Monash research assisting Vic Police
Monash research assisting Vic Police to allocate resources more efficiently
Researchers at Monash University are working with the Victoria Police to develop a framework that will improve resource allocation in major crime investigations.
Professor Paul Collier from the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash is in the final year of a three year study that will inform Victoria Police on the most effective ways to distribute the time of approximately 600 detectives in the Crime Department to particular investigations.
“In a perfect world, if the Crime Department had an unlimited number of detectives, they would throw all of them onto the investigation on day one until they identified who the perpetrator was, but it’s not a perfect world and they have to work within current resource capacity,” said Professor Collier.
“This research will take into account all of the trade-off decisions that must be made when allocating resources to major crime investigations such as from which investigations will resources be sourced and whether it will delay that investigation.”
Professor Collier and his colleagues are comparing timesheets from detectives, documenting 1.2 million working hours with qualitative data for a large sample that details each investigation’s progress.
“We’re matching peaks and troughs in time allocations with qualitative data on the progress of each investigation,” Professor Collier said.
“Then we’re using some statistical techniques to try to look for patterns across similar types of crimes to see the patterns in homicide and in arson etcetera. We aim to come up with conclusions from that.”
Professor Collier says that the while his research may help to inform Police, a complete solution to address the issue of resource allocation may be an unrealistic goal.
“We have come up with some interim recommendations so far, but I don’t think there is going to be any magic formula for this challenge,” said Professor Collier.
“So much of police work is based on heuristic devices, experience, intuition, judgement based on 20 or 30 years experience in some cases. There is a lot of gut feel that goes along with it. It is very difficult to document and analyse that.”
Professor Collier said that the Crime Department had approximately 600 ongoing investigations at any one time and that although this quantity was not immense, other factors came into play in how effectively each was investigated.
“These investigations are huge in terms of resource requirement and public profile,” Professor Collier said.
“Some investigations end up on the front page of the Herald Sun and Ministers will call to make enquiries about their progress.”
This research project, funded by the Australian Research Council will conclude at the end of this year when Professor Collier will deliver his formal recommendations to the Victoria Police on his findings.
“A lot of the recommendations involve using the information that Victoria Police already have just in a more efficient way,” said Professor Collier.
“This research will enable them to stand back and see things a bit more objectively.”