Mapping Risk and Dismantling Networks: Why PNI and RTM are Better Together

In modern policing, we’ve moved past the "where" and "who" to the "why" of crime. Two of the most effective strategies for tackling spatially persistent violence are Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) and Place Network Investigations (PNI).

While they are often discussed separately, they are most powerful when used as a combined tactical cycle: RTM diagnoses the environmental vulnerabilities, and PNI provides the targeted intervention to dismantle the criminal networks exploiting them.

Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM): The Environmental Diagnostic

RTM doesn’t just look at where crime happened; it identifies the environmental features that attract crime. Think of it as a diagnostic tool for your jurisdiction’s geography. Like a "spatial profiler".

• The Focus: Identifying "attractors" like vacant lots, specific types of retail, or poorly lit transit stops.
• The Value: It provides an objective, data-driven map for resource allocation at the micro level.
• The Goal: To understand the context of a high-crime area so we can change the environment at key settings.

Place Network Investigations (PNI): The Tactical Deep-Dive

If RTM is the diagnostic, PNI is the surgery. PNI focuses on the "hidden infrastructure" and related human connections of long-term violent hotspots.

• The Focus: Uncovering the "Place Network", that is, the ways in which people use the specific apartments, storefronts, or residences that facilitate criminal behavior.
• The Value: It recognizes that violence isn't random; it’s supported by a network of locations managed by people who may be "off the radar."
• The Goal: To disrupt the criminal economy by holding place managers (landlords, owners) accountable.
  

How the Two Strategies Collaborate

When these methodologies are integrated, they create a seamless feedback loop for law enforcement and other public safety partners:

Phase 1: Prioritization
RTM identifies the highest-risk "terrains." Instead of sending PNI teams into every corner of the city, RTM points them to the specific micro-settings where the environment is most conducive or persistent to violence.

Phase 2: Investigation
Once RTM highlights a "risky" convenience store near a bus stop and next to a vacant lot close to a highway on-ramp (for example), PNI teams move in to investigate. They look for the specifics: Is the store owner allowing drug sales in the back? Is the vacant lot next door being used for stash locations? This turns spatial data into actionable intelligence.

Phase 3: The Intervention
By combining these tools, departments can engage with community partners to disrupt the network and related risk narrative. You aren't just "arresting your way out of the problem"; you are bringing in City Planning, Streets Departments, and Business Associations to address the place-based opportunities for crime that RTM identified, while PNI handles the criminal elements.

Phase 4: Monitoring and Sustainability
Once an intervention is successful, RTM acts as your "early warning system." By monitoring the "risk score" of an area, command staff and other local leaders can see in real-time if the risk is lowering or if the criminal network is attempting to shift to a new, nearby location.

The power of this combined approach isn't theoretical. In Kansas City, MO, the police department used these strategies to address gun violence near bus stops, cell phone stores, and vacant properties. By involving transit officials, code enforcement officers, city planners, and other local authorities to alter the "risk terrain," they achieved measurable drops in violence — earning the IACP Leadership in Law Enforcement Research Award (2022 Winner)

The bottom line is that RTM and PNI are not competing practices. They are two halves of a whole. RTM tells you where the fire is likely to start (or why it's been burning for so long), and PNI shuts off the gas lines feeding it. Together, they allow law enforcement to move beyond temporary crime suppression and toward permanent, sustainable community safety.