To Correctly Calibrate Crime Prevention with Societal Changes, It Helps to “See” Risk in the Right Way

The pandemic has upended traditional patterns of work, leisure, and home life. Crime—being opportunity-driven—is transforming alongside it. 

Consequently, many businesses are finding it wise to re-calibrate their crime prevention efforts, recognizing that it is incumbent upon them to align security with changing crime environments and patterns. While always challenging, it’s a mission made easier when an organization can visualize risk in multiple ways and in terms that are most relevant to them.

New Patterns

In a study of crime in Chicago, researchers observed that COVID-19 has had unprecedented impacts on the security of society, economic development, people’s daily lives, as well as the distribution of crimes. Spatial and temporal patterns of crime have changed significantly, and new clusters of theft, battery, and burglary formed (“The Impact of COVID-19 on Crime: A Spatial Temporal Analysis in Chicago,” International Journal of Geo-Information, March 10, 2021).

Chicago is hardly alone, of course. Crime activity everywhere is shaped by where people go, when, and for what—and the pandemic has disrupted all of it. Targets of crime, too, have changed, with some businesses shuttered, many new ones emerging, and commercial and public spaces being re-purposed. Lastly, labor market churn is unprecedented, creating significant geographic shifts in employers’ labor pools.

Yes, business and society are now looking more like they once did, but experts believe that many features of today’s urban landscapes—born in the pandemic—are here to stay. Cities were compelled to decrease regulatory hurdles and allow more flexible uses of public and commercial spaces, for example—a “genie that will be hard to put back in the bottle,” according to study released in June by the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Center for City Solutions.

New Risk

Changing work-life patterns alter crime activity. They are also expected to transform basic aspects of many companies’ operations, such as from how far away its customers are likely to travel, how broad a geographic area they service, and from how large a geographic area they draw their employees. 

All these factors suggest how a company might best view a location’s security risk. When crime is typically local and opportunistic, a narrow view may be best. If employees and customers are drawn from an extended geographic area, then a wider risk map offers another critical view. 

Assessing Risk

Changes also reflect the need—if risk at a specific site is to be understood—of assessing demographic data, business statistics, and information on points-of-interest in a neighborhood that can amplify or mitigate the risk of crime. 

CAP Index reports use analyze them all as part of scoring a site’s risk of experiencing crime events. “I don’t put all my eggs in one basket and will talk to colleagues and contacts and go out there and talk to neighbors, but it all starts with a CAP index report because it’s proved reliable and has buy-in through our leadership team,” said Michael Fessler, Senior Director for Enterprise Security Services at American Red Cross. 

To meet the varying needs of businesses, CAP Index’s new Premium Plus Report includes four different scoring methodologies, each analyzing a progressively larger “sphere of influence” to assess the risk of crime. The varying methodologies account for the fact that perpetrators often travel varying distances to commit crimes depending on the target.

Each sphere is defined by a maximum geographic radius or a population threshold and have different components that influence the overall crime risk score. Scores tell the story of a location’s crime risk, and it is vital, validated crime risk intelligence, according to users. 

“We do our own internal data review, but CAP Index gives the true neighborhood picture,” said Dan Yaross, Director of Security at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “It provides credible data justification for security enhancements that we’re recommending for new construction or renovations of clinics.”