Intelligence/crime analysis

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Defined as a tactic that uses advanced analytics for proactive crime prevention and supporting investigations, predictive policing identifies intervention targets, solves past crimes, and makes effective crime prevention policies. Due to the adoption of knowledge graph databases and their rigorous nature, such analysis is starting to become commonplace.

FEATURE: The potential of technological advances to transform policing has generated enormous excitement across the sector; but while many in law enforcement are aware of the opportunities offered, much less attention has been paid to the fundamentals needed to actually deliver this kind of tech-driven policing, as Policing Insight’s James Sweetland explains.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: As one of seven Service Lines in the Office of the Police Chief Scientific Advisor’s Science and Technology Strategy, data analytics is playing an increasingly prominent role in police forces around the world. But how is it being applied to enable actionable decisions that improve policing outcomes across England and Wales?

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen spoke to Dr Mariola Marzouk, co-founder of trade-based money laundering (TBML) specialists Vortex Risk, about the dangers of failing to understand the practicalities of TBML, going back to the drawing board to tackle money laundering, and why celebrating the successes against ‘stupid’ money launderers is a false reality.

NEW REPORT: Information management is a crucial part of policing, yet too often it is regarded as a low priority by forces; now a new report from Policing Insight highlights the risks of underestimating the vital role the function plays, the challenges in changing culture and technology, and the opportunities of leveraging significant policing outcomes from well-managed data, as James Sweetland explains.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The all-too-common challenge of working within a modern policing environment: mountains of data from databases are disconnected and siloed. Users have to search through dozens of systems and conduct disconnected crime analysis, manually uncovering key linkages between entities. At the vanguard of policing technology, a growing graph-structured data model called a knowledge graph is proving invaluable.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: North Wales Police (NWP) embarked on a three year pioneering journey with Chorus Intelligence, to develop the industry’s most cutting-edge digital intelligence and investigation platform. Scott Orton, Head of UK for Chorus Intelligence, sits down with Owen Preece, Head of Crime, and Intelligence Analysis at NWP, to understand the transformations and successes achieved.

INNOVATION: With many forces around the world looking to enhance their intelligence analysis systems as part of the fight against crime, Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to New Zealand Police Director of National Intelligence Dan Wildy about the force’s success in adapting and improving their existing systems to deliver results, rather than investing too heavily in new and unproven technology.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Fivecast, a global Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) solution provider explores how Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT), is helping the UK policing community identify and mitigate threats and offers best practices applicable to law enforcement globally.

LONG READ: Having explored the challenges and opportunities faced by policing in collating and analysing the huge growth in data sources – including the potential for technology to offer solutions, the skillsets required and the ethical concerns – what does law enforcement need to do to tackle these issues? In the last in the series of five features, Policing Insight’s Keith Potter spoke to police practitioners, stakeholders and specialists about the way forward.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Register your place for this first National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) conference solely focussed on advanced data analytics for policing. The conference, supported by Policing Insight, will be held in Stratford Upon Avon 19-20 February 2024.

OPINION: Recent suggestions that policing could use facial recognition more widely – including to check against the UK passport database to identify shoplifters – prompted an outcry from some MPs, academics and campaigners; but Dr Asress Gikay, Senior Lecturer in AI, Disruptive Innovation and Law at London’s Brunel University, believes the benefit the tech delivers, public support, and existing safeguards mean campaigns to stop the police use of facial recognition are likely to fail.

LONG READ: The investigative opportunities and challenges offered to policing by the huge growth in digital data bring with them a much wider debate around the ethical use of such data, the importance of transparency and governance, and the need to ensure that policing maintains legitimacy with the communities it serves – issues which Policing Insight’s Keith Potter explores in the latest in a series features looking at the police use of data.

LONG READ: Having previously considered some of the wider issues around policing’s approach to the exponential growth in volume and complexity of data sources for investigations and intelligence gathering, in this latest in a series of features on the police data challenge, Policing Insight’s Keith Potter looks at the concerns around staffing – from skills gaps and accreditation to leadership literacy and implementation.

INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen spoke to Dr Jordan Nunan, former police officer, Senior Lecturer in Criminal at the University of Northampton, and National Co-ordinator for the National Police Chief’s Council’s Intelligence Practice Research Consortium, about the value of police-academic partnerships, the Achilles heel tactic, and the crucial role of human intelligence sources in tackling organised crime.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Fivecast, a leading provider of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) solutions, delve into the evolving role of open-source intelligence over the past decade and highlight how OSINT technology can significantly advance police investigations to ensure public safety.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Social Links, a leading open-source intelligence (OSINT) software provider, introduces CrimeWall, a cutting-edge OSINT investigation platform designed to simplify the entire intelligence cycle, from data extraction, through visualization and processing, to the final report.

LONG READ: The difficulties policing faces around the scale and complexity of digital data are widely acknowledged, but what about the potential for new technology to overcome some of those challenges? In the second in a series of five features looking at the police use of data, Policing Insight’s Keith Potter looks at some of the ways new tech – including automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning – are being employed in both investigative and preventative approaches.

ANALYSIS: A long-term approach to using technology, data analysis and information sharing to deliver significant reductions in gun violence in New Jersey has been hailed as the “tipping point in a new era of law enforcement” and is already being adopted and adapted by police and authorities in others states across the US, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: As international collaboration between law enforcement agencies becomes increasingly critical to combat contemporary organised crime, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth spoke to Superintendent Ted Esplund and Project Manager Åsa Granström at the Swedish Police Authority about the importance of knowledge exchange as part of their participation in NOTIONES, a new European network bringing police agencies together to improve the capacity and capability of intelligence functions.

LONG READ: The exponential growth in data sources offers policing significant opportunities for investigating and intelligence gathering, but brings with it new obstacles around the scale, complexity and consistency of data; in the first in a series of five features looking at the police use of data, Policing Insight’s Keith Potter looks at some of those key challenges at a force and national level.

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INTERVIEW: In the latest in a series of interviews with leading figures involved in the research and investigation of organised crime, Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen spoke to Bill Wood, former Head of the UNODC Programme Office in North Macedonia and previously National Crime Agency Liaison Officer based in Belgrade, about international collaborative approaches to tackling drugs, the crime dangers of ‘post-conflict’ fallout in Ukraine and Russia, and the frustration of governments’ corruption and support of organised crime.

INTERVIEW: In the second part of our extended interview series with Metropolitan Police Chief Scientific Officer Professor Lawrence Sherman, Policing Insight’s James Sweetland spoke to him about VAWG 100, the force’s innovative new approach to tackling high-harm offences against women and girls.