CRIME TYPE DEFINTIONS

CRIME TYPES - BASIC DESCRIPTIONS

These defintiions are those of the author in his own words and they will not necessarilly fit every operational, in every police department across the United States. These definitions may be modified or changed to fit your operational deployment.

A crime trend is the occurrence of similar offenses in an area that have increased in a recent time period and may have similar targets, M.O., or circumstances that leads the analyst to create a crime bulletin indicating that there is an increase of a criminal activity in an area. Typically this might include a group of residential burglaries that have increased in the past weeks or months with no specific data or information that will positively lead the crime analyst to a suspect or suspects.

A crime pattern is the occurrence of similar offenses in a defined geographic area that may or may not be committed by the same suspect or suspects. Typically this might include a group of residential burglaries that have similar methods of entry, in a certain neighborhood or beat, with no specific data or information that will positively lead the crime analyst to a suspect or suspects however slightly more evidence to indicate they may be related than a trend.

A crime cluster is the occurrence of similar offenses in a defined geographic area, in close proximity to each other which lead the analyst to believe a specific suspect or suspects are responsible.. This might include a group of residential burglaries that have similar methods of entry, and are identified in a hot spot map, STAC, or CrimeStat software as within a specific hot spot cluster.

A crime series is similar to a pattern and a cluster, however there is evidence or modus operandi information which leads the analysts to believe that a specific suspect or suspects is responsible for all of the crimes in a series. Series may start out as clusters and patterns and once further investigation and analysis is performed a connection between the events is established.

A crime spree is a set of crimes, committed by the same suspect or suspects, over a short period of time and perhaps in a specific direction or vector from the starting crime in the spree. An example here would be the robbery suspects who rob a bank in one town, drive 2 hrs to the next town, committ another robbery and kill a guard, and then continue to commit crimes whereever they go and until they are arrested or killed themselves.