PONE-D-23-15806Triad Influence on the Detection of Crime in Hong KongPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Johnson,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors

Initially, I would like to congratulate you on your research proposal. The topic is relevant because it deals with the application of science to identify local crime rates, in this case in Hong Kong, the search for an understanding of the phenomena surrounding criminal actions and the search for police strategies that act to reduce crime, this has a direct impact on improving people's quality of life, which is why I consider the research to be relevant. The authors used DEA as the main methodology of the work: the description of the method is adequate and clear. I would only suggest that they describe all the method's formulas. The results are consistent, the discussion is satisfactory. The conclusion is based on the results. The work has some gaps to be filled in or explained by the authors, which I will describe below:

1) I suggest that in the abstract and conclusion the authors indicate the practical and social implications of the research, as well as indicating future research;

2) The authors used the DEA method; the DEA method is recurrent in this topic. There are other methodologies that also seek to understand the phenomenon of crime, I suggest that the authors insert a short paragraph informing readers that the topic studied also has other biases, such as multi-criteria methods, topical modeling, text mining, etc. Then present the justifications for the choice of DEA, I think it would be more consistent. In this sense, I suggest considering the following papers: DOI: 10.13189/ujm.2017.051202 (Review of the Literature on Multicriteria Methods Applied in the Field of Public Security); https://doi.org/10.1108/DTA-12-2018-0109 (Identification of operational demand in law enforcement agencies: An application based on a probabilistic model of topics).

3) The authors have structured the Introduction in subsections, which have replaced the literature review. In this sense, I suggest that the authors introduce a subsection that provides a short theoretical overview of the evolution of policing strategies developed and applied in various realities. I believe that this summary is important for readers' understanding, and then, as the authors have done, introduce the reality studied in Hong Kong. To do so, I suggest reading and considering the following paper: https://doi.org/10.1108/JM2-10-2020-0268 (Knowledge discovery in research on policing strategies: an overview of the past fifty years);

4) Number all the equations;

5) review the formatting of the references introduced in the text and in the references section. Check the authors' instructions;

6) Insert the numbering and title of the figures at the bottom of the figure; also insert the period in the title of the figures;

Good proofreading

Reviewer #2: Thanks for the opportunity to review this work.

1. The title of this project is well defined and timely in that Clime.

2. The methodology involved in the analysis is really innovative and appropriate to the study.

3. The answers to the research questions were properly enumerated except for the third research question " how can the allocation of policing resources be adjusted to improve crime detection?" which requires a qualitative research design to approach it for appropriate and logical solution, not quantitative approach as used in this study.

4. The table 5 in the discussion section should be removed and placed in the right section.

5. The discussion aspect should employed more literature for comparison and robust analysis.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Marcio Basilio

Reviewer #2: No

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Triad Influence on the Detection of Crime in Hong Kong

PONE-D-23-15806R1

Dear Dr. Johnson,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Adetayo Olorunlana, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear Authors

I congratulate you on the extensive revision of the current text. I note that you have taken on board all the suggestions made by the reviewers in the first round of revision. After analyzing the current version, I found no areas for improvement that would substantially increase the quality of the current text. I am therefore considering this text for publication.

Best regards

Reviewer #2: Thanks for making the necessary adjustments to this paper. The concerns raised initially in the methodology and discussion sections have ben adequately addressed. Hence, making the work appropriate for publication.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Marcio Basilio

Reviewer #2: Yes: Oluseye Ademola Okunola

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