The practice of crime linkage: A review of the literature

Davies, Kari; Woodhams, Jessica

doi:10.1002/jip.1531

Cited by 15 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…This study responds to the call for more research on crime linkage practice (Davies and Woodhams, 2019). Specifically, the current study provides an insight into crime linkage practice with residential burglary crime in New Zealand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

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Crime linkage practice in New Zealand

Tonkin

Weeks²

2021

JCRPP

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand (i) how crime linkage is currently performed with residential burglaries in New Zealand, (ii) the factors that promote/hinder accurate crime linkage and (iii)whether computerised decision-support tools might assist crime linkage practice. Design/methodology/approach A total of 39 New Zealand Police staff completed a questionnaire/interview/focus group relating to the process, challenges, products and uses of crime linkage with residential burglary in New Zealand. These data (alongside four redacted crime linkage reports) were subjected to thematic analysis. Findings The data clearly indicated wide variation in crime linkage process, methods and products (Theme 1). Furthermore, a number of factors were identified that impacted on crime linkage practice (Theme 2). Research limitations/implications Future research should develop computerised crime linkage decision-support tools and evaluate their ability to enhance crime linkage practice. Also, researchers should explore the use of crime linkage in court proceedings. Practical implications To overcome the barriers identified in the current study, greater training in and understanding of crime linkage is needed. Moreover, efforts to enhance the quality of crime data recorded by the police will only serve to enhance crime linkage practice. Social implications By enhancing crime linkage practice, opportunities to reduce crime, protect the public and deliver justice for victims will be maximised. Originality/value The practice of crime linkage is under-researched, which makes it difficult to determine if/how existing empirical research can be used to support ongoing police investigations. The current project fills that gap by providing a national overview of crime linkage practice in New Zealand, a country where crime linkage is regularly conducted by the police, but no published linkage research exists.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Given the potential value of research into crime linkage decision-making, it is unfortunate that such little research exists on the topic (Davies and Woodhams, 2019). There are, however, two studies of particular relevance to the current study (Burrell and Bull, 2011;Davies, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime linkage practice in New Zealand

Tonkin

Weeks²

2021

JCRPP

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“…This finding has the potential to contribute to detecting a series of crimes from the database of reported cases. As it covers relatively broad areas such as multiple cities, it may construct a part of a comparative case analysis (CCA) (Davies and Woodhams, 2019). This type of crime linkage may support the detection of serial crimes across multiple jurisdictions that might be relatively difficult to identify in the case that the database is separately built between the jurisdictions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the possible deliverables from this line of application is the development of automated daily report system of serial crimes. Between the two distinct CCAs (Davies and Woodhams, 2019; Woodhams et al , 2007), reactive CCA (searching for potential cases that link to the target offense/series) and proactive CCA (searching for potential series without target offense/series), this type of system may be categorized as proactive CCA, as it can perform CCA without index offenses. Given that the system would be used for areas that vary in their construction of environmental factors, it is meaningful to continue examining the advantage of the shortest route distance in crime linkage.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…into account (Haginoya, 2016a). This phase of crime linkage might fit more with the concept of case linkage analysis (CLA) (Davies and Woodhams, 2019; Woodhams et al , 2007) that has been conducted in a number of countries and can be expected to analyze potential series in the relatively narrow area. In the case of performing crime linkage over a wide area, distance intervals between crimes for unlinked pairs will be longer regardless of distance measures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linkage analysis using geographical proximity: a test of the efficacy of distance measures

Haginoya

Hanayama

Koike

2020

JCRPP

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Purpose The purpose of this paper was to compare the accuracy of linking crimes using geographical proximity between three distance measures: Euclidean (distance measured by the length of a straight line between two locations), Manhattan (distance obtained by summing north-south distance and east-west distance) and the shortest route distances. Design/methodology/approach A total of 194 cases committed by 97 serial residential burglars in Aomori Prefecture in Japan between 2004 and 2015 were used in the present study. The Mann–Whitney U test was used to compare linked (two offenses committed by the same offender) and unlinked (two offenses committed by different offenders) pairs for each distance measure. Discrimination accuracy between linked and unlinked crime pairs was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Findings The Mann–Whitney U test showed that the distances of the linked pairs were significantly shorter than those of the unlinked pairs for all distance measures. Comparison of the AUCs showed that the shortest route distance achieved significantly higher accuracy compared with the Euclidean distance, whereas there was no significant difference between the Euclidean and the Manhattan distance or between the Manhattan and the shortest route distance. These findings give partial support to the idea that distance measures taking the impact of environmental factors into consideration might be able to identify a crime series more accurately than Euclidean distances. Research limitations/implications Although the results suggested a difference between the Euclidean and the shortest route distance, it was small, and all distance measures resulted in outstanding AUC values, probably because of the ceiling effects. Further investigation that makes the same comparison in a narrower area is needed to avoid this potential inflation of discrimination accuracy. Practical implications The shortest route distance might contribute to improving the accuracy of crime linkage based on geographical proximity. However, further investigation is needed to recommend using the shortest route distance in practice. Given that the targeted area in the present study was relatively large, the findings may contribute especially to improve the accuracy of proactive comparative case analysis for estimating the whole picture of the distribution of serial crimes in the region by selecting more effective distance measure. Social implications Implications to improve the accuracy in linking crimes may contribute to assisting crime investigations and the earlier arrest of offenders. Originality/value The results of the present study provide an initial indication of the efficacy of using distance measures taking environmental factors into account.

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Receiver operating characteristic curves in the crime linkage context: Benefits, limitations, and recommendations

Ewanation

Bennell

Tonkin

et al. 2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Deciding whether two crimes have been committed by the same offender or different offenders is an important investigative task. Crime linkage researchers commonly use receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to assess the accuracy of linkage decisions. Accuracy metrics derived from ROC analysis—such as the area under the curve (AUC)—offer certain advantages, but also have limitations. This paper describes the benefits that crime linkage researchers attribute to the AUC. We also discuss several limitations in crime linkage papers that rely on the AUC. We end by presenting suggestions for researchers who use ROC analysis to report on crime linkage. These suggestions aim to enhance the information presented to readers, derive more meaningful conclusions from analyses, and propose more informed recommendations for practitioners involved in crime linkage tasks. Our reflections may also benefit researchers from other areas of psychology who use ROC analysis in a wide range of prediction tasks.

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The practice of crime linkage: A review of the literature

Cited by 15 publications

References 56 publications

Crime linkage practice in New Zealand

Crime linkage practice in New Zealand

Linkage analysis using geographical proximity: a test of the efficacy of distance measures

Receiver operating characteristic curves in the crime linkage context: Benefits, limitations, and recommendations

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