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MODEL ACADEMIC CURRICULUM

MODULE 11

Understanding and Responding to Offenders

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Module 11 Topics

• Thinking and Acting Like an Offender

• Using Offender Interviews to Inform Police Problem Solving

• One Example of an Offender-based Response

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Offender (RAVENOUS WOLF) Problems

• Repeat offending problems involve offenders attacking different targets at different places.

• Offender (RAVENOUS Wolf) problems occur when offenders are able to locate temporarily vulnerable targets and places.

• The controllers for these targets may act to prevent future attacks, but offenders move on to the targets and places.

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Offender (RAVENOUS WOLF) Problems

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Does the 80-20 Rule Apply?

Repeat Offenders• A small number of individuals commit a large

proportion of the crime.

• A 1972 Philadelphia cohort study suggested that around 5 percent of the offenders account for 40 percent of crimes.

• More recent studies often find similar results.

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Put Yourself in the Offender’s Shoes

- Learning how offenders commit crimes is as important as learning why they commit crimes.

- Rational Choice Theory (see Module 5)

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Expect Offenders to React

• Offender Displacement occurs when offenders change their behavior to thwart preventative actions or when offenders are arrested and new offenders take their place (e.g., drug dealers)

• Offender Adaptation refers to a longer term process whereby the offender population as a whole discovers new crime opportunities.

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Repeat Offending

Successful offending can lead to more offending when:

– Offenders, like others, learn from doing.

– Offenders learn from each other

– Successful offending can erode prevention, thus making subsequent offending easier.

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Offender Facilitators

Physical facilitators are things that augment offenders’ capabilities or help to overcome prevention measures

Social facilitators stimulate crime or disorder by enhancing the rewards for crime, legitimating excuses to offend, or by encouraging offending

Chemical facilitators increase offenders’ abilities to ignore risks or moral prohibitions.

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Out of Class Exercise

• Using the 25 techniques, identify and discuss the SCP techniques that can be used to respond to repeat offenders.

• Now, think like an offender! Go out on campus and “case” an area. Where are the crime opportunities, what crimes might you engage in, and how might you do it?

• Write up your “crime plan” but please do not implement it.

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Offender Interviews

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Research with active offenders has focused on five categories

of offenders:

1. Drug dealers and users

2. Residential burglars

3. Armed robbers

4. Gang members

5. Gun offenders

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Summary of Research Findings from Offender Interviews

• Offenders are versatile.

• Offending has peaks and valleys in time and frequency.

• Motives - partying, keeping up outward appearances, group processes, self protection and retaliation.

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Summary of Research Findings from Offender Interviews

• Lifestyle is important.

• Victimization among offenders is very high and motivates much offending.

• Offenders do typically respond to sanctions or the threat of sanctions.

• Offender careers have a beginning and an end.

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Conducting Offender Interviews

• Establishing the goals of interviews.

• Choosing offenders to interview.

• Determining who should conduct the interview.

• Finding appropriate subjects.

• Convincing subjects to participate.

• Maintaining field relations.

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Offender Interview QuestionsExample from Port St. Lucie, FL (Construction Site Burglary)

• Why did you select this particular location?

• Did you have any previous knowledge concerning this location?

• Did you survey the location prior to committing the offense?

• Was the offense planned or spontaneous? Explain.

• Did you have an outlet to fence the materials prior to committing the offense?

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Offender Interview QuestionsExample from Port St. Lucie, FL (Construction Site Burglary)

• Did you notice anything about the neighborhood that you felt would make the offense easier to commit?

• Do you remember the physical lay-out (environment) of the target location?

• Did you act alone? Did anyone else plan to benefit from your crime(s)?

• Do you have any construction/building experience? If so, how much and what type?

• How confident were you that you would not get caught? Why?

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Conducting Offender Interviews

• Conducting interviews.

• Sorting out the truth.

• Analyzing the interview results.

• Presenting the findings.

