in those communities say it makes a "night and day" difference in their lives.

"On a scale of zero to 10, it used to be a zero, and now it's a 10. That's how good it is," said Rolando Matos, who has lived in Chad Brown for seven years. "It's peaceful. You can be outside and not worry about people shooting."

A program like this might not appease the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" crowd but now that the economic realities of using incarceration to solve societal problems has proven to less than palatable, strategies such as Providence's High Point strategy have more of a chance.

Programs like this reinforce the mantra: "You can't always arrest your way out of every crime problem." Besides, no one really cares how a crime problem got solved, just that it got solved. Don't be afraid to apply non-traditional strategies to crime problems in your community.

I was involved in a discussion this morning with several police supervisors on how we could use non-traditional thinking to solve a crime and disorder problem in the sleepy little burg where I work. Fortunately, we had the experience of using a similar strategy to solve a different crime problem a few years ago so we already had a proven strategy to work with.

What crime problems in your community might benefit from a non-traditional approach?

Divorce Attorneys' PI Sets Up Spouses For Arrest

2011-10-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

In a nightmarish plot that sounds more like a Hollywood script, a California private investigator working for divorce attorneys set up their clients' spouses for arrest in order to get dirt on them that would benefit the clients. The Los Angeles Times has this story.

One of the victim's recounted meeting a woman on an online dating site who then later met him for drinks. After a flirty encounter with the victim and another woman they suggested the victim follow them to a house with a hot tub. Once he began following them, he was pulled over and arrested for DWI.

The women who'd ogled him worked for Butler's detective agency. Sharon, who told Dutcher she was a divorcee employed by an investment firm, actually was a former Las Vegas showgirl.
A man who once worked for Butler had blown the whistle. He told authorities Butler arranged for men to be arrested for drunk driving at the behest of their ex-wives and their divorce lawyers — and that entrapment was only one of many alleged misdeeds.
Butler, 49, a former police officer, was arrested in February. In addition to setting up at least five DUIs, he sold drugs for law enforcement officers and helped them open and operate a brothel, collecting and delivering the profits, according to prosecutors and a statement Butler gave them after his arrest.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The story is also a good read. Hit the link to read it. It also highlights the danger for law enforcement agencies to have too close a relationship with private investigation firms or any other business that is more motivated by profit than justice.

Foreclosures More Than Just An Economic Problem It's Also A Crime Problem

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

The New York Times had an interesting piece that points to home foreclosures being more than just an economic problem, they are also becoming a crime problem. From the story:

“They’re becoming a magnet for criminal activity,” said Deputy Inspector Miltiadis Marmara, the commanding officer of the 113th Precinct in South Jamaica. “They hang out in these abandoned homes that may be foreclosed, or the owners walked away.” He added, “Every day we respond to something to that effect.”

What's funny is that even in the sleepy little burg where I work, we are seeing more and more squatters taking over properties that are empty, have been foreclosed on, or have been abandoned by their owners. In our case, most of them are apartment complexes where the owners are out of state investors. Either they are walking away from their properties or they are so financially distressed that they are paying little to no attention as to what's actually occurring at these properties.

Once the 'neer do wells' figure out that the owners aren't paying attention and many units are empty they move in and use these apartments for ilicit activity. Once this begins to occur, it doesn't take long for the few paying tenants to flee to safer environs if they have the means to do so. These distressed properties then become crime generators that will begin to create real problems for the surrounding neighborhoods.

To help mitigate these problems we've been working with owners to help them control people on the properties by using Texas Criminal Trespass statutes. In extreme cases we've been partnering with our Code Enforcement folks to cite and/or condemn these properties to try to get the property owners to exercise control over their property.

Given the long term outlook on the foreclosure crisis, this problem is not likely to go away anytime soon. If you aren't having problems in your community with abandoned/foreclosed properties yet, you might want to have a plan of action in place ahead of time so you will be ready if these kinds of problems pop up in your community.

What has your agency done to keep problems down at abandoned or foreclosed properties?

