The Arrival of the Computer in the UK Criminal Justice System, 1955-1975 Dr Chris Williams Open University
Mar 18, 2016
The Arrival of the Computer in the UK Criminal Justice System, 1955-1975
Dr Chris Williams Open University
Overview• Before: police bureaucracy, 1860s ->• The arrival of Automatic Data Processing
– Digitising the immigration records? 1959– Looking abroad
• Developing the PNC: How, what, where?• What didn’t work: Modus Operandi• After:
– Continuing related development– Worse things happen locally
The Habitual Criminals Register, 1869-77• Home Office, Metropolitan Police, Prison Commission• All convicted of serious crimes (c.30,000 per year)• Markers:
– height– ‘complexion’– eye colour– aliases– tattoos
Operation of Hab Crims register:Requests Identified Percentage Register Size
1870 262 39 15 31,7641871 1007 168 16 59,7541872 1385 331 24 88,4521873 1303 352 27 117,568Totals 3957 890 22 ½
Memo from May, Met Chief Clerk – May 16th 1874
JADPU – HO / Met Joint Automatic Data Processing Unit• inception 1959• pay and pensions• fingerprints• 'increase police efficiency through the development of
an efficient system of nationally integrated comprehensive and up-to-date operational support records'
1959: Digitising the immigration records?
• Exercise Deter – 100 landing cards copied and re-copied by ten clerks– Errors noted– Report written with an eye on what will need to be solved if
the Traffic Index could be computerised
Exercise Deter
Exercise Deter: ‘Confusion pattern’
Source: Police National Computer, 1975
Power in the state
Home Office
Police Authorities
ACPO
Treasury
Metropolitan Police
Local Authority Associations
Registers for the computer?
• Vehicle licenses; • Driving licenses; • Stolen vehicles; • Missing persons; • Firearms licenses; • Deployment information; • Crime statistics; • Traffic accidents;
• Fingerprints; • Fingerprint index; • Modus Operandi; • Outstanding Warrants; • Convicted criminals; • Lost and stolen property; • Aliens
Source: Police National Computer, 1975
Role of the MoT?• I am delighted that they have done this, there is nothing like being
blackmailed, have a time table one has to keep to, this has been an absolutely invaluable argument in dealing with the Treasury. We have shielded behind the broad back of the Ministry of Transport in a rather clever manner, I think. So what I am saying in effect is let us make a virtue of necessity, we have got to have a computer and the only question is what sort of computer are we going to have and what is going to be on it.
Source: Trevelyan (HO) to Association of Chief Police Officers of England and Wales Sixth Autumn Conference 'Crime and the Computer' 25th September 1969.
PNC terminal, 1973
Source: Intercom, June 1984, via dtels.org
Source: Police National Computer, 1975
Source: Police National Computer, 1975
Modus Operandi (MO) • criminals are recidivists • each has a characteristic method• this can be encoded• this code can be sifted and sorted
– Fosdick, Raymond B., 'The Modus Operandi System in the Detection of Criminals’ in Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Nov., 1915), pp. 560-570.
The crime of burglary (A-1) has been committed in an apartment house (B-2) where a room was entered through a second story
rear window (C-52) via the fire escape (D-6) sometime between 7 P. M. and 9 P. M. Sunday evening (E-6) and jewelry (F-13) was stolen. A book-agent (G-31) was seen loitering in the halls of the
apartment house. He had a German accent (H-46) and was accompanied by another man (1-16). The blinds were pulled down
while the thief operated (J-17). The Modus Operandi Formula:
A B C D E F G H I J1 2 52 6 6 13 3 46 16 17
Source: Vollmer, August, 'Revision of the Atcherley Modus Operandi System' in Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Aug., 1919), pp. 229-274.
Coding MO in 1967
Coding MO in 1967
Coding MO in 1967
Coding MO in 1967
MO hits the buffers• 'In the case of MO however I think that the police
service have got to take a long hard look at this and make up their minds as to the operational value of MO as it stands. Certainly there appears to be very mixed views not only as to whether MO indexes are worthwhile at all but, if so, what they should contain and how they should be operated. It will be for the Police service to make decisions about this so that if necessary timely discussions can be held with the Computer Unit to devise an MO system which is acceptable to the Service as a whole.’
Source: Police National Computer, 1975
Source: Intercom #8, 1976
Mobile Automatic Data Experiment – connecting the PNC to the patrol car, 1972-79.
Afterwards: less success
• HO less relatively powerful?• Technology allows force-level innovation; forces compete.• Specification-creep trumps attempts to standardise
• A. Naylor “A critique of the implementation of crime and intelligence computing in three British Police forces 1976-
1986” Napier U Phd 2008.
Chris A WilliamsHistory Department
Open University, United Kingdom [email protected]