Introduction

This case study describes work undertaken in Somerset on violent crime patterns. The Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CRDP) team used reported crime data to map crime-hotspots at different times of day. Unexpected findings were revealed and highlighted to delivery agencies and policy-makers. While the community safety partnership anticipated the patterns associated with alcohol related violent crime, domestic violence and hate crime, there was surprise about the level and pattern of youth violence.

While the basic analysis was important in uncovering the causes underlying the violent crime statistics, the key to this work influencing local ways of working, was a planned communication strategy. At the core of this was a well-designed and effective presentation that challenged the audience pursue further analysis of their own and generate solutions. The findings were presented in an animated sequence to clearly illustrate the specific times and places crime was occurring.

Using this method of analysis and communication of the data, the CDRP team managed to facilitate more effective working relationships between agencies involved in dealing with crime.

Background

Aims

The aim of the research was to understand the patterns in violent crime as part of the CDRP’s six-monthly strategic assessment. The objective was to look beyond trends in the aggregate numbers, to uncover: -

• Where there were crime concentrations or ‘hotspots’
• When in the day violent incidents occurred
• Clarify the profile of victims and perpetrators
• Examine why the patterns observed in the analysis occur

There was a desire in the partnership to ensure a clear strategy and action plan arose out of the analysis to address the issues highlighted.

Challenges

The research complemented the existing analysis of the predominant causes of violent crime (alcohol related around concentrations of pubs and clubs, domestic violence and hate crime). Thus, there was an expectation of finding more incidents in the evening and night-time. Once the initial ‘unexpected’ findings on the levels of youth violence were made explicit,  emphasis was placed on sharing the findings and stimulating debate. Therefore, the key challenge in this piece of work concerned how best to communicate the findings.

It terms of the presentation, coming up with a simple visualisation of the findings that allowed the audience to understand the patterns of violent crime and to consider possible reasons for it was important. The style of the presentation needed to be hard hitting and persuasive.

Obtaining the data did not present a major challenge as Avon and Somerset Constabulary employed the analyst. However, for those working outside of their local constabulary, acquiring data to undertake similar analysis could be difficult due to data protection issues.

History

The Avon and Somerset Constabulary undertakes a six-monthly Strategic Assessment to highlight current concerns and to support planning of responses to these issues over the coming six-month period. Between 2003/04 and 2004/05 violent crime figures almost doubled. In contrast, other reported crimes, for example vehicle crime and burglary, had fallen markedly over the previous two years. Violent crime was a concern not only for the Police but also local CDRPs and local people. In addition, as violent crime is a key indicator in a number of performance management tools (i.e. Corporate Performance Assessment (CPA); Public Service Agreement (PSA); Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs)) a better understanding of the categories of people affected and the causes was required by public service managers. The local partnerships wanted to implement a more coordinated and targeted response. The analysis was also timely, as the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership was undertaking its’ three-yearly audit and strategy exercise.

The expectations were that violent crime was focused around domestic abuse, hate crime and night-time economy violence. The patterns were expected to be little different from similar towns and cities. However, there was a surprise. The most interesting outcome of the research was not about what was anticipated but about what the partnership did not expect.

Research

Geo-coded data from Avon and Somerset Constabulary for a six month period was used. Only anonymised data covering those recorded crimes categorised as ‘violent crime’ – mainly assaults, harassment, wounding; but not robbery or sexual offences – were analysed. The data was looked at both spatially (in which area did the crimes occur) and temporally (at what time of day did crimes occur). The analysis covered the whole county. However, only data for Taunton was used for the presentation at the core of the communications plan. Data on assaults in Taunton was mapped using GIS software. The maps were then inserted into a PowerPoint presentation in sequence to illustrate how violent crime moves in Taunton over a 24-hour period.

Profiles of people involved

Olivia Burtchell of Avon and Somerset Constabulary was working with Somerset CDRP at the time. Olivia was the analyst. She carried out the data cleaning, analysis and put the presentation together.

Sarah Thornton leads work on Community Safety for Somerset County Council and was key to ensuring all the people who needed to hear about the work did so. She helped to support discussions and action planning to address the causes of violent crime highlighted.

Case Study Detail

The research was linked to a six-monthly Strategic Assessment. It looked at reported crime in Somerset over the previous six-month period: 1st October 2004 – 31st March 2005. The data came from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary recorded crime database maintained by the crime management unit. Before being analysed the data set was ‘depersonalised’. Data were analysed for the whole county.

In order to visually illustrate the trends and patterns of violent crime, the research looked in more detail at assaults only (Common Assaults plus Actual Bodily Harm) in Taunton and used GIS to display maps showing the location of assaults by time of day. It was these maps that were imported into the PowerPoint presentation. MapInfo and Vertical Mapper software packages were used to produce the maps for the presentation. The data extracted was grouped by hour-long periods. This allowed Olivia to prepare and plot 24 maps that aggregated the data for a particular 60-minute period across the six-month data-set used. By adjusting the density kernel / ‘blurring’ around the plotted points, the hotspots for each map were clarified. Constancy across the 24 individual maps and their hotspots was maintained to ensure the pattern of change across time could be easily seen. The maps were then exported so that they could be pasted as ‘pictures’ into PowerPoint. The key tip for developing a similar PowerPoint presentation that has ‘animated’ maps, is to ensure that the map for each slice to time is pasted in exactly the same place and is the same size on each slide. Then, when the show is run the hotspots appear to move.

The whole process took about three days. Half a day to clean the data, two days to do the analysis and mapping and half a day to pull a draft presentation together.

