Daniel Birks

University of Leeds · School of Law

This study demonstrates that computational modeling and, in particular, agent‐based modeling (ABM) offers a viable compatriot to traditional experimental methodologies for criminology scholars. ABM can be used as a means to operationalize and test hypothetical mechanisms that offer a potential explanation for commonly observed criminological phenom...

Objectives This study explores preference variation in location choice strategies of residential burglars. Applying a model of offender target selection that is grounded in assertions of the routine activity approach, rational choice perspective, crime pattern and social disorganization theories, it seeks to address the as yet untested assumption t...

Street networks shape day-to-day activities in complex ways, dictating where, when, and in what contexts potential victims, offenders, and crime preventers interact with one another. Identifying generalizable principles of such influence offers considerable utility to theorists, policy makers, and practitioners. Unfortunately, key difficulties asso...

As literature around policing and society grows, there is increased use of, and focus upon the concept of police ‘demand’. The concept itself, however, is ill-defined and no consensus exists about how it should be measured. This paper addresses these issues by undertaking a scoping review of literature on the topic, and by exploring how demand has...

We present a novel exploratory application of unsupervised machine-learning methods to identify clusters of specific crime problems from unstructured modus operandi free-text data within a single administrative crime classification. To illustrate our proposed approach, we analyse police recorded free-text narrative descriptions of residential burgl...

If and how policing affects crime has long been studied. On the relationship between police force size and crime, different authors come to different conclusions. This study examines the relationship between police resourcing, including workforce size, structure and stability over time using data for 42 police forces in the UK over a 13-year period...

Analyses of crime based upon aggregate counts of different crime types have restricted value, because they count all crime types equally irrespective of the harm caused. In response to this problem, a series of weighted measures of crime harm have been proposed. In this short contribution, we contend that the use of some crime harm metrics to infor...

This paper connects the problem of artificial intelligence (AI)-facilitated academic misconduct with crime-prevention based recommendations about the prevention of academic misconduct in more traditional forms. Given that academic misconduct is not a new phenomenon, there are lessons to learn from established information relating to misconduct perp...

This paper connects the problem of AI-facilitated academic misconduct with crime-prevention based recommendations about the prevention of academic misconduct in more traditional forms. Given that academic misconduct is not a new phenomenon, there are lessons to learn from established information relating to misconduct perpetration and frameworks fo...

Studies in the United States and Europe have demonstrated that burglary and vehicle crime exhibit consistent patterns, supporting the application of crime prediction techniques to proactively deploy police resources to reduce incidents of crime. Research into whether these techniques are applicable in an Australian context is currently limited. Usi...

In recent years, internet connectivity and the ubiquitous use of digital devices have afforded a landscape of expanding opportunity for the proliferation of scams involving attempts to deceive individuals into giving away money or personal information. The impacts of these schemes on victims have shown to encompass social, psychological, emotional...

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a facet of wider Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) research that explores the collective behaviour of individual `agents', and the implications that their behaviour and interactions have for wider systemic behaviour. The method has been shown to hold considerable value in exploring and understanding human societies, but is st...

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a facet of wider Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) research that explores the collective behaviour of individual ‘agents’, and the implications that their behaviour and interactions have for wider systemic behaviour. The method has been shown to hold considerable value in exploring and understanding human societies, but is st...

Capturing and simulating intelligent adaptive behaviours within spatially explicit individual-based models remains an ongoing challenge for researchers. While an ever-increasing abundance of real-world behavioural data are collected, few approaches exist that can quantify and formalise key individual behaviours and how they change over space and ti...

OBJECTIVES This scoping review aims to answer the following question: To what extent have the mechanisms behind crime generators and attractors been studied? METHODS This work follows the procedure laid out by the Joanna Briggs Institute for scoping reviews (Tricco, 2017). RESULTSWithin the studies included in this review, a great deal of inconsist...

Roadside collisions are a significant problem faced by all countries. Urbanisation has led to an increase in traffic congestion and roadside vehicle collisions. According to the UK Government’s Department for Transport, most vehicle collisions occur on urban roads, with empirical evidence showing drivers are more likely to break local and fixed spe...

Abstract We recently rejected the hypothesis that increases in cybercrime may have caused the international crime drop. Critics subsequently argued that offenders switched from physical crime to cybercrime in recent years, and that lifestyle changes due to ‘leisure IT’ may have caused the international crime drop. Here we explain how the critics mi...

Crime pattern theory is a central framework within environmental criminology, providing a means to understand how the spatial structure of human activities can shape the distribution of crime in urban areas. An important idea is the role played by shared activity nodes: locations that feature in the routine activities of many people, and therefore...

A digital twin is a virtual data-driven replica of a real-world system. Recently, digital twins have become popular in engineering and infrastructure planning where they provide insights into complex physical systems or processes. Yet, to date, considerably less research has explored how digital replicas of social systems - representing the decisio...

We present a novel application of unsupervised machine-learning methods to identify clusters of specific crime problems from unstructured modus operandi free-text data within single administrative crime classifications. To illustrate our proposed approach, we analyse police recorded free-text narrative descriptions of residential burglaries occurri...

