i-nsi

Community Intelligence from Community Engagement Field Projects

As part of its research programme UPSI has been developing and trialling an innovative community engagement methodology designed to deliver a richer community intelligence picture of neighbourhoods and their problems. Based upon a software package written specifically for the purpose, the approach allows front-line staff to diagnose the signal crimes and signal disorders that are driving insecurity at the local level.Additionally, as well as providing accurate and specific intelligence that can show agencies where to target their resources to achieve maximum impact upon citizen-focused outcomes, the methodology also encourages a structured and systematic approach to community engagement across all neighbourhoods and communities in an area.

The platform for the approach is a bespoke computer-assisted personal interviewing software programme called i-NSI (which stands for intelligence from Neighbourhood Security Interviews).

What does i-nsi do?

• It captures and analyses data to identify what signal crimes and disorders are present in a neighbourhood, when and where they occur, and who is affected by them;

• It provides a truly citizen-focused perspective identifying what really matters to members of the public in an area. It does this by widening the spectrum of concerns for public-facing agencies, from physical disorder right through to major crimes;

• Whereas other surveys focus upon collecting data on public attitudes, i-NSI collects information on what problems are occurring in an area and converts this into actionable intelligence.

How is i-nsi data collected?

• Through face-to-face interviews with members of the public, purposively sampled as key individuals in a neighbourhood, conducted by front-line agency staff or researchers using notebook computers;

• Additional data on disorder hotspots can be collected using an Environmental Visual Audit tool running on a PDA handset.

What are the benefits of the i-NSI approach?

• It improves the quality of community intelligence and community engagement;

• It works at an individual neighbourhood unit of analysis, but can easily be scaled up to build a strategic picture;

• i-NSI can be used to provide an overall picture, or it can be tailored to investigate a specific issue. For example, recent projects have focused upon: inter- and intra-community tensions; criminal damage; community impact assessments following homicide.

The team at UPSI are the originators of the Signal Crimes Perspective and their research around deriving community intelligence from community engagement builds upon their involvement in the National Reassurance Policing Programme. They are currently working with Lancashire Constabulary, the Safer Sutton Partnership, Manchester City Council and Government Office for the South West, amongst others in developing this approach.

A sample i-nsi report and our recent publications can be downloaded from the publications page