Transcript Crime Prevention Technology lecture byrne

CRIME PREVENTION TECHNOLOGY
System Component
Crime Prevention
Technological Application
-threat assessment instruments
--sex offender registration
-criminal risk assessment /involuntary
civil commitment
-bullying ID protocol
-facial recognition software
Police
-residential and commercial property
monitoring
-crime mapping (hot spots)
-crime analysis (COMPSTAT)
-criminal history data systems
enhancement
-info sharing within CJS and private
sector
-technologies to monitor cell and
electronic communications
amber alerts
-watch lists of potential offenders
-gunshot location devices
THREAT ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
Threat Assessment: Among the more widely cited, and most controversial, crime
prevention strategies over the past few decades are various threat assessment
instruments tailored specifically to threats against a particular target.
Assessment instruments can be generally focused to examine an offender type
(MOSAIC) or can be offense-specific (i.e., SARA) and are used frequently by law
enforcement, private protection services, and other government entities.
Research Findings to date :While the validity of threat assessment instruments can
best be termed mixed (e.g., Campbell, Webster, and Glass, 2009; Reddy, Borum,
Berglund, Vossekuil, Fein, and Modzeleski, 2001), researchers and risk threat
consultants have been developing and modifying these instruments for
commercial use and profit.
PREVENTING CRIME : MOSAIC SOFTWARE
What is MOSAIC? A development team of experts in psychology, law
enforcement, victims' advocacy, prosecution, mental health, and threat
assessment determines what areas of inquiry will produce the highest
quality assessments. MOSAIC poses those questions to users,
accompanied by a range of possible answers. MOSAIC calculates the
value of the answers selected by the assessor, and expresses the
results on a scale of 1 to 10. MOSAIC automatically produces a full
written report, describing the factors that were considered.
Video: MOSAIC
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/?page=video_learning
Research on predictive accuracy of MOSAIC:
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/documents/DOJ_Study.pdf
https://www.mosaicmethod.com/?page=what_is_mosaic
SARA MODEL: SCANNING, ANALYSIS, RESPONSE
AND ASSESSMENT HTTP://WWW.POPCENTER.ORG/ABOUT/?P=SARA
PROBLEM ANALYSIS TRIANGLE:
A SUITABLE TARGET IS AVAILABLE.
THERE IS THE LACK OF A SUITABLE GUARDIAN TO PREVENT THE CRIME
FROM HAPPENING.
A MOTIVATED OFFENDER IS PRESENT.
SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION
Situational Crime Prevention
While the Problem Analysis Triangle helps to analyze problems, situational crime
prevention provides a framework for intervention. By assessing the opportunities
that specific situations offer for crime, situational crime prevention has identified
five main ways in which situations can be modified. These are:
Increasing the effort the offender must make to carry out the crime.
Increasing the risks the offender must face in completing the crime.
Reducing the rewards or benefits the offender expects to obtain from the crime.
Removing excuses that offenders may use to “rationalize” or justify their actions.
Reducing or avoiding provocations that may tempt or incite offenders into criminal
acts.
25 SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION
TECHNIQUES
http://www.popcenter.org/25techniques/
SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION
Sex Offender Registration: All convicted sex offenders must register with the local/state sex
offender registry
Sex Offenders: there are approximately 800,000 registered Sex Offenders nationwide.
Technology: As with general risk and threat assessment, sex offender registries pre-date
and are not philosophically tied to technological issues; but as is common, technology
facilitate the dissemination of information to a far broader audience.
Effectiveness: A growing body of research has demonstrated that sex offender registries
are inaccurate and do little to impact offender behavior and that the harm to offenders
may greatly outweigh the benefits to society (Tewksbury, 2006: Tewksbury, 2005).
Thus, as a crime prevention strategy, the evidence suggests sex offender registries do not
influence offender behavior to a significant degree and may in fact exacerbate existing
issues that hamper rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders back to communities.
INVOLUNTARY CIVIL COMMITMENT : SPECIAL
POPULATIONS
Involuntary civil commitment has become more difficult due to changes in statutes
beginning in late 60’s across the USA.
Mentally ill: Since the tightening of criteria for involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, the
United States has seen a trend of persons with mental illness being marginalized to
unsafe and inappropriate settings. Since deinstitutionalization, there has been a
tremendous increase in America's population of people with mental illness who are
living on the streets. The latest estimates by the United States' Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration reveal that up to 25 percent of our country's
homeless population is made up of individuals with mental disorders, despite the fact
that only approximately six percent of the general population suffers from mental
illness.
