Crime Harm Research Articles

A Police Response Effort Index to complement counts and harm indices in understanding crime and policing demand

Responding to crime and non-crime policing demand in the increasingly complex policing environment calls for increasingly nuanced means of measuring demand. Complementing traditional crime counts, the recent development of crime harm indices provides one such means, whereby crimes are weighted by estimates of their harm or severity. Analysis using crime harm indices has shown that high harm victims, offenders, locations and times differ from the people and places that unweighted crime counts would highlight as a priority for police resource. However, crime harm indices apply only to crime, so they cannot be used to analyse both crime and non-crime demand, and harm is but one way of differentiating demand types. We therefore present an additional, complementary tool: the Police Response Effort Index (PREI). The PREI provides values for weighting crime and non-crime demand types by the amount of effort (time) typically involved during police’s initial response. It enables police to make decisions and target interventions with a more nuanced understanding of when, where and on whom police effort concentrates. This paper describes the development of the New Zealand PREI, providing a potential template for other jurisdictions.

The risk of negative feedback loops in some weighted measures of crime harm

Analyses of crime based upon aggregate counts of different crime types have restricted value, because they count all crime types equally irrespective of the harm caused. In response to this problem, a series of weighted measures of crime harm have been proposed. In this short contribution, we contend that the use of some crime harm metrics to inform police deployment practices has the potential to reinforce ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system through the creation of unintended negative feedback loops. We focus our analysis on the Cambridge Crime Harm Index and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Crime Severity Score, the preeminent crime harm indexes in England and Wales. We conclude that the ONS Crime Severity Score, which is based on mean sentencing outcomes, does give cause for concern in some contexts. There is currently no evidence that the Cambridge Crime Harm Index, based on sentencing guidelines, presents the same problems.

Hate, crime and epistemic vulnerability: on sense-making and feelings of (un)safety among Danish Muslims.

This article investigates feelings of (un)safety emerging from knowing and sharing knowledge about hate crime and hate incidents. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with young Muslims living in the greater Copenhagen area, the article explores the way the interlocutors seek to make sense of their experiences through available epistemic categories, and how this sense-making is shaped by reactions from the surrounding society, e.g., whether it is questioned, supported, ignored etc. Combining criminological and psychological research on direct and indirect harms of hate crime with insights from philosophy on epistemic encounters and their ethical implications the article provides a framework for investigating safety in epistemic interactions. Based on this framework, the article show the often hard work that people perform in order to balance epistemic needs (e.g. the need for knowledge and for recognition) with epistemic risks (e.g. the risk of testimonial rejection, of damaged epistemic confidence, or loss of credibility).

The risk of negative feedback loops in some weighted measures of crime harm

The risk of negative feedback loops in some weighted measures of crime harm

The Compounding Effect: How Co-Offending Exacerbates the Harm Caused by Violent Offenders

To what extent do violent offenders cause harm to victims when they act independently versus when they collaborate with others? Currently, it remains unclear whether co-offending exacerbates the degree of violence, partly due to measurement considerations, i.e. how to account for varying degrees of crime severity. Using police records from Dorset, UK, we compare violent crimes committed by lone individuals to those committed by co-offending networks using a crime harm index. While lone offenders commit the majority of violent acts, those with multiple connections to other violent offenders yielded higher average and total harm scores. Moreover, the severity of offences is proportional to the scale of the criminal network, with larger violent networks linked to higher crime harm scores. Finally, the propensity for recidivism is greater among co-offender groups compared to lone offenders. The implications of the compounding effect of co-offending on violence are discussed.

A proven reoffending study of individuals managed under the multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in England and Wales.

Past research into the effectiveness of multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) in reducing reoffending it limited. Thus, the current study aimed to evaluate proven reoffending patterns for MAPPA managed individuals. Proven reoffending for 39,501 MAPPA managed individuals was investigated by (1) examining patterns in the timing and frequency of proven reoffending for MAPPA managed individuals; (2) examining 1-, 3-, and 5-year proven reoffending patterns of MAPPA managed individuals by MAPPA category, age, and gender; and (3) comparing crime harm levels and recall to custody for MAPPA managed individuals pre- and post-MAPPA adoption. Taken together, our findings show that proven reoffending rates for individuals managed under MAPPA are substantially lower than those reported in proven reoffending statistics for England and Wales. Our results suggest that MAPPA is making a positive contribution to a managing individuals convicted of sexual and violent offenses. Additionally, our findings provide the best evidence to date that MAPPA management may also be effective at reducing less serious offenses which do not typically involve immediate removal from society. These findings are considered in light of their theoretical and practical implications while potential limitations and avenues for future research are outlined.