The unexpected findings for daytime violence were especially interesting. Over Somerset as a whole, four drivers of violence were identified: Youth Violence (account for 27% of recorded incidents), Night-time economy violence (23%), Domestic Abuse (22%) and Hate Crime (3%). Other violent crimes that fell outside of these categories accounted for the remaining 25%.

The most surprising finding was the level of violence linked to young people. Much of the violence seen in the daytime involves young people on weekdays between 3pm and 5pm. This is associated with the end of the school day. Victims tended to be 14 years old. It was observed that there were strong links to bullying, criminal damage, anti social behaviour and robbery. The hotspots in Somerset occurred in most town centres in the county and coincided especially with areas shown to have higher levels of deprivation. The sharing of these results have led to better support and new initiatives within the Children and Young People service. These include aligning police services and youth services through  “locality teams”, youth diversion projects, development of an anti-bullying strategy and a restorative justice infrastructure within schools.

As expected, much night-time violence was linked to the night-time economy. Common assault and actual bodily harm accounted for three-quarters of reported incidents. The hotspots were in town centres close to pubs and clubs and on routes towards residential areas. The highest levels were at weekends between 11pm and 2am, with incidents often involving young men (early 20s / late 30s).

The results for Domestic Abuse showed high repeat victimisation (50%) with the vast majority of victim suffering assaults (85%) and 13% harassment. 85% of victims were women and tended to be in their early 20s and late 30s. These findings have supported improved targeting of ongoing work in Somerset.

With regard to Hate Crime there was a view that as numbers were lower than expected,under-reporting of such crime was likely. Hate crime was racial, religious and/or homophobic in nature. In Somerset, two-thirds was harassment (verbal abuse). The largest proportion (one quarter), was racially motivated. Most incidents occurred in the county’s main town centres withvictims more often being males in their 20s and 40s and 43% suffering repeat victimisation. The analysis highlighted knowledge gaps in the true levels of hate crime and barriers to reporting and thus the need for a more robust research project.

There were a number of elements to the ‘marketing’ strategy that meant the response to the piece of research was so positive. Where the presentation and summary of findings were emailed to key people, follow up phone calls and meetings were arranged to ensure findings were understood and the implications considered. Where presentations were made to groups, Sarah and Olivia worked as a team. Sarah being able to talk to and support the strategic discussion and Olivia to explain the data and trends seen in Somerset. Sarah was able to have the presentation put on at a range of meetings though the effective use of existing networks, this saved time and the need to call special meetings. The feedback on the presentation was very positive as it allowed the audience to immediately understand what was happening and to consider options for addressing the problems highlighted. This proved an effective approach for getting people on board across a range of organisations. In the words of Olivia, “It is so important to present findings well. Use pretty pictures, make your audience think and encourage them to make their own judgements.”

Results

There are a number of key actions that have resulted from the identification of youth violence as a major concern.

• The Youth Service locality teams now are linked to locally based Police Community Support Officers (PSCOs)
• A bullying reduction strategy group has been established and is tasked with  coming up with both a strategy and an action plan to address youth violence
• There are now stronger links between the Director for Children and Young People and CDRP with requests for more data and analysis being addressed.
• The research has been helpful for establishing Baselines and targets for the new Local Area  Agreement (LAA).

Since the research was undertaken there has been a significant reduction in violence. While this drop mirrors national trends, the timeliness and appropriateness of the research has supported local efforts to tackle violent crime.

In addition, the value of having a crime analyst post in the County Council was clearly highlighted. As a result additional resources have been made available to the Community Safety Team to employ their own analyst.

The work has highlighted the need to undertake similar research in support of the LAA for overall crime, anti-social behaviour, arson, assaults, burglary, vehicle crime and crimes linked to drugs and alcohol.

Conclusions

While the data is not directly transferable the findings are applicable on a wider scale. The research highlighted the importance of looking at age groups across types of crime in order to understand better the daily patterns in recorded crime. Using a partnership model to analyse the data and explore the causes have enabled targeted local solutions to be developed.

Effective ‘marketing’ of the findings meant that the right people heard about the findings, especially those relating youth violence. This resulted in new partnership working in this area between schools, the youth service and the police.

Do’s and Don’ts

Do

• Use a number of communication tools – well designed presentations are only part.
• Pick up the phone and make personal contact with key individuals to get them to the  presentation. Follow-up afterwards also.
• Design presentations with a clear structure that are attention grabbing and hard hitting.
• Pose questions at the end of this type of presentation to promote debate
• Make the most of staff with good analysis skills. Take them along to presentations; they have the understanding of the detail.
• The key tip for developing a similar PowerPoint presentation that has ‘animated’ maps, is to ensure that the map for each slice in time is pasted in exactly the same place and is the same size on each slide. Then, when the show is run the hotspots appear to move.
• Present findings face to face (to small or large groups )
• Piggyback on other meetings, networks or planning processes to ensure the messages are widely heard and time is used efficiently.
• Seek out good practice in the UK and other countries, especially the USA, where the strategic use of GIS for analysis of crime trends is more advanced.

Don’t

• Expect senior managers to read reports or email describing findings
• Be afraid of making presentations hard-hitting and a bit sensational – it helps grab the audience’s attention
• Give up. If you have an important story to tell, persist. Think about how you can ‘sell’ the story.
• Don’t be afraid of experimenting or using your initiative to extend the research questions you are examining.
• Be isolated as an analyst – link up and work in partnership

Find out more

Olivia Burtchell
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
01823 363101
Olivia.Burtchaell@avonandsomerset.police.uk

Sarah Thornton – Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership
Somerset County Council
01823 357837
SThornton@somerset.gov.uk