Closer to reality? The application of sequence analysis in crime linkage

Closer to reality? The application of sequence analysis in crime linkage Jan-Martin Winter, Gina Rossi Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.34-50 Traditional crime linkage studies on serial sexual assaults have relied predominantly on a binary crime linkage approach that has yielded successful results in terms of linkage accuracy. Such an approach is a coarse reflection of reality by focussing mainly on the outcome of an offence, neglecting the forceful differences due to the intricate offender-victim interaction. Only few researchers have examined sexual assaults through the lens of a sequence analysis framework. This paper aims to present the first empirical test of offence sequence-based crime linkage, moving beyond exploratory analyses. Offence accounts from 90 serial sexual assault and rape victims from the UK were analysed and sequentially coded. Sequence analysis allowed to compare all offences combinations regarding their underlying sequence of events. The resulting comparison was transformed and plotted in two-dimensional space by multidimensional scaling analysis for a visual inspection of linkage potential. The transformed proximities of all offences were used as predictors in a receiver operating characteristic analysis to actually test their discriminatory accuracy for crime linkage purpose. Sequence analysis shows significant discriminatory accuracy for crime linkage purpose. However, th...
Source: Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice - Category: Criminology Authors: Source Type: research