Not Prosecuting Domestic Abusers A Really Bad Way To Protest Budget Cuts

2011-10-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

There's been quite the kerfuffle brewing in Topeka, Kansas over a decision by the District Attorney's office to stop prosecuting misdemeanor domestic violence cases because of a $3.5 million dollar cut to the DA's office budget. This caused a "tit for tat" reaction by the City of Topeka who dropped their ordinance against domestic violence in order to force the DA's office to start prosecuting them again. A story by The Christian Science Monitor has this bit.

Mr. Taylor's actions in Kansas were “a high-profile way” to show the county the downside of digging too deeply with the budget knife, says Jeffrey Jackson, a professor of law at Washburn University in Topeka.
“What people don’t realize is district attorneys and prosecutors have a lot of discretion about what cases they will prosecute and what cases they bring and what cases they settle. This is the most blatant way to make the argument that, if they don’t have the budget, they have to pick and choose more,” Professor Jackson says.

While I understand that budget cuts have been hard on quite a number of agencies, it seems to me like they are playing with fire up there. There are quite a number of other offenses I could see not prosecuting before I'd start turning loose domestic battery suspects. All it's going to take is for a released domestic violence suspect to go back and kill his spouse for this to backfire badly.

It would be real interesting to see what other misdemeanor cases got prosecuted while these domestic violence suspects got a free ride. I also hope these kinds of shenanigans don't spread to other cash strapped agencies.

Has your agency prioritized the types of services you must provide and the types that you can provide if resources allow?

Public Confidence In The Police Is Pretty Good

2011-10-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

American Public Media's philosophy and religion blog "On Being" is not one I usually use as a source on The Crime Analyst's Blog though I do read it. However, they had this bit that I thought was worth commenting on. They quoted a Gallup poll on confidence in institutions. Top of the list was the military. What I found encouraging was where the police ended up.

Here’s the complete list of the percentage of Americans who say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in them:
78% - Military
64% - Small business
56% - Police
48% - Church or organized religion
39% - Medical system
37% - U.S. Supreme Court
35% - Presidency
34% - Public schools
28% - Criminal justice system
28% - Newspapers
27% - Television news
23% - Banks
21% - Organized labor
19% - Big business
19% - Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)
12% - Congress

Another thing I though interesting was that while confidence in the police ranked pretty high, confidence in the criminal justice system was not so favorable. It's also probably no surprise where Congress ended up.

Policing Insular Communities

2011-10-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

There have been a number of stories out this past weekend about a weird case of Amish on Amish violence. People don't ordinarily associate the normally placid Amish with crime, they are more likely to be depicted in a Christian romance novel than in a police procedural. But in spite of their normally law abiding reputation, they are occasionally the victims or even the suspects in crimes.

A local Ohio news website TribToday.com has a pretty good rundown of the attacks and subsequent investigations.

In Carroll County on Tuesday, a group of Amish men knocked on a door of an Amish man's home, pulled him out by his beard and tried to cut off his beard, reports state. The attackers referred to themselves as part of the Bergholz Clan, according to the Carroll County Sheriff's Office.
In Holmes County on Tuesday, a group of Amish men burst into a home and cut the hair off men and women inside and cut the beards off the men. Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly said the victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 74-year-old man.

While most law enforcement agencies may not have the Amish living in their community, they may have other equally insular sub-cultures living in their communities. For example in the sleepy little burg where I work we have an large number of Korean immigrants. It's not unusual to see signs written in Hangul in nearly any part of town.

Insular communities can pose challenges for law enforcement. In these communities, it's often difficult to get them to report when they are victims of crime or to cooperate with the subsequent investigations. Finding adequate translation services also can pose a problem.

It is very important to identify and reach out to these groups before they become victims of crimes if you are going to adequately serve them. Often times, even modest efforts at outreach can pay huge dividends later.

What insular communities reside in your jurisdiction? What are you doing to encourage a dialog between them and your agency?

Cops Really Do Fight What You Fear

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the New York Times had a pretty dramatic story on a fight between an NYPD sergeant and a crook he was trying to arrest.

