3rd Year Undergraduate Essay
Self-selection policing (SSP) is an evidence-based form of policing that has been pushed by several researchers to be used in mainstream UK policing for nearly two decades (Roach, 2018). SSP has huge legal and moral advantages compared to the current form of policing, which is especially important with police scrutiny in the public eye. Although it would take a while for police officers to be appropriately trained in SSP and a large amount of funding would need to be invested into research, the positives certainly outweigh the negatives and SSP should therefore be used routinely by UK police.
SSP is different to other policing approaches in several ways, but firstly it fundamentally revolves around a minor crime having already being committed, rather than fitting a person to a crime, as say profiling or a ‘usual suspects’ approach would. Simply, current police practise is to link a suspect to a crime and the investigation is then suspect centred (McConville et al., 1991.) SSP would therefore connect events to events and the suspect would be the link (Roach and Pease, 2016), which would remove ‘the usual suspects’ attitude that can quickly lead to police harassment. Therefore, SSP rejects any prejudices or preconceptions that an officer may have, in theory, and therefore avoids the obvious issues that come with identifying a suspect based entirely off theory- such as harassment claims or dismissing suspects because they are not a known offender (Roach and Pease, 2016.) Also, at the centre of SSP is crime versatility and the notion that offenders who commit serious crimes, will also commit minor offenders daily (Roach, 2018.) Crime versatility is a distinct change from the current accepted belief of offence homogeneity that most officers hold (Roach, 2018; Roach and Pease, 2016). These minor offences may be a completely different type of crime to what serious crime they commit but could still highlight or bring to light their other crimes (Roach, 2007) by using these crimes for grounds to investigate further. This kind of policing has been seen several times in landmark local cases even though it was not branded as SSP, such as that of Harold Shipman and Peter Sutcliffe.
A rather obvious benefit to this change in police perspective is that it would increase police vigilance around minor crimes, while still drawing attention to more major crimes. This fundamental link seems to have been missed by police management (Flannagan report, 2008) and cannot be stated enough; SSP will help to identify major crimes through vigilance of minor crimes (Roach, 2018.) Another huge benefit is that SSP is highly morally and legally defensible- committing a minor offence such as parking in a disabled bay almost ‘volunteers’ the individual to police attention, rather than searching a person (Roach and Pease, 2016) which can lead to various issues.
Also, SSP is also a distinct step away from previously held beliefs about offence homogeneity (that criminals will most likely commit similar crimes), and rather a step towards a more research informed style of policing. Offence homogeneity has been dismissed in recent research (Roach, 2018; Roach and Pease, 2013; Soothill et al., 2000; Farrington et al., 1988) and lining policing values with empirical evidence can only be seen as beneficial. Current police strategies for suspect identification usually start with known criminals and ‘usual suspects’ and work from there. This approach however has been shown to be ineffective in research: Townsley and Pease (2002) highlighted that starting an investigation with looking at criminals who were known to the police is ineffective. In their study, Police officers identified several regular offenders who they would suspect in burglaries and motor thefts. Researchers then looked at the link between suspect freedom, (meaning time when they were not in prison, custody, or court) and crime. No correlation was found- meaning that the time these offenders spent being able to potentially commit crime had no correlation with the actual levels of crime, suggesting that police views about who commits the biggest proportion of crime are skewed (Townsley and Pease, 2002.) Thus, this states the case for a change in both police tactics and police beliefs surrounding offence homogeneity, which the routine use of SSP would foster.
Nevertheless, it could be argued that because Townsley and Pease (2002) used offences within one county (as local data was used rather than Police National Computer [PNC] data), offences committed by this group of individuals that were in another county would not have been recorded, and therefore the study is slightly weakened in its impact. However, the likelihood that these low-level repeat offenders would commit crimes in a different county is both low, and unlikely to have affected the lack of correlation. Therefore, SSP would help to break this commonly held view and would push officers to look for minor crimes and indicators, rather than potentially harassing previous offenders (Roach and Pease, 2016) and relying on incorrect information about who commits the most crime. SSP is based on research and so by using studies like this, would avoid confirmation bias by challenging what police believe.
SSP also has strong theoretical underpinnings. Several different theories feed into SSP, most importantly Rational Choice Theory (Cornish and Clarke, 1986), Routine Activities Theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979), and Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993,1984); mainly because they all fundamentally agree on crime versatility, reject crime homogeneity, and highlight the importance of the environment when committing crime. Other landmark ideas such as Moffitt’s (1993) life course offender taxonomy and Wolfgang et al.,’s (1972) criminal careers have also influenced SSP and the general consensus surrounding crime versatility in research.
