Analysing the Data
Repeat victimisation is best seen as a tool to understanding local crime and disorder
problems. It helps by encouraging Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships to ask the
right questions of information.
The key task is to look for patterns in your data. The crucial questions are:
Looking across the geographic area as a whole is only the starting point – an overall
figure of say 10% for repeat burglary will mask the different victimisation risks
of particular geographic areas or types of location, for example schools.
Essentially, the need is to establish whether there is a link between first and
subsequent offences or incidents, and the nature of that link. This can be done by
combining statistical information with agency knowledge of the victim and the area.
More detailed guidance on the types of analysis you might like to undertake is
contained in publications given in the Publications Section. (Insert hypertext
link into Publications Section) There are a number of ways of viewing the information,
which can be summarised as follows.
Location driven analysis – this focuses on the geographical location
of the incident or offence.
Object driven analysis: the location of the object is not fixed,
for example individual motor vehicles
Victim driven analysis – the focus is upon the victim, rather
than the location of the offence/incident
Hot spot driven analysis –– the focus is on sites where there
is a disproportionate number of crimes or incidents. Any analysis of hot spots should
also consider the prior victims within the hot spots.
Once you have analysed your data, you can use them to inform decisions about where
to concentrate effort. In deciding priorities, it is helpful to take into account:
Information about previous victimisations not only tell you that you should take
action but can also guide you as to what sort of action might be appropriate. For
example:
A series of very similar incidents might suggest the same offender and focus
police efforts on detection;
Where events are not similar or may not suggest the same offender, for example,
a walk-in burglary where cash was stolen from a handbag followed by a break-in and
a video taken may need a package of measures to be introduced to reduce the overall
vulnerability of the victim;
Where events are very dissimilar, for example where a person who had previously
suffered a house burglary had their car stolen from a hospital car park two weeks
later. Even here however, it is worth considering links – the car may have been stolen
using keys taken from the house burglary, or there may be another reason such as a
racial motive behind the attacks.
Defining specific crime and disorder problems
The above guidance on analysis is general to repeat victimisation. For guidance
on specific crime or incident types please refer to the appropriate toolkit.
Click
here for the main Toolkits index
The wider picture
Although the focus of repeat victimisation is on local crime and disorder problems,
it can help to place the results of your analysis in the wider context to gain an
idea of the seriousness of the problem. Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships should
also use national reports that allow local information to be placed in a regional
or national context for comparable purposes, e.g.
British Crime Survey
Home Office Statistical Bulletins
Drugs Misuse Database/Annual Report on Drugs Misuse
UK Fire Statistics Bulletin
It will also be useful to keep a record of sources of data which are not available
or which are incomplete or of poor quality, and to consider establishing systems to
collect such information and improve it for future audits. Lack of adequate information
is a major hindrance to understanding repeat victimisation locally.
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