Research on new technologies in fighting crime

Figures published in the British Crime Survey (BCS) 2006-07 show that overall crime rates held steady in England and Wales over the past year. This is part of a long-term trend - crime rates peaked in 1995, then fell by 42% over the subsequent 10 years. The decline reduced the risk of the average person becoming a victim of crime by 41%, although that risk increased by one percentage point last year. Police recorded crime rates showed violent crime rates fell by 1% over the last year - the first fall in that category in eight years. The number of police recorded crimes involving firearms declined by 13% during the same time period. Some crime categories did show increases, but vandalism was the only category to show a statistically significant change over the year - vandalism reports increased by 10%. However, even with that increase, reports of vandalism are still 11% lower now than they were in 1995.

New technology targets traditional crime

Moving the BattlegroundThe average European is less likely to be a victim of crime than ten years ago. The statistics for the UK alone suggest a 41 per cent drop¹. Many experts attribute a large part of this improvement to the impact of new technologies.Improvements include:

• Collection, validation, evaluation, and sharing of data from local, regional, national, and international sources;
  



• Storage and cross-referencing of crime scene information, such as DNA and eye-witness reports;
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• Situational awareness with effective communication and real-time information sharing;
  



• Public safety and security coverage from IP CCTV and wireless networks;
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• Contact management and convenient citizen communication through phone, SMS, email or web channels.

The FutureIP technology will equip police forces with science fiction style tools. Command and control centres will have always on communication with mobile forces to allow location based services, instant suspect reports based on facial recognition technology and devices that support online fingerprint and DNA analysis and matching.