The man finally pulled the gun from his pants. He had one hand on it, and Sergeant Miller had one hand on it.
“I could feel a really sharp burning pain in my finger, kind of like my nail was being bent back,” said the sergeant said.
Two uniformed officers arrived and raced over. At last Sergeant Miller twisted the revolver away.
“At that point I was completely winded, gassed,” he said. “I had a little bit of shock. And it sunk in then what happened. I realized that my ring finger around the nail bed had been wedged between the hammer and the cylinder of the gun and basically getting crushed in there.”
“During the course of the fight at one point I felt the gun right up against my belly.”

The whole story is a good read. Hit the link to read it. Of course this brings up the fact that even though life and death struggles like this are rare, they are also in the back of every officer's mind when he or she is out on the street.

If you get stopped by an officer, understand that his or her requests for you to stand in one spot, or to keep your hands out of your pockets aren't based in rudeness but are instead attempts by the officer to reduce perceived danger that they face even during mundane contacts like a traffic stop.

No officer wants to end up on one of these websites.

COPS Grant Awards Announced And It Looks Like It's Slim Pickings

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

The US Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) recently announced the awards of the 2011 COPS Hiring Program grants.

The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) today announced more than $243 million in grants awarded nationwide to 238 law enforcement agencies and municipalities for the hiring of new officers and deputies.
The awards were made through the COPS Hiring Program, a competitive grant program that provides funding directly to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to hire police officers dedicated to addressing specific crime and disorder challenges confronting communities. The grants provide 100 percent funding for the entry-level salaries and benefits of newly-hired, or rehired, full-time officer positions over a three-year period.
For the 2011 COPS Hiring Program, 2,712 applications were received requesting more than $2 billion and 8,999 positions. Funding decisions were based on an agency’s commitment to community policing, crime rates, changes in law enforcement budgets, and other local fiscal data (poverty, unemployment, foreclosure rates, etc.).

With 238 agencies being awarded grants out of the 2,712 that applied, that works out to only 8.7% of applicants receiving funds.

The COPS Hiring Program grants have been criticized by some as encouraging law enforcement agencies to hire cops they can't afford because the grant only pays for salaries for a three year period, after which the local agency will have to pick up the tab. But this criticism is a bit simplistic.

At the agency where I work, we've seen a 47% increase in population in the 10 years between the 2000 and 2010 Census. The Central Texas area is consistently ranked as one of the 10 fastest growing areas on the United States. This huge increase in population also means that there is a huge increase in demands for police services.

However, it takes a few years for the population increase to mean that there is a corresponding increase in tax revenue to pay for those services. While the population increase is felt immediately, the tax money to pay for the increase in services is not usually seen until the next budget cycle or two. A COPS Hiring Grant can help an agency like ours put boots on the ground quicker in order to keep up with the demand for police services.

Yes, an agency that hires officers using a COPS Hiring Program grant without making adequate plans to pick up the cost after three years is misguided. But not every agency does that and we certainly don't where I work.

I have a feeling that with the economic and political situation being what they are, we'll likely see even less than 8.7% of applicants getting grants in the years to come. As one Chief of Police recently told me, "it looks like we're on our own from here on out."

We May Be Burglars, But Kiddie Porn Is Just Wrong

2011-10-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

You know you're a scumbag when even the people who break into your place, turn you in to the police. CNN had this interesting story:

Last month, a juvenile and a 19-year-old illegally accessed the property of Kraig Stockard, 54, of Delhi, California, according to a statement from Deputy Tom MacKenzie of the Merced County Sheriff's Department. They broke into Stockard's barn and stole approximately 50 CDs they believed were blank.
Stockard filed a police report on the incident on September 12, according to MacKenzie.
But the young people who stole the CDs were in for a surprise. When they began putting the discs into their computer, they discovered that some of them contained pornographic images of children, the statement said.
Despite having obtained the CDs under decidedly shady circumstances, the pair decided to report Stockard to the police.

