In 1973, the central office of the German police, the Federal Criminal Police Office, was legally obliged "to maintain the necessary facilities for...research in forensic science", "to monitor crime trends and compile analytical reports and statistics on this basis", and "to conduct research with a view to developing police methods and procedures for crime control". This task is undertaken in the Research and Training Institute by the research units on criminology and criminal investigation and on technological development. In this volume, researchers from the Institute present their latest projects as well as report on the activities undertaken since 1973. This gives you a comprehensive picture of their wide-ranging work. They also examine the role that specialized police research plays for crime policy-makers, detectives and criminologists. A list of publications from the Federal Criminal Police Office completes the book.

I Introductory Section

1 The Bundeskriminalamt: The German Federal Criminal Police Office
2 Police Research and Its Significance for Policing and Criminal Policy
3 "State Criminology": An Old Phenomenon - A New Problem
II The Picture of Crime
4 Crime Analysis
5 Research on Hidden Crime
6 Unreported Violent Crime: A Victim Telephone Survey in Heidelberg
7 Public Opinion Relating to Crime and Police Action
8 Asking the Victims
III Urban Planning and Crime Prevention
9 Architecture and Crime Prevention
10 Reflections on Crime Prevention in Areas with a Low Crime Rate
IV Crime-Specific Studies
11 Studies on Violence
12 Perspectives on Drug Users
13 Economic Crime
14 Organized Crime in the Federal Republic of Germany
15 Environmental Crime: Present Status and Future Trends
16 The Escape Behavior of Bank Robbers and Circular Blockade Operations by the Police
17 Preventing Bank Robbery: The Offense from the Robber's Perspective
V Enhancing Effectiveness of Detection and Criminal Investigation
18 Investigation of Economic Crime
19 Technical Support of Drug Detection
20 Police Information Retrieval Systems and the Role of Electronic Data Processing
21 The Role of Pattern Recognition in Forensic Science: An Introduction to Methods
22 Computer-Aided Identification of Handwriting
23 Digital Image Processing
Appendix: Scientific Publications of the BKA H. U. Störzer
Name Index.