Discovering a Predictive Mechanism to Identify Risk and Harm in Extra-Familial Child Exploitation: Time to Reconsider the Multi-agency Child Exploitation (MACE) Response?

This paper examines the multi-agency identification of risk and harm in extra-familial child exploitation (CE). It explores several data prediction methods to effectively target and prevent harm. It provides a taxonomy analysis of repeat victimisation and cumulative victim harm. It also examines the relationship between age and harm and, finally, the conditional probability of repeat victimisation in exploited children.Research Question Are the most harmed exploited children referred to Multi-Agency Child Exploitation (MACE) Panels, and what other methods exist to identify and prevent high harm in child exploitation?Methods This is a descriptive quantitative statistical analysis using a whole population of children in a Northern English county, aged between 10 and 17 who were recorded in police data as either victims, offenders or MACE referrals between January 2017 and June 2018, encompassing 12,457 children. It utilises an 18-month study window, an 18-month follow-up and 18-month prior time censored period using data between 2015 and 2019 inclusive. This data identifies CE victims using CE flagging and additionally, offence classification with familial abuse and familial exploitation cases removed. It identifies repeat victims and those children referred to MACE for tailored multi-agency intervention. Application of Sherman et al.’s (Policing (Oxford) 10:171–183, 2016) Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CCHI) provided an analysis of harm in victimisation and offending.Findings Exploited repeat victims (90.7%) were not referred to MACE, and there was no significant difference in the harm they sustained in the 18 months following a repeat victimisation compared to exploited children subject to MACE. The most harmed CE victim (Victim-CCHI 15,330) in the 18-month study window was not referred to MACE, nor was the highest frequency CE victim within 18 months (31 victimisations). Exploited victims, victim offenders and MACE children are re-victimised at a significantly higher rate than other children.Exploited victims (73.4%) will not suffer a repeat victimisation of any kind. Forty-two percent of exploited repeat victims will have a third victimisation given a second, and this will attract additional mean victim harm of 464 (for comparison, penetrative sexual activity with a girl under 16 by an Offender 18 or over has a CCHI harm score of 365).Conclusion Whilst MACE provides a forum to share multi-agency information, it only does so for 9.3% of exploited repeat victims. This has implications for the role and focus of MACE. Whilst several quantitative methods were explored to predict harm in CE, this research favours the use of conditional probability and harm association. By using this method, 90.7% of missed repeat victims become visible to professionals. This is essential in providing the opportunity to minimise the risk of further victimisation and increased harm that 42% of this group will have within an 18-month period. This research provides a predictive and evidence-based framework to identify exploited children at risk of further harm and victimisation.

Crime on the mass transit system in Hong Kong: a hotspots and harmspots trajectory approach

PurposeA growing body of literature focuses on crime hotspots; however, less is known about the spatial distribution of crime at mass transit systems, and even less is known about trajectory patterns of hotspots in non-English-speaking countries.Design/methodology/approachThe spatiotemporal behaviour of 1,494 crimes reported to the Hong Kong’s Railway Police District across a two-year period was examined in this study. Crime harm weights were then applied to offences to estimate the distribution of crime severity across the transit system. Descriptive statistics are used to understand the temporal and spatial trends, and k-means longitudinal clustering are used to examine the developmental trajectories of crime in train stations over time.FindingsAnalyses suggest that 15.2% and 8.8% of stations accounted for 50% of all counted crime and crime harm scores, respectively, indicating the predictability of crime and harm to occur at certain stations but not others. Offending persists consistently, with low, moderate and high counts and harm stations remaining the same over time.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings suggest that more localised crime control initiatives are required to target crime effectively.Originality/valueThis is one of the only studies focusing on hotspots and harmspots in the mass transit system.

Economic crime, economic criminology, and serious crimes for economic gain: On the conceptual and disciplinary (dis)order of the object of study

This article has two main objectives. First, to interrogate the concept and/or conception of ‘economic crime’ (framed as a singular thing). We argue that current policy, and subsequently, social scientific (or criminological more specifically) framings, tend to arbitrarily ‘carve up’ the objects of study that interest us, in turn creating a ‘conceptual disorder’ that has implications for how we explain, and respond to, these harmful crimes. This raises questions about the value of the concept of ‘economic crime’ and about the related process of conceptual abstraction. In analytical terms, we argue that more can be gained by focusing on the necessary and contingent relations of serious crimes for economic gain. Second, to scrutinise the logic of ‘economic criminology’ (framed in terms of a singular discipline) and assess the value that criminology can add to analyses of related behaviours. Notwithstanding the journal’s aim to create a sub-field of ‘economic criminology’, we argue that research into the nature, organisation and control of serious crimes for economic gain ought to begin from the perspective of how we can create integrative, collaborative or multi-dimensional accounts of these behaviours in order to better organise, and identify, the most plausible explanations and interventions. To this end, we explore different ways of working interdisciplinarily, considering the underlying logic and/or rationale for doing so.

