Strategic Operational and Investigative Plan for Multiple Daytime Robberies in City X
I. Introduction
The act of robbery has been defined by the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (2010) as a crime on property which involves the use of violence or any form of threat to the owners of the property. These include bag-snatching, muggings, and theft with violence on a variety of settings ranging from corner streets, open areas, commercial establishments and heists on high-security banks and other private establishments. Among the nations examined by the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (2010), the region of Southern Africa was recorded as having the highest median of robberies reported per 100,000 of their population at 200 instances per 100, 000 of their population for 2006. This was followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, East Europe, North Africa, and the West and Central Europe accordingly. On the other hand, the Southern Asia, Middle East and Central Asia were reported as having the least amount of robberies reported among the regions analyzed. Nonetheless, since 1996, the agency reported that the cases of robbery were already declining in most of the surveyed nations. However, being acknowledged as a criminal act, the cases of robbery still pose a threat to human safety and personal security. Thus, its existence in select locations could still result in not only losses but could also lead into abuse, violence and even long-term trauma. With this, the prevalence of multiple daytime robberies in City X is an issue that should be urgently dealt with. Given the greater fact that the police officers investigating these cases were not able to obtain sufficient information for each robbery, the tendency for these acts to become prevalent has a huge potential to increase over time. The following discussions focuses on the strategic operational/investigative plan formulated as part of the consultancy work in resolving the issue at hand.
II. Approaches to Investigations
According to Peterson (2005), in order to resolve criminality infesting a particular region, it would require the application of advanced technology and intelligence strategies. As an intelligence management specialist for New Jersey and a columnist for The Police Chief, she recommended the inclusion of an investigative analytic approach in the strategic plan of law enforcement in order to enable investigators to work in a methodological manner and thus benefit from successful prosecutions and more efficient investigations. The investigative process includes eight key parts: (1) the employment of strategic targeting, (2) the completion of up-front backgrounds relevant to the targets, (3) the formulation and usage of investigative plans, (4) the application of problem-solving techniques, (5) the expanded usage of critical thinking, (6) the ample organization of data, (7) the usage of data analytics techniques, and (8) the formulation of an analytic case package for prosecution. The strategic, operational/investigation plan for City X will be patterned from Peterson’s (2005) recommendations.
In terms of employing strategic targeting, this includes the conducting of steps that seeks to focus efforts on leads or cases that could make the greatest impact in the city rather than spreading investigations across all reported cases. In bringing this to fruition, this includes reviewing all the gathered police reports in instances of robberies in City X and appraise them based on their severity, the amount of losses, adjunct crimes committed, and even appropriated public opinion on these issues. In addition to these, the team could also look into forensic evidences, footage, and witnesses based from the police reports. From here, the team will focus on a handful of crimes that has most likely made the biggest impact and work from there.
After selecting potential targets, Peterson (2005) recommended the conducting of up-front background information pertinent to the aforementioned targets. As Bruce, Hicks and Cooper (2004) stated, this may involve the re-interviewing of any witness from the police reports and the conducting of background checks on suspects and the parties related to them. These could be done by accessing their information in the city citizen database were details of their jobs, filings, previous charges, and other personal information could be found.
Upon gathering all the necessary information, Bruce, Hicks and Cooper (2004) and Peterson (2005) posited that this information should now be maximized in synthesizing these details for trends and similarities that could lead into the development of a further knowledge on the case. The process could be aided by the use of advanced technology and mapping strategies in order to make further analysis possible.
III. Role of Technology in the Strategic Plan
In the report made by the International Association of Crime Analysts (2013), the agency reiterated the previous assertions of Peterson (2005) on the important role that technology is playing in the management of crime in a particular region or city. Likewise, the formulation of strategies in mitigating the existence of robberies in City X is believed by the consultant to be solved with the use of current and advanced forms of technology. With this, the following technological innovations will be applied in furthering the investigative plan mentioned in the previous section of the discussion.