Statutory Shift: Under treatment-driven criteria for commitment, these persons would
have gained access to the system through hospitalization on an involuntary basis if
necessary. However, under standards based on dangerousness, the medical system
will not intervene against a person's wishes until he or she becomes suicidal,
physically violent, or grossly unable to perform activities of daily living.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3392176/
INVOLUNTARY CIVIL COMMITMENT AND RISK
ASSESSMENT TECHNOLOGY
Potential Target Groups: Violent offenders , mentally ill offenders, sex offenders, and drug
users
Involuntary Civil Commitment Statutes: used to hold individuals because they have been
assessed as a significant threat to others or to themselves. Attention in recent decades
to dangerous sexual predators (or the perception of) led to several US states loosening
criteria for involuntary civil commitment; criteria that had been rather extensive and
required a strict demonstration of evidence in most contexts.
Slippery Slope Argument:Technology bringing together risk assessment protocols and
increased surveillance, coupled with an attitudinal shift in the general public (and
lawmakers) to a punitive stance in dealing with sexual offenders has resulted in
additional sanctions being imposed on offenders and, critics contend, an open door to
extending this strategy to other types of offenders and even those deemed at risk for
committing dangerous offenses in the future.
SPECIAL POPULATIONS TARGETED FOR
INVOLUNTARY CIVIL COMMITMENT
NGRI: insanity acquittees are not quickly released to society. Although these persons are
technically acquitted by the justice system, they are almost always subsequently
remanded to the medical system with the expectation that they will receive
psychiatric care.
This expectation is met through civil commitment, and insanity acquittees remain
hospitalized until they can prove that they have been sufficiently psychiatrically
rehabilitated to no longer pose a risk to society.
The process of release from commitment for persons found NGRI can be very lengthy
and complicated, and the time acquittees spend in psychiatric facilities may exceed
the term of the jail sentence that they would have served if found guilty of the crime
that they committed
SEXUALLY VIOLENT PREDATORS
Sexually violent predator (SVP) commitment laws exist in the legal statutes of 20
states as well as in federal law. Massachusetts is one of these states.
These laws allow civil commitment of individuals who have been convicted of sexually
violent crimes provided that they have been diagnosed with a mental illness and
are judged to present a risk to the general public because of their diagnoses.
Issue to consider: The American Psychiatric Association formally opposed SVP
commitment laws, and a large number of psychiatrists over the years have expressed
professional concerns that these laws mandate physicians to serve the inappropriate,
nonclinical function of incarcerating persons with criminal pasts in facilities that
were established for treatment of psychiatric disorders.
OTHER SPECIAL POPULATIONS TARGETED FOR
INVOLUNTARY CIVIL COMMITMENT
Eating Disorders: Despite the potential lethality of the disorders, the fact that an inpatient setting is
often the most appropriate setting for weight restoration and intense psychiatric treatment, and the
commonality of treatment refusal among those with the disorders, commitment of individuals
with eating disorders is uncommon. Although many states have statutes that allow for
commitment of patients whose behavior renders them gravely disabled, the behavior has to be so
disabling as to create an imminent risk of harm to the patient.
Substance Abuse: Currently, there are many states with systems in place that allow persons convicted
of drug offenses to go to treatment as an alternative to going to jail. Research has shown that
these individuals, who are coerced into treatment, have just as favorable outcomes as do
voluntary patients. Because of limited access to programs and a widely shared belief that
resources should be prioritized for people who truly want to be in recovery of their own accord,
the practice of committing addicted individuals who have not broken laws is rare
Personality Disorders: With regard to a personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, which
predisposes individuals to dangerousness, there is controversy regarding the issue of civil
commitment. Psychiatrists disagree about whether this diagnosis alone should be grounds for
commitment, and there have been conflicting legal decisions on the matter.
CHAPTER 35 IN MASSACHUSETTS
About the Statute
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 123, Section 35 permits the courts to
involuntarily commit someone whose alcohol or drug use puts themselves or
others at risk. Such a commitment can lead to an inpatient substance abuse
treatment for a period of up to 90 days.
Under the law, the person can be committed to a licensed treatment facility or, if none
is available, to a separate unit at the correctional facility at Bridgewater for men or
Framingham for women.