The UK government's Covid-19 lockdown strategy has had a dramatic effect on crime. How best can we anticipate and respond to changes in crime as lockdown is lifted? What we know about the impact of lockdown on crime and how we know it Restrictions on people's movements have caused dramatic changes in crime opportunities. Many crime types from shopl...

In recent years, the replacement of vehicle number plates to avoid detection has become a major policing issue. This research sought to explore means to identify false and clone number plates from ANPR images using machine learning methods. The research found machine learning successful at identifying false plates from ANPR images. In an unseen sam...

Abstract Recent studies have hypothesised that the international crime drop was the result of the rise in cybercrime. We subject this ‘cybercrime hypothesis’ to critical assessment. We find significant evidence and argument indicating that cybercrime could not have caused the crime drop, and so we reject the cybercrime hypothesis.

Independent analysis of police, fire, and ambulance calls for service demonstrates common patterns in emergency service activity. Targeted, place-focused interventions have been demonstrated to prevent future problems for emergency services. This research builds on these findings to examine the spatial and temporal intersection of police, fire, and...

In order to be effective, crime prevention interventions rely on the identification, understanding and manipulation of causal mechanisms that result in crime. This chapter explores how simulation methods, specifically computational agent-based models, can aid in the specification, testing and refinement of crime event theories that underlie prospec...

Crime is the result of numerous interconnected and interdependent crime event decisions made by potential offenders, victims, and crime preventers. The majority of these decisions go unobserved, and the situations within which they take place are difficult to control in support of traditional experimental studies. For these reasons, it can be diffi...

OBJECTIVES Systematize causal accounts of the introduction and uptake of vehicle security measures during the 1990s in England and Wales, and in turn, assess their sufficiency in explaining widespread falls in vehicle theft. METHODS We construct an individual-based computational model of the daily crime event choices of potential car thieves oper...

This poster presentation describes a preliminary assessment of the structural evolution of the global illicit and legal trade in military small arms and light weapons (SALW). We examine change in the structure of transfers from 1997 to 2013 using a stochastic actor-oriented model.

This poster describes our preliminary set-up for an agent-based model testing hypotheses about the effect of embargoes, homophily and cultural proximity, alliance obligations, security, and geographic proximity on the evolution of illicit/legal military small arms and light weapons transfers.

Objectives: This study builds on research undertaken by Bernasco and Nieuwbeerta and explores the generalizability of a theoretically derived offender target selection model in three cross-national study regions. Methods: Taking a discrete spatial choice approach, we estimate the impact of both environment- and offender-level factors on residential...

Objectives: This study builds on research undertaken by Bernasco and Nieuwbeerta and explores the generalizability of a theoretically derived offender target selection model in three cross-national study regions. Methods: Taking a discrete spatial choice approach, we estimate the impact of both environment- and offender-level factors on residential...

Objectives Apply computational agent-based modeling to explore the generative sufficiency of several mechanisms derived from the field of environmental criminology in explaining commonly observed patterns of interpersonal victimization. Method Controlled simulation experiments compared patterns of simulated interpersonal victimization to three emp...

Indigenous overrepresentation in the justice system is a challenge facing Australian society. It has recently been suggested that increased use of diversionary processes could reduce this overrepresentation. Reported in this paper are the findings of a project examining the 1990 offender cohort's contact with the Queensland juvenile justice system....

This chapter concerns the forecasting of crime locations using burglary as an example. An overview of research concerned with when and where burglaries occur is provided, with an initial focus on patterns of risk at the individual household level. Of central importance is evidence that as well as being geographically concentrated (at a range of geo...

Computer simulation models have changed the ways in which researchers are able to observe and study social phenomena such as crime. The ability of researchers to replicate the work of others is fundamental to a cumulative science, yet this rarely occurs in computer simulations. In this paper, we argue that, for computer simulations to be seen as a...

In this paper we report on a researcher–practitioner collaboration to deliver a crime reduction initiative across a borough in the West Midlands region of England. The circumstances of the collaboration and the initial analysis are explained. The crime prevention programme, which involved the situational crime prevention technique of target hardeni...

While essential, the process of developing and testing crime prevention strategies is currently an expensive and time-consuming process. In addition, there are some potential crime prevention programs that are either too costly or unethical to test empirically. What if we could test these strategies in an artificial world first? In a world of incre...

This chapter examines the use of computer simulation, specifically agent-based modeling, as a tool for criminologists and its potentially unique ability to examine, test, refine, and validate criminological theory. It suggests an approach to be taken by those working in this field, through the use of detailed examples of the processes necessary to...

This chapter examines the use of computer simulation, specifically agent-based modeling, as a tool for criminologists and its potentially unique ability to examine, test, refine, and validate criminological theory. It suggests an approach to be taken by those working in this field, through the use of detailed examples of the processes necessary to...

This paper seeks to explore police officer percep- tion of the spatial distribution of residential burglary over different time periods. Using a survey of officers across three English police basic command units (BCUs), it examines the accur- acy of their impressions of the locations of crime over the preceding year and the preceding two weeks. It...

Crime is distributed unevenly, a phenomenon commonplace at both areal and individual (personal or household) level. This is of core importance in the allocation of crime reduction resources. However, this importance is not reflected in the choice of measures used to target such resources. This paper distinguishes between alternative crime counts (i...

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