Given the lack of available preliminary information on the cases of robbery in City X, the central point of the applications of the technology would still lie on the narrowing of options into specific leads or even particular areas of concentration. These could be made possible with the application of geographic information systems in crime mapping and determining criminal activity hotspots. As noted by Eck et al. (2005), the creation of crime maps help in detecting high crime areas which could contribute in answering analytical questions, aid in the formulation of criminal theory, and, in a practical sense, contribute to the formulation of an appropriate police action. Its applications range from identifying which commercial establishments have experienced robberies based on a certain time period, monitoring movements of criminal activities across the city, and the determining of the impact of solving a particular robbery group to the robbery incidence map of the city. In analyzing these results, various techniques could be applied which ranges from manual analysis or observing clustering via the naked vision, the fuzzy mode analysis in comparing crime incidence in two particular areas on the map, the use of color maps to represent symbols and associations that could be necessary in making associations. Furthermore, results can be applied through analysis through standard deviations which would narrow down the possibilities of clustering by chance, grid cell mapping analysis which monitors density of crime incidence, and the kernel density interpolation which provides a more in-depth view of crime incidence for every individual grid.
Moreover, the analysis and determination of clustering could go beyond pattern observation into a definite aim of determining how zonal robbery incidences and clustering are statistically correlated. This could be done by the use of spatial auto-correlation in determining whether criminal events occurring in different locations are related or if the criminal events occurring in the same location have a correlation with each other (Eck et al., 2005). The aforementioned visual and statistical techniques serve as key evidence of the availability of a variety of means in resolving crime, even if in the presence of limited information and data infrastructure. While each method or technique serves a particular purpose, it would be then necessary to gauge which technique fits the needs of the investigation panel in order to tailor fit it with the results needed.
IV. Gearing for Enforcement and Prosecution
Upon conducting the outlined extensive investigation process, these data should then be transformed into usable and understandable form for applications of law enforcement teams and prosecutors. As noted by Peterson (2005), the thoroughness of the investigation could lead into the potential conclusion of the case at hand. Thus, it would be highly necessary for reports to be thoroughly detailed yet still understandable by lay readers of the case. This could also open for additional investigative units, equipment and supplies in order to execute and file charges against determined perpetrators. The quality of the report could also open act as a propositional project that the department could use as a gauge of their performance in order to acquire additional sources of funding.
Lastly, as the case will now be brought to prosecution, the assurance of executing the appropriate law enforcement strategies while maintain a legal and moral grounding would be the basis of the effort’s success as some cases were oftentimes dismissed due to unlawful actions executed by the investigative or law enforcement panels. Thus, a quality check should be observed not only after the case has been closed, but also in every step of the investigation process. Furthermore, as Stockdale and Gresham (1998) recommended, it would also be wise to conduct a comparative examination of the suggested strategy to City X with other strategies in effect in other cities. In this way, the overall strategy for City X could be enhanced while also communicating with other cities and police forces in determining which strategies and technologies works best in solving particular cases like robbery incidence, and other potential crimes.
References
Bruce, C.W., Hick, S.R., & Cooper, J.P. (2004). Exploring Crime Analysis Reading on Essential Skills. International Association of Crime Analysts. Overland Park, KS.
Eck, J., Chainey, S., Cameron, J., Leitner, M., & Wilson, R. (2005). Mapping Crime: Understanding Hotspots. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control. (2010). International statistics on crime and justice. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime-statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf
International Association of Crime Analysts. (2013). Identifying high crime areas. Retrieved from http://www.iaca.net/Publications/Whitepapers/iacawp_2013_02_high_crime_areas.pdf
Peterson, M. B. (2005, December). An analytic approach to investigations. The Police Chief: The Professional Voice of Law Enforcement. Retrieved from http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=766&issue_id=122005
Stockdale, J. E., & Gresham, P. J. (1998). Tackling street robbery: A comparative evaluation of Operation Eagle Eye (87). Retrieved from Police Research Group: Crime Detection and Prevention Series website: http://www.popcenter.org/problems/robbery_atms/PDFs/fcdps87.pdf