Rational Choice Theory (Cornish and Clarke, 1986, 2008) essentially states that offenders weigh up the potential risks and the possible gains when committing an offence. This can involve many different preferences, beliefs, and constraints (Cornish and Clarke, 1986) as well as environmental factors such as CCTV. This theory supports the notional of criminal versatility, as it suggests if the situation is right, offenders will not shy away from a criminal opportunity- a burglar won’t leave car keys on the hook just because they have never stolen a car for example. Rational Choice Theory (RCT) also suggests that high profile criminals will commit more minor offences because their ‘skills’ or perspective would lower the perceived risk of committing an offence (Roach and Pease, 2016), which therefore supports SSP and vigilance in policing minor crimes. This milestone theory has been praised by researchers for its individuality (Roach and Pease 2016; Gavin, 2014) as the decision behind each crime would be different for each individual, and so helps to explain individual differences in crime. When applied to SSP, this theory supports the idea that prolific offenders would commit minor crimes daily (Roach, 2018) which should be used as trigger offences.
Routine Activities Theory ([RAT] Cohen and Felson, 1979) fundamentally suggests that three things lead to an environment that is ripe for criminal activity; absence of a capable guardian (this could be anything from a security guard to simply a passer-by), a motivated offender, and a suitable victim or target (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Roach and Pease, 2016). Taking the theory further, Cohen and Felson (1979) suggest that offenders will commit offences when travelling around their daily routes if the environment creates the right opportunity. This once again contributes to SSP and again proposes that criminals are versatile if the environment is right, and that the environment plays a huge role in the instigation of crime- stating again the validity of the basis of SSP.
Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984,1993) similarly to RCT and RAT emphasises the importance of the environment due to familiarity and opportunity. Brantingham and Brantingham (1984, 1993) suggest that individuals travel daily between ‘nodes’- where they work, eat, and shop. When travelling between these nodes, offenders are more likely to commit crime (Rossmo, 2009) and is one explanation of crime clusters. In relation to SSP, this once again highlights crime versatility and argues that serious offenders will commit minor offences regularly along these nodes, so these offences should be focused on in order to find more serious offences.
Mofitt (1993) stipulated that there are two kinds of offenders in their developmental taxonomy; life course offenders or adolescent limited offenders. Life course offenders supposedly persist throughout their life and continue to offend, most likely they are brought up with it and their family have a criminal history (Mofitt, 1993.) These offenders are particularly crime versatile and are of key importance to SSP because they will commit offences frequently and at various levels. Mofitt (1993) also suggests that adolescent limited offenders will offend only in adolescence and ‘grow out of it’ with the proper punishment or deterrent. SSP also has a role here, because if we are more vigilant in minor offence policing, in theory these adolescent offenders will stop offending earlier. Furthermore, the life-course persistent offenders will hopefully have any major crimes flagged due to vigilance around their minor crimes.
Wolfgang et al., (1972) tried to almost operationalise the idea that some offenders will ‘progress’ to more serious crimes, and some will continue to commit minor offences. Wolfgang et al., (1972) proposed matrices that predict the probability of what crime an offender will commit next in a series. These matrices can predict the probability of committing more serious offences or even less serious ones. This suggests that criminals can be both specialists and not, as they can escalate their crimes or deescalate to more minor offences (which also signifies offence versatility.) However, these matrices rely too heavily on crime reporting levels, as if an offender does escalate their criminal behaviour, in many instances they are not perused for the more minor offences. This does however, still push the cause for SSP and vigilance in minor offence policing.
Supporting evidence for SSP comes from an initial study into a potential trigger- parking in disabled bays (Chenery, Henshaw, and Pease, 1999). The study used real life situations, where traffic wardens spotted illegally parked cars in disabled bays. Researchers then recorded the condition of the car (in regard to its road worthiness) and the nearest available legal spot they could have parked, along with several other details. After some further research into the cars history, Chenery, Henshaw, and Pease (1999) concluded that 18% of the illegally parked cars had been used in a past crime compared to 0% of the legally parked cars nearby. Furthermore, 1 in 5 of those parked illegally were of immediate police interest, due to either recent use in crime, the road worthiness of the car, or tax and insurance. This study alone shows huge support for SSP, as it proposes real life evidence for illegally parking in disabled bays as a researched-based trigger points for further police investigation. Further investigation would have to be conducted to look for other trigger offences of course (such as Roach, 2017), and perhaps better communication between traffic wardens, the police, and the DVLA to make this particular trigger offence viable for daily use.
A case example of SSP in practise is Operation Visitor, a 12-month study which involved a major investigation into visitors of a YOI (Roach and Pease, 2016). While visiting a YOI is not illegal and therefore not a trigger offence, there is some backing to the idea that offenders will commit crimes when they visit people in prison as Routine Activity Theory suggests (Cohen and Felson,1979) when they move through their ‘nodes’. Moreover, all documents were checked on visitors, aswell as a full body and car search and an automatic number plate recognition mobile unit on site. These extensive checks found that out of 617 visitors, 1 in 10 had committed a prosecutable offence. 25 visitors were even immediately arrested. But most importantly, there was a big flag for driving related offences as two thirds of all offences were motoring, similar to results from Chenery, Henshaw, and Pease (1999). Out of these motoring offences, two visitors were even found to be driving while disqualified, which links with research from Rose (2000) that suggests disqualified driving as a trigger offence, as ultimately having the ability to drive links to a lot of criminal behaviour. This further supports the link between those that drive while disqualified and serious crime (Rose, 2000), thus highlighting another trigger point that could be used in SSP.
