Targeting the Most Harmful Offenders for an English Police Agency: Continuity and Change of Membership in the “Felonious Few”

Abstract

Research Question How concentrated is the total harm of offences with detected offenders (identified suspects) among the complete list of all detected offenders in a given year in an English police agency, and how consistent is the list of highest-harm "felonious few" offenders from one year to the next? Data Characteristics of 327,566 crimes and 39,545 unique offenders as recorded by Northamptonshire Police in 7 years from 2010 to 2016 provide the basis for this analysis. Methods Crime and offender records were matched to harm weightings derived from the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (Sherman et al. 2016a; Sherman et al., Policing, 10(3), 171-183, 2016b). Descriptive statistics summarize a concentration of harm identifying the felonious few, changes over time in membership of the "few", offender typologies and tests for escalation of severity, frequency and intermittency across repeated offences. Findings Crime harm is much more concentrated among offenders than crime volume: 80% of crime harm that is identified to an offender is linked to a felonious few of just 7% of all detected offenders. While chronic repeat offenders are the majority contributors to harm totals of this group, those with the most general range of offence types contribute the most harm. Individual members of the felonious few rarely maintain that position year on year; over 95% of each year's list is composed of individuals not present in previous years. Within individual crime histories, we observe a pattern of deescalation in crime harm per offence over time. "One-time" offenders, those with just one crime record, typically made up a third of the felonious few in both number and harm contribution. Conclusions These findings demonstrate the potential to target a small number of repeat offenders for harm reduction strategies using a metric of total crime severity, not just volume, despite a substantial portion of crime harm caused by one-time offenders that may be largely unpredictable.

Burying the ‘Power Few’: Language and Resistance to Evidence-Based Policing

“…In reporting the first comprehensive analysis of all detected offenders in one police jurisdiction over a 7-year period, Liggins et al (2019) show the great importance of identifying priority offenders based on both volume and severity of crime. The Northamptonshire Police analysis, based on over 327,000 crimes and almost 40,000 suspects, shows an astonishing concentration of 80% of all crime harm in just 7% of all detected offenders.…”

“…By publishing the article in this journal with the term 'felonious few', Liggins et al (2019) become the first to our knowledge to use that language in an international journal. The Journal is grateful for the authors' agreement to do so.…”

Reducing Repeat Offending Through Less Prosecution in Victoria, Australia: Opportunities for Increased Diversion of Offenders

“…Third, any population of offenders is heterogeneous as to offence frequency (e.g. Liggins et al 2019), with a small percentage of offenders producing a high volume of offences, and others producing a high proportion of all crime harm. Fourth, we have no evidence on whether the offending frequency or seriousness of the offender population in 2007/2008 was higher or lower than in later years.…”

Tracking Violent Crime with Ambulance Data: How Much Crime Goes Uncounted?

“…The potential for identifying victims most at risk of violent crime harm has recently been shown to be substantial, with under 4% of victims in Dorset experiencing 85% of the crime harm recorded by police in 1 year (Dudfield et al, 2017). Given the very high Crime Harm Index scores (Sherman et al, 2016) of some violent offenders (Liggins et al, 2019), the omission of even one crime from the list of crimes against one individual can skew the rankorder of victims by total harm. That, in turn, could mean the omission of a highly harmed victim from the list of people receiving the greatest attention from police units engaged in proactive safeguarding.…”