The Arrival of the Computer in the UK Criminal Justice System, 1955-1975

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• The Arrival of the Computer in the UK Criminal
  Justice System, 1955-1975
• Dr Chris Williams
• Open University

2
Overview

• Before police bureaucracy, 1860s -gt
• The arrival of Automatic Data Processing
• Digitising the immigration records? 1959
• Looking abroad
• Developing the PNC How, what, where?
• What didnt work Modus Operandi
• After
• Continuing related development
• Worse things happen locally

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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

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Operation of Hab Crims register
Requests Identified Percentage Register Size
1870 262 39 15 31,764
1871 1007 168 16 59,754
1872 1385 331 24 88,452
1873 1303 352 27 117,568
Totals 3957 890 22 ½
Memo from May, Met Chief Clerk May 16th 1874
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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'

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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

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Exercise Deter
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Exercise Deter Confusion pattern
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Source Police National Computer, 1975
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Power in the state
Treasury
Home Office
Metropolitan Police
Local Authority Associations
ACPO
Police Authorities
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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

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Source Police National Computer, 1975
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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.
14
PNC terminal, 1973
Source Intercom, June 1984, via dtels.org
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Source Police National Computer, 1975
16
Source Police National Computer, 1975
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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.

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• 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 J
• 1 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.
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Coding MO in 1967
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Coding MO in 1967
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Coding MO in 1967
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Coding MO in 1967
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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.

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Source Police National Computer, 1975
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Mobile Automatic Data Experiment connecting the
PNC to the patrol car, 1972-79.
Source Intercom 8, 1976
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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.

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• Chris A Williams
• History Department
• Open University, United Kingdom
• chris.williams_at_open.ac.uk