Overview

This one-day masterclass on strategic assessments for crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) reduction is designed for police, enforcement and community safety practitioners who need to develop strategic assessments as part of their role.

You'll learn about the key ingredients that should go into a strategic assessment by looking at:

• what should be included
• the analytical techniques you can use
• how to determine the strategic priorities

Who this course is for

The course is aimed at analysts, officers and managers whose role is either to provide support or be directly responsible for writing the strategic assessment and determining strategic priorities.

Course content

During the course you'll explore the key ingredients that should go into a strategic assessment and critique the main approaches for structuring content. These are the:

• 'crime chapters' approach
• problem-oriented approach
• strategic priorities approach

The intelligence development process

We begin by discussing the role that intelligence products should play in informing and influencing decision-making - what needs to be done and how resources will be used to address community safety problems. 

We then explore the practicalities of this against the production and development of intelligence products, considering the role that problem profiles and tactical assessments should play alongside the strategic assessment.

The key ingredients for a strategic assessment

We've been involved in every round of audit, strategy, and strategic assessment production since 1998. Having been involved with the implementation of the National Intelligence Model into policing and CSPs, we've seen what works well and what doesn't in terms of what should go into a strategic intelligence document that assesses community safety issues. In this session we discuss these key ingredients, and in so doing set out a template against which to critically review the strategic assessment production process.

Critiquing the content of strategic assessments

There are generally three different approaches to writing a strategic assessment:

1. the crime chapters approach (with a chapter on each crime, disorder, and ASB type and chapters on other community safety issues)
2. the strategic priorities approach (each chapter is based on the previous strategic priorities)
3. a problem-oriented approach (chapters are based on place-based concentrations of crime and priority neighbourhoods; offenders, offending behaviour and offender management; and victimisation, vulnerability, and reassurance)

We critique each type in a group discussion and illustrate the pros and cons of each.

Data and analysis techniques to use in a strategic assessment

We review the data sets that should be used in a strategic assessment, provide guidance on information sharing and illustrate examples of useful analytical techniques that have been used in several of the best strategic assessments.

Top tips

To summarise the day we offer some top tips and a checklist on what to include in strategic assessment - this can act as a useful means for carrying out a critical self-assessment of your strategic assessment.

Cost and concessions

There's a 10% reduction for bookings of two or more people. All bookings must be made at the same time.

Course team

Spencer Chainey

Spencer is the Principal Research Associate at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science. His particular research interests are in developing geographical crime analysis and crime mapping. He carries out most of his day-to-day work on developing the use of data, information sharing and analysis to aid intelligence development and decision-making by police forces, community safety partnerships, and national crime reduction and policing agencies.

His work has influenced national (UK) policy, and has contributed to policing and crime reduction developments in the USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Germany, Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. His work is also used in examples of good practice by the UK Cabinet Office (Social Exclusion Unit), Local Government Improvement and Development, The Home Office, the Audit Commission, The Housing Corporation and the United States National Institute of Justice.

Course information last modified: 30 Nov 2022, 16:00