Intelligence/crime analysis

ANALYSIS: New research by community safety professional Abu Ullah into the incidence of violence against women and girls in the London Borough of Sutton has highlighted the need for an evidence-based approach targeting hotspots to gain the most effective outcomes from overstretched police resources and reduce the threat to females, as he explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

FEATURE: With money laundering continuing to pose a threat to security and safety through the use of funds for both criminal activity and terrorism, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports on the latest European Union agreements which should improve detection and strengthen prevention across members states.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: As generative AI bursts onto the scene, it promises to transform people’s personal and professional lives forever. It could hold the key to police forces operating more effectively – but it’s also already being used by criminals for nefarious purposes. UK forces must consider: How can they harness GenAI while preventing its misuse?

FEATURE: An evaluation report into the UK Government-funded Grip programme and hot spot policing initiative designed to tackle serious violence has highlighted significant reductions in crime and potential savings, but has also warned that the approach is not a “quick fix” and requires commitment and buy-in from forces and leaders, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Fivecast, a leading Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) solution provider, explains how OSINT techniques can help police forces identify coordinated efforts by online groups with the intent to vandalise or disrupt government infrastructure related to the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone. By leveraging OSINT, intelligence officials can uncover networks of actors, events and analyse trends indicating criminal behaviours and risks to public safety.

OPINION: Algorithms are used to predict the risk of criminal behaviour, drug use and reoffending in a number of countries (as well as being employed widely outside the criminal justice sector); but Associate Professor Tatiana Dancy of the University of Melbourne argues that decisions should only be taken – and penalties applied – on the basis of behaviour, not other physical, mental or social characteristics fed into predictive tools.

OPINION: The latest annual assessment by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), set out in a speech by Director-General Mike Burgess, has downgraded the terror threat level from ‘probable’ to ‘possible’; but Professor Greg Austin of the University of Technology Sydney believes the assessment is confusing, downplaying the threat of right-wing extremism while over-emphasising the threat from some foreign powers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.