Abstract
This paper considers a suspect prioritization technique and tests its validity using a sample of commercial armed robbery offences from St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. The proposed technique is empirically grounded in criminal careers and journey‐to‐crime research. Suspects with a previous criminal history are selected and ranked in ascending order by the distance they live from the location of the crime in question, with the nearest suspect given highest priority. Effectiveness is measured by the percentage of ranked suspects that needs to be searched before the offender is identified. Results show that 65% of the robbers were identified in the top 10% of ranked suspects. Limitations and proposed refinements are discussed in terms of future prioritization strategies and policing research.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by an Overseas Research Scholarship awarded to the first author by the Overseas Research Students Award Scheme. We would like to thank Paul J. Taylor, Craig Bennell, and Ken Fowler for their insightful comments upon earlier versions of this paper.