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Putting a little math into the fight against serial crimes

by Kathleen Livingston

Dr. Kim Rossmo (BA'78), began his University of Saskatchewan studies as a mathematics major. After two years in the math program, he opted to take a year off, buttering his bread by working as a private detective. The experience led him back to the U of S and a major in sociology and the pursuit of criminology.

Under the tutelage of Professor Melanie Lautt - sociologist, criminologist and mentor - he developed a passion for catching the bad guys that has taken him to post of research director at the Police Foundation in Washington, DC. But he's known the world over, as the scientific and mathematical brains behind a software program that helps police agencies all over the world track down serial criminals.

After his graduation from the U of S, Kim Rossmo moved to BC to pursue a Master's Degree in Criminology at Simon Fraser University and ultimately achieved his Ph.D in that same institution. While attending university, he wanted practical criminology experience and he had to eat and pay his rent, so he joined the Vancouver Police Department and was assigned to Vancouver's skid row.

As part of his Master's dissertation entitled Geographic Profiling: Target Patterns of Serial Murderers, Rossmo developed a small mathematical algorithm that assessed probabilities for tracking serial criminals

based on the geographical pattern of their crimes. That was just the beginning for this gifted mathematician and Saskatoon product who wrote a final high school Algebra exam after only one week of classes and scored 100 per cent.

By 1990 the Vancouver Police Department was taking notice of this work and soon they were asking him to apply the mathematical model to track suspected criminals. By 1991 the model had evolved into a computer program which was fast becoming recognized as a valuable law enforcement tool. Since then, the original 500 lines of code in that simple program have been expanded and refined to more than half a million lines of code and dubbed Rigel, after one of the stars in the Orion constellation, that is now being used worldwide. Among the agencies using the program are the German federal police (BKA), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, The Ontario Provincial Police, the British National Crime Faculty and the American Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

This 21-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department is a unique kind of researcher who 'like(s) to work on that border between pure science and applied science.' His experience as a police officer is definitely a factor.

"Because of my interest and talent in mathematics, my focus is on quantitative aspects, modeling and that kind of stuff. I'm interested in criminology and research as applied to police practices," says Rossmo.

So remarkable is this prairie denizen that he was incorporated as a character in a 1999 novel entitled Burnt Bones by a Jay Clarke, a BC author, writing under the nom de plume Micheal Slade. Rossmo says the details of his life in the novel are accurate, but he wouldn't want anyone quoting as real any of the dialogue ascribed to him.

Clearly the Washington-based Police Foundation was equally as impressed with Rossmo. He was serving his twenty-first year with the Vancouver Police Department when he got a call from the Foundation about the Research Director's position. After a couple of trips to Washington to discuss the offer, he signed a three-year contract, packed his bags and moved to the American capital.

It was a loss to the Vancouver Police Department that may have prolonged the ultimate resolution of the 'Downtown East Side Missing Women' case.

Back in 1998-99, Rossmo used a mathematical approach, analyzing locations and times relating to the case. His analysis suggested strongly that the disappearances were not random and that there was a pattern to the clusters that suggested a serial-style operation. "No police officer wants to see a killer go free", says Rossmo. But his frustration is evident when he speaks of the lack of willingness he encountered to consider the possibility that there was a serial killer at work.

Rossmo's ultimate wish is to see academic analyses become more accepted as an integral part of crime fighting. "There's a lot that the academic and scholarly aspect of policing can do to improve things," Rossmo insists. "That's what I've tried to do."

Kim Rossmo is a unique combination of math whiz, police officer, academic and research scientist, a mix that has put this Saskatchewan native on the world stage of criminology at a time when security has found its way to the top of the global agenda.

http://www.comnet.ca/~fbamackay/geo.htm

What is Geographic Profiling?

Originally developed to help police locate serial killers, rapists and arsonists, geographic profiling can be applied to any circumstance where an unidentified person is known to have carried out activity at a series of geographic points.

The main tool in geographic profiling is a computer system called "Rigel." It is based on seven years of research in criminology, geography, forensic psychology, cognitive mapping, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis and investigative techniques by Detective Inspector Kim Rossmo, PhD, of the Vancouver Police Department. Rossmo developed the concept of Criminal Geographic Targeting (CGT). CGT is based on a complex algorithm that takes into account such mathematical principles as distance-decay functions, Manhattan distances (orthogonal distances measured along a street grid), and the relationship that exists between crime location sets and offender residence.

