The Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System

Abstract

The interrater reliability of an internationally renowned crime linkage system-the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS)-was tested. Police officers (N = 10) were presented with a case file and asked to complete a ViCLAS booklet. The level of occurrence agreement between each officer was calculated. Results showed a 30.77% level of agreement across the 106 variables examined. Agreement ranged from 2.36% for weapon variables to 62.87% for administration variables. Only 11 (10.38%) of the variables reached an acceptable level of agreement. Concerns pertaining to the validity of inferences produced using ViCLAS data are discussed, along with potential explanations for the findings, limitations of the study, and future research directions.

The feasibility of using crime scene behaviour to detect versatile serial offenders: An empirical test of behavioural consistency, distinctiveness, and discrimination accuracy

“…In terms of the practical implications of this study, the findings suggest that there is significant potential for BCL using geographical, temporal, and MO behaviour. This is reassuring given the already extensive use of this procedure by law enforcement agencies around the world (e.g., Labuschagne, ; Snook, Luther, House, Bennell, & Taylor, ; Yokota et al ., ). Importantly, this study suggests that BCL can function not just within a single crime type (burglary or robbery) but that it is possible to use offender crime scene behaviour to identify linked crime series containing multiple crime types.…”

The CriLiM Methodology: Crime Linkage with a Fuzzy MCDM Approach

“…When considering the implementation of some existing solutions, their lack of transparency, their complexity, and their controversy may be dissuasive (e.g. the ViCLAS system, as discussed in [27]). The choice of conducting our own analysis seemed therefore appropriate.…”

“…As stated in[27], despite the fact that ViCLAS exists for nearly 20 years, "there is no published account of its effectiveness being evaluated systematically".…”

An appraisal of investigative psychology and the applications to suspicious approaches to children in the Irish criminal justice system

“…A total of 263 separate offence variables may be put into the system, and linkages can then be searched for, utilizing a broad range of particular behaviours and other relevant items such as vehicles and clothing (Chopin & Aebi, 2017). Although the ViCLAS is used worldwide and considered to be an effective linkage analysis tool, other studies have questioned the interrater reliability of the system, whereby the degree of concurrence was found to be marginally above 30%, whereas an 80% concurrence rate is arguably required for dependable inferences to be drawn (Chopin & Aebi, 2017;Snook, Luther, House, Bennell, & Taylor, 2012). This is despite the ViCLAS data collection forms using closed questions, pointing to the ongoing difficulty relating to the breadth of subjective interpretation for any number of criminal events and variables.…”