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2yr ago
Artificial intelligence (AI) could play a significant part in deterring graffiti vandals from defacing churches, castles and monasteries, after historic sites experienced a dramatic increase in attacks over the past year.
Professor Robin Bryant, Director of Criminal Justice Practice at Canterbury Christ Church University, is working alongside Mark Harrison, Head of Heritage Crime for Historic England on a project which could see supervised machine learning identify offenders who graffiti, by identifying their tags, and track their movements by matching graffiti in different areas. It could also help to analyse paints to establish where the spray cans were initially sourced by offenders..
Research published by Professor Bryant and funded by Historic England, has analysed crimes recorded over a four-year period in Kent and Medway and found 8% of all recorded crime and anti-social behaviour occurs within, at, or close to, a protected heritage site.
He said: “Our best estimates suggest that currently approximately one in five listed buildings and one in four places of worship in Kent and Medway experience some form of crime each year.”
“AI offers the possibility to link offences together to the same offenders. In classic policing terms, this is normally a very good start in terms of an investigation.”
The research also found that one in ten monuments are affected by crime, or it occurs nearby. Just over a half of registered parks or gardens have one or more crimes a year within them and for conservation areas the proportion is much larger, at closer to four in five.
We discovered that machine learning as a method of heritage crime prevention shows promise of being able to help link together offences of criminal damage against historic buildings which will help identify offenders and prevent further damage. It will also be of potential use in identifying offences which are 'copy cat' in nature, the same tag or variations on this, but actually due to different offenders.
Professor Robin Bryant Director of Criminal Justice Practice
Professor Bryant’s report also found most offences relate to theft of historic fabric, such as lead from a church roof and criminal damage, which includes graffiti. Listed buildings and places of worship most at risk are often on the fringes of urban environments rather than deep in the countryside and the transport network plays a significant part in offenders' targeting of churches.
Professor Bryant said: “I will be working closely with Historic England to deliver their strategic ambition to ‘improve civic pride, prosperity and well-being’ and for ‘economically and socially disadvantaged places to become safer and more prosperous.’
Mark Harrison said: “This research presents and exciting opportunity to develop new and innovative approaches to prevent and investigate graffiti within the historic environment.”