Author: Maximilian Querbach, Researcher, Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen (LKA)

Maximilian Querbach, is a researcher at LKA, he led on the requirements capture research for the DesignLab around Predictive Policing. Below he gives an account of his experience in doing this:

In order to determine the necessary requirements for the development of a predictive policing toolkit, an open research approach in the form of participatory observations in police patrol service was chosen. My attitude towards this very open approach was initially very skeptical, as I didn't know what the end result would be. In addition the actual benefit was not obvious to me at first.

Before the research phase had begun, I was already collaborating with colleagues and developing potential toolkits and solutions for problems and needs we saw in our institution. Our project coordinators at the University of Salford recommended us to take a step back and try to enter the research phase unbiased and open-minded.

During my observations, I realised the usefulness of this open design thinking approach, as problems arose and were named that we would not have even considered. The findings were fundamental to the functioning of the entire predictive policing approach in Lower Saxony.

What I have learned as a researcher during this process is that you sometimes have to try to think outside of your profession and the associated assumptions for potential solutions and try to include other possibilities and perspectives for problem solving. Sometimes the supposed problems and their solutions which you define in your scientific “ivory tower” do not always apply to real practice and the specific needs of end-users or recipients. An
open-minded research approach can help to identify and further on meet those actual needs with tailored practical crime prevention solutions.

I think the unique characteristic of this approach is that you step out of your sometimes scientifically biased comfort zone and try to open up to new, unconventional paths and integrate them with your own perspectives into a whole.

The collaborative meetings and discussions with partners from other disciplines, as well as the interviews and observations with actual end-users and decision-makers within the police, have given new inputs to the development process due to their individual perspectives and ways of thinking. The entire approach makes it clear that crime prevention is not just the task of law enforcement authorities, but requires cooperation between different social- and policy actors and that a holistic and effective concept can only be developed by taking a wide range of perspectives into account.