Hit the link to read the whole piece. Of course, it will be interesting to see what happens to the burglars. In this case, they may have made up for their misdeed.

Crime Is Down, Is It The Obama Effect?

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've written a number of posts looking at the reasons that crime is declining here in the U.S. even with the poor economy. For most people, they would assume that when the economy tanked, crime would rise. However, for whatever reason this has not proved to be the case. The economy is still tanked, yet crime continues to decline.

Quite a number of criminologists have speculated as to the reasons why crime is down, the theories range from an aging population, increased incarceration, better law enforcement techniques, abortions, the waning crack cocaine epidemic and even a decrease in exposure to lead in paint and gasoline. Yet in spite of all these attempts to explain what on the surface appears to be an irrational contradiction none of them have been proven to be the definitive explanation.

An article over at Slate.com adds this reason to the mix:

“I think there’s little question the election had the effect of improving the general outlook of blacks and especially their economic outlook,” Rosenfeld told me. “Normally, blacks tend to be more pessimistic about economic prospects, even in good economic times.”
Ohio State University’s Randolph Roth, author of the magisterial 2009 volume American Homicide, is so convinced Obama’s election has fundamentally improved black people’s outlooks, in spite of what may be their actual circumstances, he published an essay last year explaining the crime drop with the title “It’s No Mystery.” “The inauguration of the first black president and the passing of the Bush administration re-legitimized the government in the eyes of many Americans during the first few months of 2009,” he writes. “African Americans and other racial minorities, who live disproportionately in America’s cities, were more deeply affected than anyone else, and it is likely that their greater trust in the political process and their positive feelings about the new president led to lower rates of urban violence.”

I'm not going to vouch for the accuracy of this theory that the election of President Obama had the effect of lowering crime during the economic downturn. I definitely am not going to delve into politics here on the blog. However, the article itself is a good read even if the jury is still out on the reason crime is still heading downward.

To be honest, it's probably going to be years before there is any consensus as to the reason that crime continued to decline during this recession. Until then, the speculation and the theories are liable to continue.

Justice Is Not About Winning

2011-10-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Austin American Statesman had a piece yesterday about a man convicted of murdering his wife, who served 25 years in prison before DNA testing revealed his innocence. He was set free in a Williamson County courtroom Tuesday. In the story was this bit I thought was worth noting:

Morton’s lawyers first asked to test the bandanna in 2006. Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley opposed the testing, and District Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield agreed to deny the tests.
An appeals court, however, ordered the tests to be performed, noting that a the results could go a long way toward corroborating Morton’s key defense —- that an intruder killed his wife by entering and exiting the property through a densely wooded area behind the house.
After the results came back showing the DNA of John Doe, a man with felony convictions and charges in four states, Stubblefield recused himself from the case. He was replaced by District Judge Sid Harle of San Antonio.
After Monday’s hearing, defense lawyer John Raley said that if there is one moral to take from the Morton story, it’s this: “You should never oppose DNA testing. It can only reveal the truth.”

One very interesting tidbit is the "John Doe" suspect listed in court papers is believed to be a serial killer who was linked to another Austin murder as well as other crimes in other areas. It will be very interesting to hear the whole story when they run that part down.

According to the story Michael Morton was 45th Texas inmate to be exonerated due to DNA evidence. What I find troubling is that sometimes it seems like court cases are more about winning than they are about justice. If your prosecution theory is sound, then DNA testing shouldn't really worry the prosecutor. In this case, the prosecution's theory seemed to run counter to the truth.

IACP Center For Social Media

2011-10-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

I spent several days last week at the Social Media Internet Law Enforcement conference in Dallas last week. It was a good conference with lots of really wonderful folks who are using social media to help their agency's communicate with the citizens they serve.

