Exploring the impact and effectiveness of the ‘Project Optimal’ burglary reduction initiative in Leeds: A spatio-temporal approach

Addis, Nicholas

Abstract

The current paper presents the findings from a project
that explored the impact and effectiveness of the 'Project Optimal' Burglary Reduction Initiative in Leeds. The Project Optimal Initiative was implemented in March 2012 as part of a range of initiatives introduced across Leeds to address the city's highly publicised burglary problem (see Safer Leeds Partnership 2011; West Yorkshire Police 2012). This initiative is a form of Predictive Policing, used to help identify areas at risk of burglary based on previous burglary offences.
Specifically, the initiative was introduced as part of the city-Wide Burglary Reduction Programme introduced in September 2011 by the Safer Leeds Partnership Leeds' Safer Cities agency (Safer Leeds Partnership 2011; West Yorkshire Police 2012). Based on work undertaken as part of the Trafford Burglary Model implemented by Greater Manchester Police in 2010, the model is derived from the 'Optimal Forager' theory of behaviour, and supported by previous research that links this theory to offending behaviour (Johnson and Bowers 2004; Jones and Fielding 2011). The model suggests that following an initial burglary offence, the risk of subsequent burglaries is increased across a 400m radius over a subsequent 3 week period(Jones and Fielding 2011).

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: GISRUK 2013, Liverpool
• Start Date: Apr 3, 2013
• End Date: Apr 5, 2013
• Deposit Date: Aug 23, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 23, 2022
• Keywords: Burglary, Predictive Policing, Crime Prevention, Optimal Forager, Spatio-temporal analysis
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9902999
• Publisher URL: https://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~gisteac/proceedingsonline/GISRUK2013/gisruk2013_submission_35.pdf
• Related Public URLs: https://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~gisteac/proceedingsonline/GISRUK2013/; ; https://www.gisruk.org/index.html; ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/24579224; ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/i24579216