• Applying the interview results to tactical and strategic problem-solving

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Offender-Based Response: The Boston Gun Project

“Operation Ceasefire”

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An Epidemic of Youth Homicide

• From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, homicide in Boston increased by 230% among those 24 and under - from 22 victims in 1987 to 73 victims in 1990.

• An average of 44 youth homicides per year were committed from 1991-1995.

• This sharp rise in homicides was viewed as an “epidemic.”

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What is an Epidemic?

• According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an epidemic is a phenomenon that is “excessively prevalent” or “contagious.”

• Epidemiology is the study of epidemics. Usually we think of epidemiologists as studying the outbreaks of disease.

• Criminology and police strategy can both benefit from the insights of epidemiology.

• The Boston Gun Project was a “Problem-Oriented Policing” project that focused heavily on the epidemiology of youth firearms violence.

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The Beginning of the Boston Gun Project

NIJ sponsored project carried out by a team of researchers at Harvard University. The primary components included:

• Assembling an interagency working group of largely line-level criminal justice and other practitioners.

• Applying quantitative and qualitative research techniques to assess the nature of and dynamics driving youth violence.

• Developing an intervention designed to have a substantial near-term impact on youth homicide.

• Implementing and adapting the intervention.

• Evaluating the intervention's impact.

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Boston Gun Project Working Group

• Began meeting in January 1995

• Completed its initial analysis of the problem and created a sketch of the intervention (“Operation Ceasefire”) by Fall 1995

• Implemented the Intervention by early 1996

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Two Major Strategic Elements

1. Increased Firearms Enforcement

• Heavy focus on firearms trafficking, with a particular focus on traffickers specializing in firearms preferred by the most violent gang members.

• Increased analysis of serial numbers on confiscated guns.

• Gun tracing

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Two Major Strategic Elements

2. Deterring Violent Behavior of Chronic Gang Offenders (the “Pulling Levers” Strategy)

• Targeting gangs engaged in violent behavior.

• Reaching out directly to members of targeted gangs.

• Delivering an explicit message that violence would not be tolerated.

• Backing up the message by "pulling every lever" (i.e., applying appropriate sanctions) when violence occurred.

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• “[The Boston Police Department] was devoted, in conjunction with its

partners in other agencies, to disrupting the gang and discommoding its

members in any legal way possible.

• Youth Violence Strike Force officers enforced every law they could against

gang members, shutting down street drug sales and making arrests for

trespassing, public drinking, overt drug use, and disorder offenses.

• They ran gang members' names against an extensive database of

outstanding warrants, found many, and served them. A Registry of Motor

Vehicles search revealed that gang members had no drivers' licenses so

YVSF took their unregistered cars away.

• Probation officers focused Night Light [police-probation partnership] visits

and other street probation enforcement on gang members…”

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Not Quite a “Normal” Crackdown

• "We're here because of the shooting," the authorities had said. "We're not going to leave until it stops. And until it does, nobody is going to so much as jaywalk, nor make any money, nor have any fun."

• What appeared to be an indiscriminate crackdown was actually very focused – on reducing shootings and gun homicides.

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Project Impact

A rigorous impact evaluation concluded that Operation Ceasefire was associated with a:

• A 63% decrease in the monthly number of youth homicides in Boston.

• A 32% decrease in the monthly number of citywide shots-fired calls.

• A 25% decrease in the monthly number of citywide all-age gun assault incidents.

• A 44% decrease in the monthly number of District B-2 youth gun assault incidents.

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Lessons from Boston and Other Cities

• The epidemiology of youth violence is unique to each city

• “Canned” approaches do not work

• Effective violence reduction interventions need to be tailored to each city and its unique offending patterns

• The development of an effective intervention starts with analysis

• The development of effective analysis starts with good data.

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Exercise 1

• ROP strategies are being used to address a number of different community problems.

• Research how law enforcement agencies are using repeat offender strategies to tackle drunk driving, youth crime, or drug offenses.

• Present your findings to the class.