Proprietary rights statement

10.2 Tackling gun crime across Europe

One of the biggest threats facing society today is organised and armed criminal or terrorist gangs. This could soon be challenged with the help of a new project being co-ordinated by Sheffield Hallam University and a consortium of organisations from industry, policing, research organisations and academia.

Organised crime and terrorism creates a threat that can undermine the democratic and economic basis of societies, resulting in a loss of confidence in the law.

And despite Home Office statistics suggesting a fall in gun-related crime in recent years, other sources suggest that gun crime has doubled since the late 90s, with deeply disturbing figures from media statistics of a gun crime being committed every 52 minutes.

Working with police forces, government organisations, IT companies and research centres from across Europe, Sheffield Hallam is leading the way in the development of a system which could drastically increase the efficiency with which police can react to gun-related crimes, leading to a significant improvement in security throughout the EU.

The Odyssey project – funded by £2.4 million from the European Commission – provides a platform through which anti-crime units from across the continent can instantly access and share crime data and evidence for cross comparison. This will allow police forces to co-operate on cases and pinpoint similar crimes which could be related.

Professor Simeon Yates, Director at Sheffield Hallam University’s Cultural, Communication and Computing Research Institute (C3RI), is co-ordinating the Odyssey project.

He says: "Security agencies have been using ballistics data for many years but, until now, they have been acting in isolation. This system will automatically alert relevant agents in other countries when there is a match on gun and bullet signatures.

"Criminals use guns as currency, and Odyssey allows agencies to build profiles of crime networks by tracking the unique ‘signature’ that guns and bullets produce when they are fired."

Dr Richard Leary MBE, Managing Director of Forensic Pathways, said: “What is neat about Odyssey is the use of 21^st Century technology to enable fast time communications and data sharing. Not only that, the Odyssey Platform will demonstrate how massive reductions in cost can be achieved by looking at the data as a whole rather like one does with a completed jigsaw puzzle. Rather than handling separate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle one piece at a time, we will be able to automatically stitch the pieces together and see the big picture.”

He added: "One thing is for sure, whilst in the 21^st Century we are not short of data, we are short on the ability to make sense of data fast and in reliable ways. Odyssey will serve us well in this.”

Odyssey automatically flags up any matches in ballistics data regardless of its source, meaning a single gun used in multiple crimes can be tracked throughout Europe, allowing for the potential to apprehend not just a single suspect, but networks of criminals in numerous countries. Intelligence will be extracted using advanced semantic knowledge extraction and data-mining to facilitate fast, responsible decision making.

One of the driving forces behind Odyssey has been EUROPOL, the European law enforcement organisation, which hopes the project will help to develop new European Union standards in policing and combating organised crime and terrorism.

Other partners involved in the development include the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (West Midlands Police is the lead police force), the Royal Military Academy, SAS Software Limited, the Politecnico di Milano, An Garda Siochana (Irish police), the Italian police force, XLAB, Forensic Pathways Ltd and Atos Origin.