Identifying the patterns

Mark Johnson is the head of analysis at Kent Police and it is his job to identify crime patterns and build intelligence for officers to use in operational duties.

Over the last few years, Mark has worked to help develop crime fighting technology across the whole county but his work didn’t begin in Kent, or even the UK – it started in Los Angeles back in 2012.

Mark and his colleagues had heard about a new computer programme that was drasti- cally cutting crime in some of the most dangerous neighbourhoods of LA.

So with a healthy dose of scepticism, Mark’s colleague, Deputy Chief Constable Paul Brandon, boarded a flight to learn more about it.

On his return, the team – convinced the programme could work in Kent – immediately enlisted the help of American anthropologist Jeff Brantingham and began working with US-based company PredPol to tailor a system to be used here.