Author: by Ronald V Clarke and John Eck
ISBN No:
Review date: 06/06/2026
No of pages: 0
Publisher: Published by Willan in association with the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College London WC1H 9QU. ISBN 0 9545 607 0 1. Spiral bound. Visit www.willanpublishing.co.uk and www.jdi.ucl.ac.uk
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Crime analysts are the smart new guys who can play a crucial role in reducing crime. So says a book championing crime science.
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Become a Problem Solving Crime Analyst in 55 small steps, promises the title of the handbook by two US criminologists with the backing of the Home Office and the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. A foreword by Nick Ross of BBC Crimewatch UK hails crime analysts as little known but potentially crucial, allowing us to outwit criminals rather than chasing them.
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Putting problems first</br>
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Rather forbiddingly, the manual starts by stating it assumes you are already working as an analyst. That means you already know how to use computer databases; to use software to identify hot-spots, and to produce charts to show changes in crime. This emphasis on solving problems (break-ins in a car park, say) rather than catch criminals is if anything more suited to the private security industry. Security managers lack the police powers of arrest and their employers in any case are most interested in reducing crime on their premises - with the unstated effect of sending the criminals to easier pickings elsewhere. Nick Ross in that foreword makes much of how crime analysts are enlightened, rethinking policing. Leaving aside the fact that the TV crime programme Ross fronts is an example of the old-style chasing criminals, nowhere does Ross show any sign of really new thinking - namely that the private security industry probably carries out most policing in the UK. Ross could do with widening his mind beyond the old trinity of police, politicians and the law. Does this matter' Well, yes, because if these crime analysts rely on official statistics, they are in a fix. As the handbook admits, many victims do not report crimes to the police. Yet crime science relies on statistics. The manual quotes Barry Poynerโs study of street attacks in the centre of Coventry and Birmingham. Police classified them as robberies and thefts from the person, but incidents ranged from robberies from drunks to thefts from shopping bags. An answer to, for example, pick-pocketing at a bus queue might be to install queue barriers or a bus shelter to prevent a gang from jostling passengers and pocketing a wallet. One wonders if this is not crime science but merely looking carefully at a problem and doing some thinking! The book reports how Disney World (politely) directs visitors and keeps them informed, to minimise risk of accidents or crime.
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Necessary and clear</br>
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Everybody from historians to transport planners are using computer data to come up with statistics - at the click of a few buttons, rather than manual counting that took ages. This is however a necessary book, that describes its subjects clearly. Crime science, situational crime prevention, whatever you want to call it, is about results, and it helps all in society - gated communities, with CCTV and entry phones, can equally be for blocks of flats plagued by drugs, not only the very rich. However, a good crime analyst will always be sceptical - what if the criminals live inside the gates!
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Giving you the tools</br>
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To repeat, this manual speaks more to the private security industry than to police, who are locked into what the book calls โconventional policingโ - patrolling, rapid response, and follow-up investigating that (maybe, in the end) goes to court. Itโs not very good at arresting offenders, or putting them off crime. Given that so many retail (and other) security managers have more or less given up on police, this book is for private security and anyone else who will listen, and pick up the tools.<br>
