Fixed Penalty Notices as a means of offender self selection

This research assesses the capacity of fixed penalty notice (FPN) infractions to form the basis for targeted police attention to more serious or chronic offenders. Offences of this kind were associated with concurrent criminality, relative to a group selected from the electoral register. Over half of the notices issued were not associated with a named individual, presumably because many vehicles did not have a current registered keeper. The ‘hit rate’ for concurrent criminality was not significantly different than for the control group. When repeat fixed penalty offences were analysed, this produced a higher hit rate, although it remained lower than expected from other studies. A number of problems in carrying out analysis on these types of data are discussed and it is suggested that a study in which checks are made at the point of issuing an FPN might well yield far higher rates of active criminality, and might provide a more powerful trigger for offender self-selection. Further areas for research into self-selection triggers are also suggested.