The research found that criminals—like all other humans—tend to follow patterns of movement around and through geographic areas. For example, people are more likely to carry out their routine activities close to home, work or school, or within a set distance from the commuting routes between these points (the principle of least effort). This activity space is related in predictable ways to where we live. As humans travel among their home, workplace and social activity sites, their activity space describes an awareness space that forms part of a larger mental map—an ‘image of the city’ built upon experience and knowledge. Within a person’s activity space there is usually an anchor point or base, the single most important place in their spatial life. For the vast majority, this anchor point is their residence. The Rigel system quickly carries out up to 1,000,000 mathematical calculations to produce the end result. Applied in hundreds of criminal cases around the world, it has proved to be highly accurate in both urban and rural settings.

In virtually any circumstance where an individual did something at a series of points that can be plotted on a map, geographic profiling can pinpoint the area of his/her residence. Any investigation seeking to locate an unknown person who is linked to a series of events - be it theft, fraud, arson, rape, murder or any criminal activity involving a series of locations - can benefit from the process. While there is no minimum number of sites necessary, it is generally preferred that there be at least five. Simply put, the more sites, the more precise the profile. This can be a series of five crimes or a single case involving five different sites. Any such series of locations allows the system to interpret the offender's "mental map" and calculate the most probable area of his anchor point - usually his residence.

Forensic Behavioural Analysis can assist in obtaining this service and contacting ECRI, the Vancouver company that markets the Rigel system and training in it's use. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in Canada, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in the USA, and the National Crime Faculty (NCF) in England have all adopted the program as a new tool in combating serial crime.

http://www.macleans.ca/leadersanddreamers/canadian_2.htm

ZEROING IN ON THE BAD GUY
A Vancouver cop taught the computer how to identify prime suspects
By John Intini

Kim Rossmo was speeding through Japan on a bullet train when he came up with the math equation at the centre of his geographic profiling theory. It was 1991 and Rossmo--then a Vancouver beat cop on his way to becoming the first working Canadian police officer with a Ph.D.--was there doing unrelated research. As a math problem he'd been working on began unravelling in his mind, he scribbled the numbers on a couple of napkins. And in the months that followed he developed that algorithm into Rigel--the basis of his doctoral thesis and for a revolutionary, $70,000 computer program that has helped police around the world track down some of their most-wanted criminals.

Born and raised in Saskatoon, Rossmo, now 49, was a high school math whiz. He not only taught himself calculus in Grade 10 but two years later asked for permission to write the Grade 12 algebra final in the second week of classes. He scored 100 per cent. Rossmo studied math for two years at the University of Saskatchewan but dropped out due to boredom. An adrenaline junkie, he turned to law enforcement, spending 21 years on the Vancouver police force, often walking the tough downtown Eastside beat. Always a thinking man's cop, he earned his master's, then his Ph.D., at Simon Fraser University in nearby Burnaby during his off-duty hours.

His geographic profiling theory is based on research showing that serial criminals--murderers, rapists or arsonists--almost always commit crimes near, but not too near, their homes. Rigel (named after a star in the constellation Orion, the hunter) performs 400,000 mathematical calculations on evidence from crimes thought to be linked. The result: a colour-coded map indicating "hot zones," which Rossmo says reduces the search area for a suspect's dwelling by 90 per cent. For instance, when a serial rapist was loose in Mississauga, Ont., in 1998, police had a cumbersome list of 312 suspects. Rossmo quickly narrowed the field, and the man eventually convicted was sixth on Rigel's list. "We don't solve crimes," cautions Rossmo. "DNA testing solves crimes. We just help you narrow your tests to the right group sooner."

Over the years, Rossmo and his trusty cyber-sidekick--with or without him--have helped lock up the bad guys in more than 3,000 criminal cases, spanning five continents. During the mid-'90s, while he headed the world's first geographic profiling unit with the Vancouver police, he logged more than 150,000 km a year in the air. Cases have ranged from the Paul Bernardo schoolgirl murders in St. Catharines, Ont., and serial rapes in Leeds, England, to the Beltway snipers of 2002, when John Allen Mohammed and Lee Malvo's shooting spree left 10 people dead near Washington.

Officers on about 10 forces around the world have now been trained to use Rossmo's program. He has left the police force, working now as a research professor in the criminal justice department at Texas State University-San Marcos. His speciality: geographic profiling, of course. But he keeps close to the action, directing Rigel on at least three criminal investigations at any given time.