Review of the Literature on Multicriteria Methods Applied in the Field of Public Security

What is it about?

Public security is a topic with increasing relevance over the years. In this context, the growing demand requires decisions that consider multiple points of view, some of them subjective. This work is based on the assumption that few studies have been conducted in the public security sector employing multiple criteria techniques to support the decision making procedure. In this context, this research had the objective of mapping the application of MCDA methods within the scope of public security. A literature review in the journals of the Scopus and ISI Web of Science databases was carried out in October 2016, accessed through Capes portal, integrating the following themes: public security and multicriteria decision aid. A systematic search was conducted by applying the Webibliomining method. After applying specific keywords and filters 965 records were returned from Scopus and 788 records from the ISI Web of Science. The review of findings summary resulted in a set of 19 articles validated as compliant for inclusion in the revision, where 19 were from Scopus and 6 were shared with the Web of Science base. The analysis of the articles showed that there is no predominant multicriteria method in the context of the search. The recurrent applications refer to the resolution of the policing distribution problem, and classification of crime rate by region. The key contribution of this work is to provide the reader with a map of public safety problems already addressed in the context of MCDAs approaches and to highlight aspects of this problem that have not yet explored in the context of the MCDA.

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Photo by Alex Young on Unsplash

Photo by Alex Young on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work sought to bring together research on public security that focuses on operational research.

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