In 2006, a new system of care for women was established and in 2008, a similar one
was established for men. The Women's Addiction Treatment Center (WATC) is in
New Bedford and the Men's Addiction Treatment Center (MATC) is in Brockton
both provide intake and treatment for those civilly committed under this law.
http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/programs/substanceabuse/addictions/drugs-and-alcohol/section-35-faq.html#treatment
CHAPTER 12: APPLICATION FOR SHORT TERM
HOSPITALIZATION
Mental Illness: For purposes of admission to an inpatient facility under Section 12, “Mental Illness” means a
substantial disorder of thought, mood, perception, orientation, or memory which grossly impairs judgment, behavior,
capacity to recognize reality or ability to meet the ordinary demands of life. Symptoms caused solely by alcohol or drug
intake, organic brain damage or intellectual disability do not constitute a serious mental illness. Specify evidence
including behavior and symptoms:
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
B). Likelihood
of Serious Harm (check all categories that apply):
_____ (1) Substantial risk of physical harm to the person himself/herself as manifested by evidence of threats of, or
attempts at suicide or serious bodily harm; and/or
_____ (2) Substantial risk of physical harm to other persons as manifested by evidence of homicidal or other violent
behavior or evidence that others are placed in reasonable fear of violent behavior and serious physical harm to
them; and/or
_____ (3) Very substantial risk of physical impairment or injury to the person himself/herself as manifested by evidence
that such person’s judgment is so affected that he/she is unable to protect himself/herself in the community and
the reasonable provision of his/her protection is not available in the community.
Specify evidence including behavior and symptoms:______________________________________________________
SCHOOL BULLYING
•
One out of every four students (22%) report being bullied during the school year
(National Center for Educational Statistics, 2015).
•
19.6% of high school students in the US report being bullied at school in the past
year. 14.8% reported being bullied online (Center for Disease Control, 2014).
•
64 percent of children who were bullied did not report it; only 36 percent reported
the bullying (Petrosina, Guckenburg, DeVoe, and Hanson, 2010).
•
More than half of bullying situations (57 percent) stop when a peer intervenes on
behalf of the student being bullied (Hawkins, Pepler, and Craig, 2001).
•
The reasons for being bullied reported most often by students were looks (55%),
body shape (37%), and race (16%) (Davis and Nixon, 2010).
USING TECHNOLOGY TO IDENTIFY SCHOOL
BULLYING AND MONITOR ONLINE BULLYING
School Bullying Identification Tools: In developing a risk profile for students who may
be at risk of becoming/being victims of bullying, a host of individual-level
variables relative to students themselves as well as contextual variables relating
to the school environment have been analyzed to determine significance.
Causes of the Problem: Prior research has shown that institutional culture (e.g., a
school’s anti-bullying protocol, level of security, staff training) is a significant
factor in determining bullying risk (Sweeney, 2007; Gottfredson, 2001).
Prevention: School-based bullying prevention programs decrease bullying by up to 25%
(McCallion and Feder, 2013). http://www.pacer.org/bullying/about/mediakit/stats.asp
Massachusetts Response to Bullying and Cyber Bullying:
http://www.mass.gov/ago/about-the-attorney-generals-office/communityprograms/bullying-and-cyberbullying/
NEW TECHNOLOGY: COMPUTER RECOGNITION OF BIOMARKERS, INCLUDING FACIAL
RECOGNITION, PALM/FINGERPRINT DETECTION, AND RETINAL/IRIS SCANNING
The technology of access control has been evolving in our midst for some time and
individual identifiers hold the potential to make mechanical forms of access control
(i.e., keyed locks and access cards) obsolete in the very near future.
Identification Technology: Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas in
conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that
newly created computer algorithms designed to recognize human facial features did
so with greater accuracy than humans themselves, thus demonstrating that machines
can in fact substitute for human eye witness identification.
Access Technology: Fingerprint scanning has been in use for current generations of
smartphones produced by companies such as Apple and Samsung and those
corporations are experimenting with retinal and iris (with iris scanning thought to be
the superior and more secure) scanning technology for the next generation of their
devices. Many private and public sector entities are using these advances to eliminate
key and key card access to restricted locations within their facilities.
RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL PROPERTY
MONITORING TECHNOLOGY
Home/ Commercial Security is Big Business: Worldwide, property security systems (or
‘alarm systems’ as they are colloquially referred in many locales) are a nearly 3
billion US dollar market, of which roughly 40 percent is spent on the security of
private homes (Knott, 2013). While this figure represents but a fraction of the monies
spend annually around the world on crime prevention strategies, it nevertheless is a
significant amount that is projected to increase at roughly a five percent rate annually
through 2017 (Knott, 2013).
The epitome of the controlled environment is the fully secured gated community (also
typically known globally as a Common Interest Development, or CID). Such a
community plan takes the notion of residential security to the next level by
effectively isolating an entire planned development, layered with both security
personnel and technology, with a cost-structure only feasible for a select subset of the
wealthiest citizens (Le Goix and Webster, 2008).