Assessing the Harms of Crime: A New Framework for Criminal Policy. By GreenfieldVictoria A. PaoliLetizia(Oxford University Press, 2022, 350pp. £80.00 hbk)

Some 20 years ago, myself and colleagues somewhat provocatively—and with varying degrees of conviction—called for a shift ‘Beyond Criminology’, so that harm might be taken more seriously, that is, specifically, harms beyond those defined as criminal by the state and which ended up as the subject matter for the eponymous discipline (Hillyard et al. 2004). To some extent that call did prompt reaction—not all favourable, of course—but certainly in the sense that work on social harm has since proliferated, albeit in and around rather than ‘beyond’ criminology. In fact, the ability of criminology to incorporate rather than be challenged by calls to take harm seriously was no better evidenced than in the insertion of ‘social harm’ and then also ‘zemiology’—the study of social harm—into the Quality Assurance Agency’s benchmark statements for criminology in 2014 and 2019, respectively (Quality Assurance Agency 2014, 2019). Here is a text that certainly takes harm seriously, albeit it seeks to place it squarely at the centre of the criminological enterprise. Thus, the starting point for the book is the failure of criminology and related disciplines to provide policymakers with tools for determining priorities in (and thus allocating resources for) crime control and prevention. Drawing on and developing their joint work over more than a decade, the aim of the authors—one an agricultural and resource economist, the other a criminologist—is to provide exactly this. Their focus on harm and its reduction is the basis for the development of a harm assessment framework, which includes ‘a method for rating and ranking harms of wide-ranging activities’—drawing upon a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators—which advances criminal and, by implication, social justice (p. 2). Drawing on their previous work, their development of the framework is an ‘iterative and ongoing process’ (p. 8)—features which are very much in evidence in the book, which reads consistently as thoughtful, reflexive and considered.

Domestic Abuse: Growth Curve Modeling of Harm Across Repeat Incidents with Police Data

This paper analyzes trajectories of harm across repeat domestic abuse (DA) incidents using data from one police force in England and Wales matched with the Crime Harm Index. We use growth curve modeling to identify incident and offender-victim (dyad) predictors of harm. High Incident dyads with four or more DA cases ( N = 2,610) have a non-linear decrease in harm across incidents, with distinct trajectories for Intimate Partners and male offenders. The Power Few dyads, the 5% of dyads responsible for 85% of cumulative harm, ( N = 133) show a decrease in harm across incidents, with distinct trajectories for DA specialists who are only known to police for DA. While acknowledging the limitations, this study suggests important policy implications.

Criminal records versus rehabilitation and expungement: a randomised controlled trial

PurposeWhat is the effect of having a criminal record compared to having the criminal record expunged in exchange for participating in a rehabilitative programme? The available evidence focuses on programmes comprised of the criminal record for the offence (i.e. labelling) and a punitive sanction or rehabilitative scheme. The interaction between the labelling and the sanction has made distinguishing the effect of each penological approach a challenge.MethodsWe use a pretest–posttest control group design with a cohort of 341 low-harm offenders randomly assigned to either a simple, unconditional, caution or a 16-week rehabilitation treatment programme (after which the criminal record was automatically expunged). New crimes and a measure of harm were used as outcome variables.ResultsIntention-to-treat analysis shows no significant difference in prevalence, crime count or crime harm. Factoring in those individuals who actually completed the programme changes this story. An instrumental variables analysis used to adjust for treatment compliance suggests that the offer to expunge the criminal record following participation in rehabilitation programmes reduces both crime count and crime harm.ConclusionsWe conclude that as evidence on the adverse effects of criminal records on recidivism mounts, out of court disposals that lead to an expungement of the label ‘offender’ may provide promising intervention for low-harm offences. The experiment also highlighted the importance of secondary analytic strategies in experiments alongside the standard intention-to-treat model.