Furthermore, Operation Visitor found evidence to support offence versatility, which by now has been established to be at the heart of SSP. 15 offenders were known to the police national computer and they all had varied histories and criminal backgrounds (Roach and Pease, 2016) which reflects offence versatility rather than offence specialisation. It could be argued that 15 offenders is not a huge sample of offenders to be known by the PNC to be claiming offence versatility, but combined the fact that several other studies (Rose, 2000; Chenery, Henshaw, and Pease, 1999) have found criminals to be versatile, would probably dismiss this query.
SSP also has relevance to other huge cases, where vigilance surrounding a minor crime has led to a huge breakthrough. Locally, two cases spring to mind- Harold Shipman and Peter Sutcliffe (Roach and Pease, 2016.) Harold Shipman was brought to justice because the daughter of a victim was a solicitor and noticed inconsistencies in her mother’s will. Forgery, which not necessarily a minor crime but definitely more minor than murder, brought to light serial murder of Harold Shipman before profiling or traditional style policing got close. Peter Sutcliffe was stopped by a police officer who had noticed his registration plate did not match his car. Police vigilance surround the registration plate and then further investigation, uncovered the murder weapon and concluded a landmark case, that again previous methods had got nowhere close. Obviously these are not empirical studies, but they do show that vigilance surrounding minor crimes can and has led to the discovery much more serious crimes, and therefore should be used routinely.
Knowing that vigilance surrounding minor offences has worked in such extreme cases as these, the next big question is whether police can actually carry out SSP daily, without influence from researches while on the ‘beat’. Roach and Hatton (2017) hoped to prove SSP’s daily application by working with police in their pilot in Solihull. The pilot involved two response teams being told to target minor traffic offences (style of driving, condition of vehicle, parking etc) for two days. The two units were told to record information about both the car and the occupants, to try and determine any criminality. In total, 36 vehicles were stopped, mostly for their manner of driving (Roach and Hatton, 2017). 20 out of 36 of these drivers had other convictions, mostly serious acquisitive crime. This shows that minor crimes can be used by police officers to flag other, perhaps more serious crimes- in this instance the 2 vehicles had firearms markers 6 vehicles were seized which yet again, suggests criminal versatility and supports the idea that offenders who commit serious crimes also commit minor crimes.
Overall, the biggest obstacle to the application of SSP in the UK is police mindset (Roach and Pease, 2016). The Flannagan report (2008) highlighted this by insinuating that monitoring minor crimes is a waste of police resources and time, and so obviously misses the point that SSP would help with serious crime too. This seems to go hand in hand with a distinct void between what research is saying, and what officers believe regarding offence homogeneity (Roach and Pease, 2016.) However, as most police officers have less than 5 years’ experience (Roach and Pease, 2016) on the job, this stigma could hopefully be broken through the training process and more research informed training manuals and textbooks. Another obstacle that faces SSP is that it somewhat relies on good crime reporting. In some cases, such as sexual harassment or intimate partner violence, reporting rates are low and so would be hard to use as triggers, despite how linked they may be to other more serious crimes. Hopefully through research and actual implementation of SSP, solutions to these questions might become more apparent, such as neighbours reporting noise from arguing to be the trigger offence for further investigation, or HR departments working closely with the police.
A final hurdle is the amount of money and time that would need to be funded into research and training. SSP would undoubtedly need a substantial amount of research into what are the most prominent trigger offences to look out for, especially in some particularly uncharted territory such as cybercrime, and also into the subsequent training. Nonetheless, this is not necessarily a disadvantage, as researched based public service can only be a benefit for the public as it leads to less prejudice and more visibility.
There are several benefits to SSP that I think certainly outweigh the drawbacks. As previously mentioned, the fact that SSP is unbiased and unprejudiced due to its firm research base cannot be stressed enough. Even certain grey areas, such as issues raised about trigger points that may mostly apply to one gender (such as soliciting sex or curb crawling) would be backed by firm empirical evidence and so would be much more defensible than other forms of policing. In particular, triggers where the offender is not present such as parking in a disabled bay (Roach and Pease, 2016; Chenery, Henshaw, and Pease, 1999) would be especially strong as there can be absolutely no doubt that the investigation is unbiased. Also, SSP has been highlighted as resource conserving in the long run (Roach and Pease, 2016) as attentiveness to minor crimes would lead to more results in major crimes, and by doing so would in theory reduce the amount of minor crimes committed. Also, a final benefit to SSP would hopefully lead to better communication between different organisations, such as traffic wardens, the police, and the DVLA.
To conclude, SSP has firm research backing, moral and legal strengths, and good real-life application that has been demonstrated time and time again. Therefore, the costs and training are more than justified and therefore should SSP be used routinely by UK police.
References
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