Using Spatial Risk Analysis to Secure the Border

• In Event: Spatial Risk Assessment, I

Abstract

Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) has been successfully applied to various urban crime environments, but can it be adapted for use in a vastly larger rural setting? Border security involves one of the most geographically-based and simplest forms of crime: an offender crosses a demarcated line and automatically breaks the law. The offender, in turn, seeks to mitigate risk by exploiting factors within the environment. Given the criminogenic nature of illegal border activity, it would make sense to apply RTM’s principles to assess the risk factors involved in cross-border crime. The main challenge is transforming a methodology meant to measure crime “block by block” to one which can assess it “mile by mile”.

Canadian law enforcement has been using RTM for two years as an intelligence tool to secure the Canada/US border in some of its most remote and vulnerable areas. By combining statistical analysis with experience-based risk factors, it was possible to create a map that measured the intensity of all risk factors along hundreds of miles of border. As both a strategic and operational tool, RTM has demonstrated its value to border security by increasing the offender identification rate by over 50 percent since 2011.

Author

• Matthew P. Robinson, Integrated Border Enforcement Team (Prairie), RCMP