In a similar vein, the International Association of Chief's of Police is also pushing the use of social media through their Center For Social Media website. The IACP Describes their social media initiative this way:

In partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, the IACP launched its Center for Social Media in October 2010. The goal of the initiative is to build the capacity of law enforcement to use social media to prevent and solve crimes, strengthen police-community relations, and enhance services. IACP’s Center for Social Media serves as a clearinghouse of information and no-cost resources to help law enforcement personnel develop or enhance their agency’s use of social media and integrate Web 2.0 tools into agency operations.

The site has lots of good information for the law enforcement agency looking to get into and use social media effectively. There is even social media training being offered at the IACP Conference in Chicago later this month.

In case you are wondering about how popular social media has become in or out of law enforcement, there's this article over at the New York Times about the rise in popularity of Mashable, a website devoted just to news about social media.

Is your agency using social media to get it's message out? Are you on social media personally?

UCR Rape Definition Is Archaic, Inadequate And Stupid

2011-10-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

There was a piece in the New York Times last week that highlighted a huge problem in the FBI's 80+ year old Uniform Crime Reports program. The problem comes in the way that the UCR program defines rape. That is:

Forcible rape, as defined in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

This archaic definition ultimately means a male suspect penetrating a female victim's vagina with his penis using the force or threat of force to overcome the victim's lack of consent. It does not include any other combination of victims, sex acts, etc. Consequently, the majority of sexual assault cases reported to a law enforcement agency are never counted as part of UCR crime statistics.

When the FBI's UCR program was created and these definitions created Bonnie & Clyde were on the loose, Jim Crow laws were still on the books, women had only had the right to vote for 10 years and in many states, marital rape was not illegal. Since that time, society's definition of what constitutes a sexual assault has evolved considerably. The New York Times piece speaks to the effect this definition has had.

“The data that are reported to the public come from this definition, and sadly, it portrays a very, very distorted picture,” said Susan B. Carbon, director of the Office on Violence Against Women, part of the Department of Justice. “It’s the message that we’re sending to victims, and if you don’t fit that very narrow definition, you weren’t a victim and your rape didn’t count.”
Steve Anderson, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said that the F.B.I.’s definition created a double standard for police departments.
“We prosecute by one criteria, but we report by another criteria,” Chief Anderson said. “The only people who have a true picture of what’s going on are the people in the sex-crimes unit.”

Even many police officers don't understand the criteria by which UCR defines rape. I had a veteran detective from my agency contact me and ask where were all the cases she had been investigating went after she looked at our UCR stats. She knew that her unit had investigated significantly more cases than were listed in our agency's UCR report. I could only shrug my shoulders and explain to her the asinine definition of rape in the UCR program.

The New York Times article cites a Police Executive Research Forum survey of police agencies where 80% of them said the UCR definition of rape was inadequate. Thankfully, it appears that momentum is building within the FBI's UCR program to change this definition. The current definition is archaic, ignorant and demeaning to the tens of thousands of victim's whose crimes were not counted last year. It's time to change it.

Now when the change happens it's not going to be fun to see what our sex assault stats really are but if you're going to fix a problem, you have to know just how bad it is first.

Connecting With Your Community And Traditional Media Using Social Media

2011-09-29T19:42:00.001-05:00

For the past couple of days I have been at the Social Media Internet Law Enforcement (SMILE) Conference in Dallas, Texas. It's been a great conference with lots of very talented speakers and attendees. Like I did in my last post about the conference, I wanted to offer a couple of the high points.

One of the speakers I listened to was Mike Parker from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. Mike spoke to using social media to get his agency's message to not only the citizens they serve, but also to the traditional news media in his community.

This idea of using social media to reach traditional media was a thought that I had also heard from other conference attendees. Not only does an agency's use of social media make it more likely that their story is going to be noticed by traditional media, but the use of social media makes it easier to manage all the competing news media requests.

Anne Longley from the Vancouver Canada Police spoke to how Vancouver Police used social media to help manage a recent hockey riot in their city. They were able to get information out to the public faster by integrating social media into their command post operations.

Mark Payne the Superintendent of the West Midlands Police in the UK hit it out of the park with his presentation. He had so many quotable bits from his presentation and a great bunch of wisdom regarding the use of social media by law enforcement.

