Matrix Insight

Since February 2007, the Home Office and National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) have supported and encouraged cross-border police collaborations, designed to remove obstacles to cooperation and to improve efficiency. The most significant area for collaboration has been in the ‘protective services’, covering various major challenges to public safety such as terrorism and the fight against serious crime. At the request of the Home Office and NPIA, Matrix are conducting an ongoing evaluation of 12 designated ‘demonstration sites’ for protective services collaboration around England and Wales. This study has involved a combination of on-site visits and interviews, observations, and on-line surveys. Our first year’s work had provided a global overview of the projects, and has highlighted improved service in a number of leading sites, but difficulties over differing human resource policies between sites. The second year of this project is currently investigating the financial benefits and costs that accrue from police collaboration – a major issue at a time of tightening public sector budgets.

In 2003, Matrix was commissioned by the UK Home Office to undertake a large scale review of the current and likely future harms generated by organised crime. The project specifically focused on organised crime carried out through drug trafficking, people-trafficking, and financial, VAT and excise fraud. Carried out over a one year period, the project involved the use of a three stage Delphi questionnaire sent to enforcement, government, commercial and legal personnel and interviews with a range of stakeholders. This consultation, involving 350 stakeholders from across the UK, EC and worldwide, was broader than anything attempted before within studies of organised crime.

If governments are to tackle crime, then they need a firmer understanding of how it operates. This is clearly the case in the world of drug trafficking, where dramatic speculation has often been more popular than careful study. In 2006, the Home Office launched a large scale project to reverse that imbalance, commissioning Matrix and the London School of Economics to undertake the work. This became the largest study of the dynamics of drug markets undertaken in the EU, encompassing 300 interviews with high level convicted drugs traffickers. These ‘traffickers’ include those involved in manufacture, distribution, importation, wholesale and end-user sales. The study used a unique approach which synthesised detailed economic analysis, business / industry analysis and social network analysis, and revealed considerable similarities between this illegal trade and the operations of licit businesses.

The Merseyside Middle Market Drug Unit (MMDU) was a large police initiative set up to target individuals and networks operating at the middle level of the drugs market. Its aim was to target subjects who traffic in, or manage others trafficking in, Class A drugs and associated drug precursors, cutting agents and technical equipment, such as drug presses. In 2003, Matrix was commissioned by the UK Home Office to evaluate the Unit. In particular, the evaluation assessed the logic of the initiative, the impact of the Unit on drug supply within the UK and an economic/cost benefit analysis.

This was a three-year evaluation of nine pilot sites (including some sites in London), involving extensive fieldwork and liaison with criminal justice agencies including the police, the National Probation Directorate, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Courts Service. The evaluation included analysis of national and local recorded crime data, population data, and the profile of adults going through the drug testing system. The final report was published as a Home Office Research Study.

In 2000-2001, the UK Home Office commissioned MHB and the University of Surrey to evaluate the support offered on release to prisoners who have received drug treatment in prison (often known as ‘drug throughcare’). MHB’s research estimated that 8,000 sentenced offenders might be released from prisons in England and Wales each year with a significant drug dependency, if no action has been taken to break drug habits. Research has unequivocally established that most will commit crime to fund a continuing habit. However, if drug throughcare could effect, for example, a 40% reduction in drug dependency amongst ex-prisoners, the number of crimes committed by these individuals each year would fall from some 5 million to 3 million (obviously not all of these offences will be reported, or recorded by the police). The costs incurred by victims of crime might reduce from some £250 million to about £150 million. There would, in addition, be many other savings realised in the criminal justice system, health service and elsewhere. The report primarily recommends a radical re-assessment of organisation and funding, centred on the designation of lead responsibility to one specific service.

On behalf of the Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union of the European Commission, Matrix carried out a year-long, independent assessment of customs controls of drug precursors in the 27 Member States of the European Union, plus Croatia. The aim of the study was to explore the situation in Member States’ Customs administrations with regard to drug precursor controls and to identify appropriate solutions that could be employed to cut down the supply of precursors used for the illicit manufacture of Ecstasy and amphetamines in the Community. Matrix conducted surveys and field visits in over two-thirds of the countries, determining what was a widely varying the capacity to detect high risk consignments in general and of carrying out customs controls on drug precursors in particular.

Potential criminal and terrorist penetration of charities and other ‘Third Sector’ bodies has been the focus of much recent media attention. In 2007, Matrix was commissioned by the European Commission to examine the actual extent of abuse of NPOs for financial criminal purposes, and to provide a more detailed analysis of the most frequent and serious criminal activities undertaken through NPOs. Evidence was collected via desk research, one-to-one interviews with experts, and a multi-expert Delphi Study. The study found that although criminal and terrorist misuse was not a media myth, the incidence and prevalence of NPO financial abuse in the EU was apparently relatively limited.

