25 research outputs found
High Risk, Not Hopeless: Correctional Intervention For People At Risk For Violence
Across the United States, jurisdictions are working to reduce absurdly high incarceration rates without jeopardizing historically low crime rates. Well-validated risk assessment can identify people at low risk who can be managed safely in the community. But what about high-risk people? In this Article, we synthesize research on effective ways to identify and reduce risk of reoffending among people at high risk of recidivism, including people with psychopathic traits. To maximize the impact of criminal justice reform, we recommend that policymakers prioritize high risk clients for treatment, provide treatments most likely to work with these clients, and reframe incarceration as an opportunity for excellent service provision
Eliciting Informative Priors by Modelling Expert Decision Making
This article introduces a new method for eliciting prior distributions from
experts. The method models an expert decision-making process to infer a prior
probability distribution for a rare event . More specifically, assuming
there exists a decision-making process closely related to which forms a
decision , where a history of decisions have been collected. By modelling
the data observed to make the historic decisions, using a Bayesian model, an
analyst can infer a distribution for the parameters of the random variable .
This distribution can be used to approximate the prior distribution for the
parameters of the random variable for event . This method is novel in the
field of prior elicitation and has the potential of improving upon current
methods by using real-life decision-making processes, that can carry real-life
consequences, and, because it does not require an expert to have statistical
knowledge. Future decision making can be improved upon using this method, as it
highlights variables that are impacting the decision making process. An
application for eliciting a prior distribution of recidivism, for an
individual, is used to explain this method further
A framework for estimating crime location choice based on awareness space
This paper extends Crime Pattern Theory, proposing a theoretical framework which aims to explain how offendersâ previous routine activity locations influence their future offence locations. The framework draws on studies of individual level crime location choice and location choice in non-criminal contexts, to identify attributes of prior activities associated with the selection of the location for future crime. We group these attributes into two proposed mechanisms: reliability and relevance. Offenders are more likely to commit crime where they have reliable knowledge that is relevant to the particular crime. The perceived reliability of offendersâ knowledge about a potential crime location is affected by the frequency, recency and duration of their prior activities in that location. Relevance reflects knowledge of a potential crime locationâs crime opportunities and is affected by the type of behaviour, type of location and timing of prior activities in that location. We apply the framework to generate testable hypotheses to guide future studies of crime location choice and suggest directions for further theoretical and empirical work. Understanding crime location choice using this framework could also help inform policing investigations and crime prevention strategies.</jats:p
A new Geographic Profiling Suspect Mapping And Ranking Technique for crime investigations: GP-SMART
This study developed and tested a new geographic profiling method for automating suspect prioritisation in crime investigations. The Geographic Profiling Suspect Mapping And Ranking Technique (GP-SMART) maps suspects' activity locations available in police recordsâsuch as home addresses, family members' home addresses, prior offence locations, locations of non-crime incidents, and other contacts with policeâand ranks suspects based on both the proximity and nature of these locations, relative to an input crime. In accuracy tests using solved burglary, robbery and extra-familial sex offence cases in New Zealand (n = 4511), GP-SMART ranked the offender at or near the top of the suspect list at rates greatly exceeding chance. Highlighting the benefit of its novel inclusion and differentiation of many different types of activity location, GP-SMART also outperformed baseline methodsâapproximating existing algorithmsâthat ranked suspects using only the proximity of their activity locations, or home addresses, to the input crime
High Risk, Not Hopeless: Correctional Intervention For People At Risk For Violence
Across the United States, jurisdictions are working to reduce absurdly high incarceration rates without jeopardizing historically low crime rates. Well-validated risk assessment can identify people at low risk who can be managed safely in the community. But what about high-risk people? In this Article, we synthesize research on effective ways to identify and reduce risk of reoffending among people at high risk of recidivism, including people with psychopathic traits. To maximize the impact of criminal justice reform, we recommend that policymakers prioritize high risk clients for treatment, provide treatments most likely to work with these clients, and reframe incarceration as an opportunity for excellent service provision
Systematic evidence map of disparities in police outcomes: final report
To support the New Zealand Police Understanding Policing Delivery (UPD) project, we were tasked with completing an academic literature review on bias in policing. However, the vastness and complexity of the relevant research, and the short timeframe for completion meant that it was not possible to complete a single literature review that accurately reflected the evidence base; indeed, it would be difficult to do justice to this literature in a single review under any circumstances. Thus, rather than attempting a traditional literature review, we developed an evidence and gap map of the international research on bias in policing. In this report, we present the rationale, methods used, and key features of the studies on the evidence and gap map (referred to as the âevidence mapâ). This evidence map serves several purposes. Its overarching purpose is to be a resource for more targeted work on specific areas of apparent disparity in policing, including areas prioritised by New Zealand Police as part of the UPD project: decisions about stops, charges, and the use of force. Researchers will be able to use the map to easily identify a) the extent of research in the area of interest, and b) the key features of the research that has been conducted in that area, as a basis. The map will guide rapid evidence reviews and future primary research, both of which can be used to design police practice-based interventions to reduce police-generated disparities in New Zealand