Measuring crime: a new paradigm

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to expand on a previously developed crime harm index – the California Crime Harm Index (CA-CHI) – by discussing the development of the CA-CHI and presenting a comparison of the distribution of crime count and harm in a large Western city in the United States.Design/methodology/approachThis study used descriptive analyses, spatial univariate mapping and bivariate choropleth maps to analyze the distribution of Part I crime counts and harm.FindingsResults of the analysis show that while there was some variation in the distribution of crime count and harm city wide, spatial mapping and statistics reveal that the geographical distribution of crime count and harm across census tracts are largely consistent.Research limitations/implicationsMinor discrepancies between the distribution of crime count and harm indicate the potential for the CA-CHI to inform law enforcement practices. However, the distributions remain largely similar at the census tract level. There is room for further development of the CA-CHI to better distinguish between the distribution of crime harm and volume.Originality/valueNo other study has used spatial mapping techniques like bivariate choropleth mapping to examine the distribution of crime volume and crime harm based on the CA-CHI in any location in California.

A simple metric for predicting repeated intimate partner violence harm based on the level of harm of the index offence (… as long as a non-linear statistic is applied)

PurposeA recent body of evidence investigated repeated intimate partner violence (IPV) using crime harm indices (the severity of victimisation), instead of crime counts (the number of additional victimisation incidents). Yet, the predictive utility of harm scores in IPV remains unclear – except that high-harm IPV is not usually followed by any additional IPV incidents. The authors take cases of repeat IPV from North Zealand Police, Denmark, to predict subsequent IPV harm and counts based on the level of harm of the first reported IPV offence.Design/methodology/approachUsing the Danish crime harm index (CHI) to estimate harm levels, non-linear regression models are applied (due to the non-linear nature of the data) to show that the CHI level of the index offence validly predicts gains in future CHI but does not predict IPV counts.FindingsThe findings suggest that whilst high-harm IPV is a rare event and repeat high-harm IPV even rarer, when they do occur, escalation in harm is likely to occur.Practical implicationsA simple metric of harm of the first reported IPV offence can validly predict future harm – however, scholars should apply more fitting analytical techniques than crude descriptive statistics, which fail to take into account the non-linear distribution of police records.Originality/valueThis is the first study to show the value of predicting future harm based on prior harm in IPV.

Reply to Juliana Gómez-Quintero, Spencer Chainey, and Hervé Borrion, ‘A Method for Organized Crime Harm Assessment: Connecting Associated Crimes’

Abstract In this article we reply to the article “A Method for Organized Crime Harm Assessment: Connecting Associated Crimes”, which Juliana Gómez-Quintero, Spencer Chainey, and Hervé Borrion published in Policing. Our criticisms are twofold: (1) it mischaracterizes our method, the “Harm Assessment Framework,” which we first presented in 2013 in complementary articles and, consequently, it delivers unwarranted criticisms of our framework; (2) it, relatedly, does not fully recognize the many ways in which the authors’ proposed ‘Organized Crime Harm Assessment’ (OCHA) draws from our framework and, by extension, it overstates the OCHA’s novelty. In addition, we react to a further, more plausible criticism of our method and discuss some apparent weaknesses of the proposed OCHA. Finally, we re-emphasize our conviction that assessing the consequences of criminal policies—especially on organized crime—is a crucial undertaking that has the potential to improve the effectiveness, justification, and legitimacy of the policies.

Intimate Partner Violence in Denmark: a Study of Offending Patterns Based on Official Statistics

Abstract Danish studies of intimate partner violence (ipv) using police data are scarce, in part because access to records had been limited. The present study reduces critical gaps in the scholarly literature by examining ipv offending patterns in Denmark, using nearly 10,000 ipv incidents reported to the North Zealand Police, Denmark (2015–2019). We explore a common framework for analysing ipv, by observing (a) frequency, (b) severity, (c) intermittency, (d) escalation, and (e) concentrations of ipv. Harm is estimated using the Danish Crime Harm Index, which is based on the sentencing guidelines as an objective rod for estimating severity. Findings support the gender-based explanation for ipv, with males causing considerably more and higher harm than female offenders. Furthermore, the likelihood of re-offending only predicable not for 1/3 of the ipv offender population and rarely for high-harm incidents as they usually have no prior or no subsequent contact with the police. While there is a tendency towards escalation of harm between contacts to the police for all offenders, no such consistent pattern is discernible for ipv offenders who cause serious harm to their victims. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality predict harshness of recommended punishment.

