From National to Local:
Terrorism and Community Safety
Spencer Chainey
Director of Geographical Information Science
Purpose of this plenary
• National to Local?
– National level: The National Threat Assessment and the
Community Safety Plan
• Considers the terrorism threat
• Looks to strengthen communities
– Local level: Strategic Assessments and CDRP Audits
• Does your local Strategic Assessment or Audit explore the terrorism
threat?
– Weaknesses in the interchange between these levels
• Parallels between drugs and terrorism
• 4 pilot Street Level Up Approaches to drugs have shown how this can
be corrected
– If we are going to unpack the issues, does this not include
exploring the issues with a local perspective?
– Who performs the local role?
Purpose of this plenary
• Approaching the discussion somewhat blindly
– Are there lessons that can be learned from how we
tackle crime?
– What can we learn from crime mapping?
• Is there a geography of terrorism?
– Prompt discussion
• We may not have all the answers
• But hope to take a step forward in our thinking
• Prevention, Planning and Response
• But don’t we just copy what the Americans have
been doing with ‘Homeland Security’?
Purpose of this plenary
The speakers
• Can we learn anything from crime mapping?
– The role of ‘place’ in terrorism
• Draw from the methodologies we apply in crime mapping
• UCL Centre for Security and Crime Science - CS²
• An operational perspective (British Transport Police)
– How does this stuff work on the ground?
• Planning and response – national guidance (Emergency
Planning College)
– Recognising where GIS fits with this
– The role of those in intelligence development
Countering terrorism – perspectives on
what can be learned from crime mapping
Spencer Chainey
Director of Geographical Information Science
• “It’s an incredibly difficult and complex problem”
Hazel Blears MP, May 2006
Crime problem:
Terrorism problem:
motivated offender + vulnerable target @ a place
motivated offender + vulnerable target @ a place
Why bother with crime mapping?
• Exploit the inherent geographical quality of crimes
and incidents
– The Crime ‘Problem’ Triangle
Crime = Motivated offender + Vulnerable Victim @ some Place
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Not just about hotspot maps
Where do offenders live?
Where do the most vulnerable communities live?
How do offenders travel to the crime location?
What causes crime in our high crime neighbourhoods?
Why do crimes occur in one area and not another?
Where are our emerging problem areas?
Crime mapping and problem solving
• How do we solve problems?
– We break them into manageable little chunks
– Which includes exploring their geographical quality
• Helps us to unpack and explore the specifics of the
problem
•
– Crime specific – changing small details can make all the difference
Applying scientific methodologies
– Using data, applying logic and testable theories, drawing on evidence,
using rational thought, testing hypotheses, and establishing knowledge
• Helps partnership approaches to the problem
– Geography as a data integrator
– Multi-agency in content, multi-agency in outlook
• Planning and response - operational, investigative, strategic, prevention
• Reassurance – provided by those that are closest to the community
Can we apply these principles to terrorism?
• How do we solve problems?
– We break them into manageable little chunks
– Which includes exploring their geographical quality
• Helps us to unpack and explore the specifics of the
problem
•
– Being specific – changing small details can make all the difference
Applying scientific methodologies – we apply it to crime, do we apply it
to terrorism?
– Using data, applying logic and testable theories, drawing on evidence,
using rational thought, testing hypotheses, and establishing knowledge
• Helps partnership approaches to the problem
– Geography as a data integrator
– Multi-agency in content, multi-agency in outlook
• Planning and response - operational, investigative, strategic, prevention
• Reassurance – provided by those that are closest to the community
Where does the offender live?
• Three techniques from crime mapping
– Could we apply these to help counter terrorism
• Aid a more balanced problem-oriented approach
to terrorism
• ‘Place’ is not just about hotspots
• Identifying vulnerable communities
• Geographic profiling
• Self-selection
Identifying vulnerable communities
(Neighbourhood Policing)
Burglary dwelling
Criminal damage to
dwelling
Income deprivation
Employment
deprivation
Poor educational
attainment
Young people
Identifying vulnerable communities
(Neighbourhood Policing)
•
Vulnerable Localities Index is
a composite of the 6 indicators
– Not only considers crime but
attributes of interest to local
• Could we use a similar technique to identify
partners
– calculated
using a simplevulnerable to turning to terrorism?
communities
normalisation method
•
•
•
Proving to be• Different
an effective
indicators
mechanism for identifying the
right priority areas
• Applies a filter to identify priority areas
Acts as the starting point on
• Consider these
which ‘local intelligence’
can with other intelligence
be further considered
Aligning police activities with
established or future local
partner actions
– Neighbourhood Renewal
– Education Action Zones
– Health Action Zones
Geographic profiling
•
•
•
One of the biggest clues
that an offender leaves
behind when they
• Could we use geographic profiling to help
commit a crime is where
identify
where the terrorists live?
the crime
happened
• Linked
Used to support
anseries is based on intelligence about suspects
information • Explore the geography of this intelligence
management strategy
• Has already been used in military situations to help identify
Identifying the
probable
where
insurgents live
address of serial
offenders
Self selection
•
What is self selection?
– Those that commit crimes, break other rules, rules that non-criminals may
also break, but rules that a high proportion of active criminals break quite
often
•
Some examples,
– Squeegee merchants: A substantial minority of Squeegee merchants in
New York City also had outstanding warrants for other criminal offences
(Kelling and Coles, 1996)
– Illegal parking: One in four of those vehicles illegally parked in a disabled
space were categorised as to require or justify police action, as contrasted
to 2% of the legally parked cars (Chenery, Henshaw and Pease, 1999)
– Fare evasion on public transport: a significant minority of those who
evade paying for a train ticket or a bus fare are also believed to commit
other crimes (Newton, 2004)
– Yorkshire Ripper: useful to remember that the action that led to the arrest
of Peter Sutcliffe was not as a result of a sting operation, but as a result
from being picked up for having suspicious car registration plates
•
All offenders have a weakness, self-selection is a means of exploiting
that weakness
Self selection and geography
• Self selection at activity locations
– where an offender self-selects by travelling to a location
and performs an action
– E.g. squeegee merchants, illegal parking, fare evasion
• Terrorists do not perform actions that may raise
attention to themselves
– E.g. all the 7/7 bombers bought an Underground ticket
– Don’t actually know if this is true but it is the general
impression
Self selection and geography
• Non-active locations
– offenders volunteer themselves by revealing their
residential address through an action they have not
performed at this address
• Subtract all those that have performed the action
from a definitive address database reveals those
that have not performed the action
Self selection and geography
• Examples
– failing to pay a tax (e.g. vehicle road tax, Council Tax, television
license)
– failure to complete a Census form
• Logic suggests that if an offender wants to conceal their
identity then an action they would not do is complete their
personal details and send it off to the Government
Conclusion
•
Believe there is opportunity to apply the problem solving approach we
apply to crime to countering terrorism
– Terrorism is complex, but so is crime, and crime problem solving has
proven it delivers results
•
Countering terrorism is predominantly focused towards offender-based
activity
– Opportunity to shift the emphasis to all aspects of the problem triangle
– And apply a proper problem-oriented approach to counter-terrorism
• This means we need to explore the ‘place’ dimension more
•
Suggested three techniques applied in crime mapping
– Identifying vulnerable communities: geographic profiling: self selection
– Combination of all three
•
We need to start testing these ideas
– Apply against cases where the offender has been identified
– Using hindsight to help build and better understand the future