The West Midlands Police Force in the UK encourages their officers to use social media. This contrasts with some agencies that are scared of social media.

Here are some of the best bits from Mark's presentation. (My iPad battery died towards the end of his presentation so I was trying to get some of these quotes down on my iPhone. Hopefully, they are as near to verbatim as possible. If they aren't exact, please forgive me.)

"Police leaders have to be brave enough to allow the use of social media by their officers. If you can trust them with a gun, you can trust them with Twitter."

"90/10 Rule - When using social media 90% of the time you'll get things right, the other 10% you just have to accept."

"Don't shut down social media during a crisis. People now expect and rely on social media. It can be used for good."

"You've got to learn to use social media when you don't have bricks flying at your head. Practice with social media before there is a crisis"

As I live tweeted the conference and especially Mark's presentation I was struck by how many folks who stated that not only was Mark's force forward thinking about the use of social media, but many of the other police forces in the UK also were as forward thinking as the West Midlands Police.

I attribute this to the very community oriented policing approach practiced by UK police. I believe that using social media to communicate and connect with the citizens you serve is vitally important and is probably the most promising part of the police use of social media.

Is your agency using social media as part of a community policing partnership with the citizens you serve? If not, why not?

Social Media Removes The Filters

2011-09-28T19:17:00.000-05:00

I'm at the SMILE Conference this week. Unless you've been in prison for a long period of time, you have probably recognized how social media is changing how people consume information and communicate. Law enforcement is no different. Social media is changing how law enforcement interacts with the communities they serve.

I sat through a number of really great presentations today. I want to offer a few of the high points from a few of the presentations today.

Lauri Stevens from LAWS Communications had this observation in a session she taught: You can't control the bad things other people might say about you on Twitter or other social media, but if you aren't on social media, you can't use it to communicate all the good things your agency is doing.

Many agencies are concerned about the image their agency has in the public arena. No one likes to see that their agency portrayed negatively. Especially, since many times that information is not correct. But if you aren't using social media, you lose that ability to counteract that negative message with the real message that your agency has. If you are going to jump into the social media arena at your agency, you may have to develop a thick skin. But the truth is, most times that negative message was already out there, you probably just didn't hear it because you weren't listening to social media.

Both Kara Owens of the Minnesota State Patrol and Stephanie Mackenzie-Smith of the York Regional Police in Canada brought up the idea that law enforcement agencies that use social media are able to bypass the filter that is sometimes imposed on an agency by traditional media outlets.

We've all heard the old line from the media that "if it bleeds, it leads". But just because a story isn't lurid and isn't in the headlines, doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be told. There are many things that agencies are doing that citizens will be interested in even if a newsroom editor isn't interested in it.

Using social media gives an agency the ability to be their own editors and emphasize the messages they think are important. Social media has democratized the publication of information. It's about time that law enforcement has embraced this democratization.

Based on the SMILE Conference attendees, I was pleased to see just how many law enforcement agencies around the U.S. and even around the world are embracing social media as a way to better connect with the communities they serve. Social media helps agencies get their message out without filtering.

Has your agency embraced social media?

Its A Tough Job But Someone Has To Go To Conferences

2011-09-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

I'm at the Social Media Internet Law Enforcement Conference in Dallas for the next few days. I'm looking forward to hearing from lots of talented people about the use of social media such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like to help law enforcement agencies connect with the communities they serve.

I plan on live blogging much of the conference both here at The Crime Analyst's Blog and on Twitter. I should get back to my regular posting schedule after the conference.

Life Outside Prison Walls Can Be Scary

2011-09-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've always heard stories about ex-cons who commit crimes in order to get sent back to prison and the life they are most comfortable with. With the exception of a couple of homeless people who I knew who would commit a minor crime on a cold winter night in order to spend one night in a warm jail cell, I kind of dismissed the whole I'm trying to get back into prison thing as legend. However, the Austin American Statesman had a story out of San Antonio that proves that these types of incidents to exist.

