Event Details

Security Lancaster seminar

Speaker: Prof Jessica Woodham

Title: Aiding crime linkage through the development of a decision-support tool for analysts

Date: 28th April 2023

Time: 2pm - 3pm

Join: Teams

Abstract:

Crime linkage is a form of crime scene analysis whereby the practitioner analyses the behavior displayed by a suspect at the crime scene and searches databases of crimes to identify any other crimes they might have committed based on behavioural similarity and distinctiveness. It is practiced in many different countries and in the UK. In the talk, Jess will outline an ongoing project with the Serious Crime Analysis Section of the National Crime Agency (UK) which focuses on stranger sexual offences. SCAS analysts are now hindered in their analysis due to the volume of crimes on their database (>35,000) and the way their existing search tools work. With Dr Matt Tonkin (University of Leicester) and Dr Dalal Alrajeh (Imperial College London), Jess is working with SCAS to develop a means of triaging cases on their database drawing on existing statistical algorithms and through the development of a new algorithm that considers not only the behaviour of s suspect but also the context in which it occurred. This study is ongoing and so Jess will present their findings to date.

Bio:

Jess Woodhams is a forensic psychologist and Professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of Birmingham. She is the School of Psychology’s Head of Research and is also co-Director of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Policing. Jess has worked with the police in her research for approx. 20 years and is passionate about helping them apprehend suspects in an evidence-based and effective way, as well as protecting their wellbeing. She has the privilege of working with a team of excellent research fellows and PhD students with whom she is conducting longitudinal research regarding the impact of working with distressing material, exploring the use of natural language processing in the population of crime databases, and assessing the value of ANPR to apprehend stranger rapists. She leads two large, multi-institution projects – one related to crime linkage, as described, and one related to child sex offenders operating on the dark web. She has set up an international network of crime linkage academics and practitioners (C-LINK) and she has been running the Academic Advisory Group with an operational police officer for more than 8 years.