Genetic essentialism is a set of beliefs holding that certain categories have a heritable, intrinsic, and biological basis. The current studies explore people's genetic essentialist beliefs about criminality, how such essentialism relates to beliefs about appropriate punishment, and the kinds of judgments and motivations that underlie these associations. Study 1 validated a novel task, in which respondents estimated how possible it would be for a child to inherit criminal behavior from a sperm donor with whom they had no contact. Studies 2-4 used this task to address how genetic essentialist beliefs related to the harmfulness of a crime and the harshness of recommended punishment. Results indicated a tendency to essentialize both low- and high-harm crimes, though genetic essentialism was higher for more harmful crimes. Moreover, genetic essentialist beliefs predicted recommendations for harsher punishments, with retributive and protective motivations, as well as perceptions of recidivism risk, partially mediating this association. Further, Studies 3 and 4 found that genetic essentialism positively predicted support for harsh punishments such as the death penalty, as well as support for directing financial resources more toward law enforcement and less toward social support. Lay theories about criminality may have profound implications for decisions about appropriate punishment for wrongdoers, as well as broader policy decisions about crime, punishment, and resource allocation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Spatial distribution and developmental trajectories of crime versus crime severity: do not abandon the count-based model just yet

Purpose/backgroundA new body of research that focuses on crime harm scores rather than counts of crime incidents has emerged. Specifically in the context of spatial analysis of crime, focusing on crime harm suggests that harm is more concentrated than counts, at the level of crime hot spots. It remains presently unclear what drives the concentration distributions, and whether the count-based model should be abandoned.MethodsCross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 6 year of spatiotemporal crime data in Toronto, Canada, to compare patterns and concentration of crime harm (measured in terms of the Crime Severity Index (CSI) against crime counts. Conditional probabilities, trajectory analyses, power few concentrations, and spatial Global Moran’s I are used to infer generalised trends from the data.FindingsOverall CSI and crime counts tend to exhibit similar concentrations at the spatial micro levels, except against-the-body crimes such as violence which seems to drive nearly all the variations between the two measurement types. Violence harm spots tend to be more dispersed citywide and often do not remain constant year-to-year, whereas overall crime hotspots are more stable over time. Nevertheless, variations in disproportionally high crime hot spots are associated with total variations in crime, with as little as 1% increase in crime levels in these hot spots translating into substantial overall gains in recorded crime citywide.ConclusionsAbandoning count-based models in spatial analysis of crime can lead to an incomplete picture of crime concentrations. Both models are needed not just for understanding spatial crime distributions but also for cost-effective allocation of policing resources.

The adoption of a crime harm index: A scoping literature review

ABSTRACT An emerging line of research explores how calculating the harm associated with different types of crime serves as a method to measure crime across times, places and people. A crime harm index (CHI) is suggested to produce a more reliable bottom line indicator of public safety and it would allow law enforcement agencies to invest their scarce resources in proportion to the harm caused by various types of crimes. This scoping literature review maps the literature on crime harm indices published after 2006 by answering the following research questions: (1) what is the rationale for a CHI, (2) what are the possible ways to operationalize a CHI; (3) how can a CHI be used in crime analysis; (4) what are the general outcomes of the studies using a CHI; (5) what are the known challenges and critiques of a CHI and (6) what research gaps related to CHI are expressed in this field of research?

Investigating crime harm index in the low and downward crime contexts: A spatio-temporal analysis of the Japanese Crime Harm Index

Since Louis Thurstone, there have been nearly 100 years of attempts to compare and evaluate the severities of different crime types. Further research has been recently conducted, following methods such as the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CCHI), which evaluates the harmful impact of crime on the society and identifies the areas in a city with truly high crime harm by weighting the more serious crimes. Although this index facilitates informed urban policy, its effectiveness in settings such as that of Japan, in which the rate of violent crimes, including gun crime, is low, and where crime occurrence is generally infrequent, remains unclear. Here, the Japanese CHI was analyzed by examining the criminal offense data of 77 jurisdictions in central Tokyo in 2010–2019. The pre-weighted counts and post-weighted harm were compared to examine the correlations and time-series changes between them, as well as their differences via different indicators, such as the Gini coefficient and Moran's I statistic. Additionally, space-time scans and principal component regressions were employed to determine the specific characteristics of the jurisdictions where harm accumulates. The result indicated that although the temporal and spatial variability of harm was higher than that of its counts, the tendency of high-harm jurisdictions to cluster was lower. Further, the implications of our findings, particularly regarding the socioeconomic factors that were revealed by the regression analysis, to urban policymakers were also discussed.