The Essex Risk-Based Policing Initiative: Evidence-Based Practices in Problem Analysis and Crime Prevention in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This study draws insights from environmental criminology to implement a policing initiative focused on risky places and the micro-spatial attractors that create vulnerable settings for crime to emerge or persist in the town of Basildon. Evidence-based approaches to crime control have become more important within law enforcement approaches to crime control. Insights that have emerged from recent research on place-based approaches will serve as a central focus of this paper. The experimental approach taken to assess, implement and test the risk-based policing initiative incorporates lessons learned from similar US-based initiatives, and is the first study of its kind in the UK. Results show that community violence offences reduced significantly, and the target areas outperformed the control areas by over 47%. A cost-benefit analysis found this equates to a costs savings of £106,220 during the 6-month intervention period. This study demonstrates the value of evidence-based approaches to problem analysis and place-based crime prevention, and the generalizability of policing research in the US to UK settings. It also demonstrates how a researcher-practitioner implemented initiative from a large city in Missouri (US) was transferred to a small town in Essex (UK) solely via the in-house expertise of Essex Police personnel who reviewed published and open-access scientific literature, a true testament to “pracademics” and translational criminology.

Keywords:

• Police
• crime
• analysis
• prevention

Notes

1 For some time prior to this study the use of place-based and proactive strategies for crime prevention by British agencies had experienced a gradual erosion amidst a climate of significant budget and personnel cuts. More than 20,000 police officers and 23,500 police staff positions were lost nationwide between 2010 and 2018. This is often associated with priorities given to reactive, emergency work and crime-crisis management. Levels of demand for limited police services rose drastically during this period until a decision was made to reverse cuts in 2019. Essex Police lost 787 officers between 2010 and 2018 but is set to return to 2010 resource levels by the end 2022.

2 https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/public-sector-geospatial-agreement Accessed 15.07.2021

3 https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/addressbase-core Accessed 15.07.2021

4 A Pearsons correlation measure of weekly data points was calculated to observe the synchrony in levels of community violence in the control and treatment areas. These were moderately correlated over a period of more than 12-months prior to the intervention when outliers were removed.

5 A correlation test and generalized linear model were used to observe the count of activities as variables and the change in community violence, represented as a standardized value, as the outcome or dependent variable. At the smallest geographical area of 150-meter grid cells, there was no specific activity or intervention that was strongly correlated with the crime change score. The same was true when testing at the larger zonal geography consisting of contiguous grid cells.

6 When Herman Goldstein conceived problem-oriented policing (POP) he wanted it to improve the outcomes of policing activities by equipping officers with tools and information to adequately solve the specific problems they deal with in the line of duty (Goldstein, 2018). In his acceptance speech for the 2018 Stockholm Prize in Criminology, Goldstein proclaimed that the POP paradigm improves policing in a “multicultural and democratic society” (p. 1) by calling for deeply understanding each problem and then thinking creatively about the best possible “tailor-made” responses (Goldstein, 2018, p. 1).