The Utility of Criminality Analysis
techniques in frontline OA
Sam Mitchell
Support to Operations, Dstl
01 Sep 2010
© Crown copyright 2010. Published with the permission of the Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory on behalf of the Controller of HMSO
Content
• Who are we
• Criminality analysis - What is it and why are we
interested?
• Geospatial profiling
Anchor point Identification
 What it is
 What already exists
o Prospective Crime Mapping
 What it is
 What already exists
o Utility to Support to Operations
o
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Who does it?
PCS Support to Operations Group
“Providing analysis support to exercises and operations through timely application
of science and technology”
•
Operational Analysts directly
supporting operational commands
and warfare centres brought
together as the Support to
Operations Group within the PCS
Department, providing:
o Support to Current Operations
o Support to Planning for Future
Operations
o Support to Trials
o Support to Exercises
o Rapid Operational Analysis
o Operational and Exercise Data
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
What it is and Why we’re interested
• What it is:
o
o
• Why we’re interested:
Civilian policing authorities
use various criminality
analysis techniques to help
solve and prevent crime
Based on the premise that
humans are inherently
predictable
o
 Serial offending criminals
set patterns as a result of
numerous variables (time,
transport, etc)
 Insurgents will similarly be
likely to set patterns
o
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
o
Looking to improve the OA
support to deployed HQ
planning and decision
making.
Looking at providing
analysis to contribute to the
IED ‘Prevent’ strand
Another club in the OA golf
bag
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Geospatial Profiling- Anchor Point
Identification
• Geospatial profiling is based on the premise that everyone has a
pattern to his or her daily lives
o
including a general geographical area in which they spend the majority
of their time, and the principle of least effort
• Career criminals and serial offenders are no different, they have a
comfort zone, typically within driving distance from their home.
o
Committing a crime in this area affords the offender the benefit of
familiarity but is not too close so that they maintain anonymity
• Geospatial profiling was developed by Canadian Mr Rossmo whilst
studying for his PhD
o
o
Does not widely distribute, believes strongly in the analyst in the loop
Variety of different commercially available products
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
What already exists
• Rigel© Software developed by Dr Rossmo and
used by civilian law enforcement agencies
o
o
o
o
The algorithm takes a series of linked events and
predicts the likely location of an anchor point such
as a residence or workplace of the offender.
This information can be used to prompt further
intelligence collection or can be combined with
other existing intelligence to trigger action
The algorithm contains a distance decay function.
The premise behind this is that the farther a
criminal travels to commit their crime the more it
costs in terms of money, time and energy.
The distance decay function has been found to
vary in different types of crimes
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Everything else
• Since the creation of Rigel numerous other software packages now
exist such as Crimestat III a spatial statistical package that
interfaces with Geographic Information System (GIS) programmes
such as ArcGIS®, MapInfo®, and Surfer for Windows®.
These commercially available products have several features,
including those which calculate travel distances from origin to
destination, to predict likely residence of serial offenders.
o They use a known sample from other crimes and employ the
distance decay function.
o
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Prospective crime mapping
• Aim: To determine where the next incident will occur
• Usage: Knowing when and where to deploy resources
• Like Hotspot analysis
o
Take for example burglary; the risk of a house getting burgled is not
even and will vary by area and within areas some homes are victimised
more than others
• Where this differs from classical hotspot analysis is that research
has indicated that spatial and temporal patterns of crime are fluid.
Johnson et al and others have demonstrated that the risk of
burglary appears not only to move, but to cluster in space and time
in much the same way as a communicable disease.
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
What already exists
• The requirement for tools to help analysts recognise patterns has
accelerated the development of forecasting or predictive software
• One such tool developed by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and
The Engineer Research and Development Centre's Topographic
Engineering Centre (TEC) is Threat Mapper
• Given an input data set of past threat activity such as IED events and any
relevant feature information such as roads and rivers Threat Mapper will
forecast future events
o
The likelihood of future incidents in different areas is calculated by establishing
spatial patterns between the past events and surrounding feature information
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Dstl use in Frontline OA
•
Insurgents thought to behave much like ‘criminals’
• Research by National Ground Intelligence Centre (NGIC) and Defence Research
and Development Canada (DRDC) found IED locations followed similar patterns to
those identified in “western crime”
•
Dstl Information Management Department are developing software for use in the
Counter-IED arena based on these criminality analysis techniques
• Using historical data sets looking at IEDs linked via biometrics, MO, geospatial
proximity, and technical signatures
• Initial results show the technique to be successful at reducing the search area for an
IED anchor point.
• IED specific algorithm developed and ratified against different historic data
•
The Applied Geo-profiling Tool (AGT) for anchor point identification was taken to Theatre
January 2010
• Trialed to determine usability
• Discussed with military stakeholders
• Brought feedback for the developers
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Future use in Frontline OA
• Ideally we’d like a purpose built Geo-profiling toolset combining these
analysis techniques to run on existing GIS software packages with
counter insurgency operation specific algorithms
o
o
Location
Type of threat
• The application of this, would allow the deployed analyst to provide an
additional statistical probability in the identification of an anchor point to
the intelligence cell which could contribute to the planning, targeting or
influence processes, or the location of future threats for troops on the
ground.
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Future use in Frontline OA
• For Anchor point identification in contrast to the use in law enforcement
which lies late in the intelligence cycle the utility for a military application
could be earlier in the cycle where incidents are linked perhaps by MO and
technology but no further intelligence exists.
o
Here, with an understanding of the sensitivity to error, its use could for example
prompt the allocation of intelligence collection assets. This would not prohibit its
further use down the line, for which it was originally intended, where a higher
statistical probability of area identification would be likely.
• It is important to remember that the actions of the coalition forces will affect
any given pattern seen.
o
So when attempting prospective incident mapping our own temporal and spatial
footprint should therefore be taken into account, as it is likely that any change
in our tactical decision-making, in general or in response to an attack would
lead to an alteration in the pattern seen.
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence
Questions?
August 23, 2010
UNCLASSIFIED
Dstl is part of the
Ministry of Defence