Randall Church had spent decades in the Texas prison system. Apparently, life on the outside was just too much so he torched a vacant house and then later asked someone to call police so he could confess.

"Everything had gone fast-forward without me," Church, 46, said.

He pleaded guilty to arson in the July blaze, which came 96 days after his release for the 1983 killing.

Church said he felt out of place after getting out of prison. "I didn't know how to use computers or cell phones or the Internet," he said.

I guess for some, "three hots and a cot" beat out Facebook and iPhones. For a more in depth story about Church, there's a longer one at MySanAntonio.com here.

They Just Might Have An Idea Why Crime's Down In NYC

2011-09-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

On Friday I posted a piece titled Crime's Down But Who Knows Why? about the lack of consensus in reasons for the recent drop in crime noted after the FBI released the full 2010 Uniform Crime Reports. After I wrote that post, there was an interesting piece over at The Crime Report that covers some explanations for the dramatic drop in crime in New York City. In that piece, they had this explanation:

Zimring identified two factors which he believed made the most difference in New York crime rates.

One was NYPD’s strategy of concentrating huge numbers of cops in high-crime neighborhoods, known as “hot spots.” The other was the successful effort by authorities to close down public (street-corner) drug markets in the city.

... Another factor Zimring looked at was the potential impact of the national “war on drugs.”

Drug-related homicides dropped steeply in New York. Nevertheless, the number of deaths from drug overdoses remained stable―suggesting that while police strategies had little impact on actual drug use, their concentration on violence associated with drugs produced significant results.

The NYPD waged a “war on drug violence (rather than) a war on drugs,” said Zimring. “This aspect of New York City policing has received zero attention.”

Both of these ideas had been speculated on in the past as the reason that crime has been on the decline nationwide.

A few days ago I had a conversation with my Chief where we were discussing different policing strategies such as CompStat, problem oriented policing, DDACTS, hot spot policing and the like. Regardless of what you call them, or how you characterize the differences in these strategies, they all have at their basis using the data your agency collects about crime to focus your operations in a data driven approach. For New York City, they analyzed their collected crime data to determine crime hot spots and then focused resources on those hot spots.

At the heart of this data driven approach is a robust crime analysis function. One that is capable of mining vast quantities of data, conducting a thorough analysis and then communicating the results of that analysis in a legible and actionable manner to the agency decision makers. It is my belief that more and more agencies using crime analysts in a data driven approach to policing is responsible for the downturn in crime here in the U.S.

What are you doing at your agency to ensure that the data is driving your crime reduction efforts?

Crime's Down, But Who Knows Why?

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

The FBI released the complete 2010 Uniform Crime Reports data this week. The results aren't anything that we haven't already heard from the preliminary report or the results of the National Crime Victim's Survey, that is, crime in the U.S. is down. There were a couple of news stories from earlier this week that have some things I think are worth commenting on. The first one from the Houston Chronicle has this bit:

"We don't have a good answer for why this is so, but we've had a lot of people who wanted to take credit in a number of ways and none of those have had much evidence behind them and ignore the long-term downturn,'' said professor Frank Williams, a criminologist at the University of Houston-Downtown. "The issue is really complex. There would be so many variables and factors involved that it really is hard to distinguish one from another."

There is also a similar bit in this story from The Christian Science Monitor.

In this light, the continued decline in violent crime is forcing some criminologists to reexamine the what might be the causes of crime. “It will be years before we get the answer, if we do, to what’s going on right now,” says William Pridemore, a criminal justice professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. “Criminologists have been pretty stumped.”

We don't really know why crime is down. In spite of this fact, we have to keep doing the things that make us more effective in our mission to suppress crime and make our communities safer. We have to let the data drive our policing efforts and use our limited resources where they will be the most effective.

I don't ever think we'll get to the point that we will work ourselves out of a job in law enforcement. Even though crime is down, we have to continue our efforts to improve our craft. We cannot break faith with the communities who depend on us to protect and serve them. Because if we are not careful, we can lose our grasp and see crime rates rise back to those of the bad old days.