In 2006, MHB (with Professor Nick Tilley) were commissioned by the Organised Crime Team in the UK Home Office to conduct a study to explore the impact of organised crime activity on businesses located in residential areas. The research was conducted in two phases. The first was a pilot phase where questionnaires designed to try and measure the prevalence and incidence of organised crime on businesses were piloted on a small sample of business. These questionnaires were cross-referenced with police intelligence data and interviews with a number of community organisations to give a full picture of the nature and impact of organised crime in the pilot area. The second phase involved replicating the methodological approach piloted in phase one across three high crime areas in different UK cities. The report of this study was published in 2007.

The SBCS represented the first major survey of crimes against business to be carried out in Scotland. The research team – led by John Burrows (working in collaboration with Prof. Joshua Bamfield and System Three) – implemented a programme with three elements – an in depth premises survey of 2,500 businesses, a ‘head office’ survey of larger businesses, and a series of ‘site visits’ and focused interviews with businesses that had a contrasting experience of crime. The main ‘premises’ survey element went much further that the earlier Commercial Victimisation survey in England and Wales, by covering five principal business sectors (compared to two in the CVS) and a wider range of crime types.

In 2004, the UK Home Office commissioned MHB, in partnership with Professor Mike Levi, to carry out a review of existing published sources of information on fraud, to both assess the extent of the problems, and to recommend appropriate strategies to facilitate the comprehensive and consistent recording of fraud in the future. It conservatively estimated that fraud cost the UK £13.9 billion in 2005, but noted that some major areas of criminality (such as income tax fraud) were omitted from this total as reliable statistics are simply not available. The report was published in early 2007 at a major press launch led by senior police officers and government Ministers.

In 2006, Matrix, in partnership with G3 Ltd, provided support to the UK Home Office on the design of a random probability survey of police officers in England and Wales on neighbourhood policing. Data was gathered through workshops and a meta-survey of existing literature on police behaviour and attitudes with quality assurance from a team of expert advisors.

In April 2001, the Prime Minister identified measures that would improve liveability in local environments in England, including a Street Warden Programme that would build on the success of the pilot Neighbourhood Wardens’ Programme. Street Wardens were intended to help make streets in villages, towns and neighbourhoods cleaner, safer and better places in which to live. In 2003, Matrix was commissioned by the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to undertake a three-year evaluation of this major national programme. The evaluation adopted a two-tier approach. At the programme level, 121 Street Warden schemes were evaluated. This was complemented by case studies involving 10 schemes that enabled us to explain the processes of implementation and undertake a detailed cost analysis. This is one of the largest evaluations undertaken by a UK government department in recent years, and our final report received considerable media attention.

Between December 2006 and March 2007, MHB were commissioned by DCLG to explore the investigation and detection of arson. The main focus was on why detection rates for arson were low when compared to other crime types and how the police investigate arson. Attention was directed at arson investigations in six police Basic Command unit (BCU) areas. The aim was to try and obtain a mixture of areas: they were selected by taking two areas with a high rate of arson per 10,000 population, two with a average rate and two with a low rate. In each of the pairs, one BCU achieved a higher than average detection rate and the other a lower than average detection rate. Within these areas, a total of 240 arson investigations were tracked (40 in each area: 20 detected and 20 non-detected) from initial police notification to final disposal. In addition to this case tracking exercise, interviews were also conducted with crime managers and police officers in each BCU area.

Between April 2005 and May 2006, MHB were commissioned to evaluate the Arson Control Forum Implementation Fund for the ODPM. A total of 30 projects were evaluated. These aimed to reduce deliberate primary fires by using a variety of interventions method. The projects were evaluated by comparing longitudinal patterns of primary deliberate fire data for impact and comparison sites.

Between January 2005 and March 2005, MHB evaluated the LFEPA Juvenile Firesetters Intervention Scheme. The scheme began in April 2001 and was designed to help meet the Authority’s principle aim of making ‘London a safer city by minimising the risks and social and economic costs of fire and other hazards’. The aims of the evaluation were to considerer the impact of the scheme on the number of incidents attended by firefighters resulting from firesetting by children and young people, the impact of interventions on children and young people that may extend beyond firesetting behaviour and the effectiveness of the scheme’s relationship with partner agencies. The project was evaluated through a mixture of methods including telephone interviews with families of referred children, analysis of fire data and interviews with stakeholders.

Between November 2002 and April 2004, MHB were commissioned to evaluate the Arson Control Forum (ACF) funded New Projects Initiative for the ODPM. This initiative provided funding for over 45 projects that ran from April 2001. 30 projects were evaluated that implemented a range of mechanisms to try and reduce the number of deliberate primary fires across brigade areas. The projects included setting up Arson Task Forces, car clear projects, activities aimed at reducing school fires and working with young people at risk of fire setting. The findings of the evaluation were published by the ODPM in November 2004.

In 2006, Matrix was commissioned by the UK’s independent Statistics Commission to carry out a review of the UK’s Crime Statistics. The aim of the review was to examine official statistics relating to crime in the four countries of the UK. The review considered the adequacy of such data from the perspective of users, the use made and methodological issues. The report drew on international best practice and included the development of a panel of world class criminologists. The key recommendations of the review were published in 2006.

