The Arrival of the Computer in the UK Criminal Justice System, 1955-1975

Dr Chris Williams Open University

Overview• Before: police bureaucracy, 1860s ->• The arrival of Automatic Data Processing

– Digitising the immigration records? 1959– Looking abroad

• Developing the PNC: How, what, where?• What didn’t work: Modus Operandi• After:

– Continuing related development– Worse things happen locally

The Habitual Criminals Register, 1869-77• Home Office, Metropolitan Police, Prison Commission• All convicted of serious crimes (c.30,000 per year)• Markers:

– height– ‘complexion’– eye colour– aliases– tattoos

Operation of Hab Crims register:Requests Identified Percentage Register Size

1870 262 39 15 31,7641871 1007 168 16 59,7541872 1385 331 24 88,4521873 1303 352 27 117,568Totals 3957 890 22 ½

Memo from May, Met Chief Clerk – May 16th 1874

JADPU – HO / Met Joint Automatic Data Processing Unit• inception 1959• pay and pensions• fingerprints• 'increase police efficiency through the development of

an efficient system of nationally integrated comprehensive and up-to-date operational support records'

1959: Digitising the immigration records?

• Exercise Deter – 100 landing cards copied and re-copied by ten clerks– Errors noted– Report written with an eye on what will need to be solved if

the Traffic Index could be computerised

Exercise Deter

Exercise Deter: ‘Confusion pattern’

Source: Police National Computer, 1975

Power in the state

Home Office

Police Authorities

ACPO

Treasury

Metropolitan Police

Local Authority Associations

Registers for the computer?

• Vehicle licenses; • Driving licenses; • Stolen vehicles; • Missing persons; • Firearms licenses; • Deployment information; • Crime statistics; • Traffic accidents;

• Fingerprints; • Fingerprint index; • Modus Operandi; • Outstanding Warrants; • Convicted criminals; • Lost and stolen property; • Aliens

Source: Police National Computer, 1975

Role of the MoT?• I am delighted that they have done this, there is nothing like being

blackmailed, have a time table one has to keep to, this has been an absolutely invaluable argument in dealing with the Treasury. We have shielded behind the broad back of the Ministry of Transport in a rather clever manner, I think. So what I am saying in effect is let us make a virtue of necessity, we have got to have a computer and the only question is what sort of computer are we going to have and what is going to be on it.

Source: Trevelyan (HO) to Association of Chief Police Officers of England and Wales Sixth Autumn Conference 'Crime and the Computer' 25th September 1969.

PNC terminal, 1973

Source: Intercom, June 1984, via dtels.org

Source: Police National Computer, 1975

Source: Police National Computer, 1975

Modus Operandi (MO) • criminals are recidivists • each has a characteristic method• this can be encoded• this code can be sifted and sorted

– Fosdick, Raymond B., 'The Modus Operandi System in the Detection of Criminals’ in Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Nov., 1915), pp. 560-570.

The crime of burglary (A-1) has been committed in an apartment house (B-2) where a room was entered through a second story

rear window (C-52) via the fire escape (D-6) sometime between 7 P. M. and 9 P. M. Sunday evening (E-6) and jewelry (F-13) was stolen. A book-agent (G-31) was seen loitering in the halls of the

apartment house. He had a German accent (H-46) and was accompanied by another man (1-16). The blinds were pulled down

while the thief operated (J-17). The Modus Operandi Formula:

A B C D E F G H I J1 2 52 6 6 13 3 46 16 17

Source: Vollmer, August, 'Revision of the Atcherley Modus Operandi System' in Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Aug., 1919), pp. 229-274.

Coding MO in 1967

Coding MO in 1967

Coding MO in 1967

Coding MO in 1967

MO hits the buffers• 'In the case of MO however I think that the police

service have got to take a long hard look at this and make up their minds as to the operational value of MO as it stands. Certainly there appears to be very mixed views not only as to whether MO indexes are worthwhile at all but, if so, what they should contain and how they should be operated. It will be for the Police service to make decisions about this so that if necessary timely discussions can be held with the Computer Unit to devise an MO system which is acceptable to the Service as a whole.’

Source: Police National Computer, 1975

Source: Intercom #8, 1976

Mobile Automatic Data Experiment – connecting the PNC to the patrol car, 1972-79.

Afterwards: less success

• HO less relatively powerful?• Technology allows force-level innovation; forces compete.• Specification-creep trumps attempts to standardise

• A. Naylor “A critique of the implementation of crime and intelligence computing in three British Police forces 1976-

1986” Napier U Phd 2008.

Chris A WilliamsHistory Department

Open University, United Kingdom chris.williams@open.ac.uk