Many crimes go unreported, and not all those reported to the police are necessarily recorded as crimes, whilst previous research has also suggested significant variation in recording practices. To investigate further the UK Home Office commissioned MHB in 2002 to carry out a large-scale review of police crime recording practices in England and Wales. MHB’s review targeted the policies, procedures and operational cultures surrounding crime recording in ten forces, and then tracked the outcome of crime allegations made in five of them. This confirmed that recording processes varied significantly between forces. Across all forces 47% of crime allegations were recorded as crimes, with local variations of between 55% and 33%. Variations were also found within forces. MHB identified two models which different police forces used to count crime

• ‘prima facie’, essentially treating all allegations as worthy of recording;
• ‘evidential’, requiring a certain degree of evidence to justify recording.

MHB’s report was published in tandem with a major Government announcement on government strategy, which attracted wide press coverage.

Since April 1997, the EU has been seeking to nurture and encourage a pan-European approach to serious organised crime. In 2008, Matrix, in collaboration with Professor Mike Levi of Cardiff University, was commissioned by the European Commission to assess how far directives on the recovery of criminal assets had been implemented and internalised across the Union. We collected our data through interviews with practitioners across the EU 27, and a detailed online survey, provided by Matrix Decisions. Our findings were significant – legislative implementation was good, but cultural barriers to using asset recovery tools remained in many EU states, and more action was required to ‘mainstream’ the use of asset recovery tools – including civil recovery – within law enforcement agencies. The report was accepted by the Commission in 2009, and its recommendations are now under active consideration.

The effective use of latest scientific and technical advances – especially DNA – has been one of the most controversial developments in modern police investigation techniques. From 2000-2005, the UK Home Office commissioned MHB to look at the use of DNA and other forensic techniques through the evaluation of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) ‘Pathfinder’ project in Greater Manchester Police and Lancashire Constabulary and the National DNA Database Expansion programme. On the Pathfinder project, the evaluation team carried out the most detailed follow-up yet undertaken of forensic ‘identifications’, and identified reasons why not all such cases lead to successful prosecutions. On the DNA Expansion Programme, the team found major increases in the number of crime scene samples loaded on the database, dramatic increases in the number of samples from those arrested, charged, etc. for crime, and an increase of just over one third in the ‘hits’ that link suspects to crime scenes, and a 70% increase in the number of detections achieved by the police with a DNA link.

In 2004, the Council of the European Union adopted Directive 2004/80/EC on the compensation of crime victims, which provided that crime victims should be entitled to fair and appropriate compensation, regardless of where within the community the crime was committed. In spring 2008, the European Commission therefore commissioned to assess the current stage of implementation of Directive in all EU Member States. Our report – drafted in collaboration with Professor David Miers of Cardiff University – found that In terms of the core elements of the Directive – that Member States provide fair and appropriate compensation for victims of violent intentional crimes – there was a substantial degree of compliance across the EU. However, we highlighted serious deficiencies in data collection and management which required rectification. The report was accepted by the Commission in 2009, and its recommendations are now under active consideration.

In March 2008, the Youth Taskforce – set up by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) – published an Action Plan to take forward its key mission of improving the behaviour and opportunities of vulnerable young people. To achieve this, the YTF is investing £13m over the next three years, setting up 52 Challenge and Support Projects in areas where crime and anti-social behaviour are a problem. In October 2008, Matrix was commissioned to evaluate the use and effectiveness of these support measures, alongside anti-social behaviour enforcement action. The primary objectives of Matrix’s research are:

• to understand what support is provided to young people who receive different types of anti-social behaviour enforcement action and how this varies by type of behaviour and type of young person
• to measure the effectiveness of the combination of support and enforcement in reducing anti-social behaviour and young people’s progress into the criminal justice process;
• to identify and measure young people’s outcomes when they receive a combination of support and enforcement;
• to understand the relationship between the quality of support and enforcement received by young people and their subsequent outcomes.

The overarching approach is to understand ‘what works, for whom and in what circumstances’. This research is scheduled to continue until March 2011.

In a major initiative to tackle prevent ‘at risk’ young people from entering the youth justice system, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) has created over 72 Youth Inclusion programmes, operating in the the most deprived, high crime, neighbourhoods in England and Wales. Each is focusing on some 50 young people between the ages of 13 and 16 who have been identified as being at greatest risk of offending. Between 2000 and 2006, MHB were commissioned by the YJB to evaluate the Youth Inclusion programmes. MHB implemented a multi-faceted, programme level evaluation which routinely informed the future development of the initiative. The MHB team also oversaw the development and operation of a new Management Information System.

The national evaluation of the Drug Interventions Programme for Children and Young People encompassed three interventions, designed to tackle young people’s drug use, crime and other life factors; targeting children and young people in up to ten pilot sites around the country. In 2004, Matrix lead a consortium, including the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), and a panel of expert associates, commissioned by the Home Office to undertake an evaluation of these interventions. The team undertook a theory-led, formative evaluation with the emphasis on working with the sites, practitioners and young offenders to identify the explicit theories of how these interventions might work in practice. This provided a framework for the three core elements of the evaluation, process and structure, impact and value for money. The evaluation also considered the implications of wider policy agendas for children and young people.