1 Fundamentals of Crime Analysis
Christopher W. Bruce
time you see the word analyst in a persons job titleresearch analyst, budget analyst, policy analyst, business analyst, market analyst, stock analyst, intelligence analyst, and so on youre dealing with someone whose job revolves around informationinformation designed to help a company, agency, or organization do its job better. Such is the case with crime analysts. Crime analysts provide information to police agencies about crime, disorder, calls for service, police activity, and other areas of police interest, all with the goal of helping the agencies do their jobs better. Specifically, crime analysts help police agencies: Solve crimes Develop effective strategies and tactics to prevent future crimes Find and apprehend offenders Prosecute and convict offenders Improve safety and quality of life Optimize internal operations Prioritize patrol and investigations Detect and solve chronic problems Allocate resources Plan for future resource needs Enact effective policies Educate the public
nformation is the most valuable commodity in the world. Its more valuable than money, for with it one can make money. Its more valuable than power, for with it one can achieve power. Its more valuable than goods, for with it one can build, acquire, and improve goods. In any business, in any industry, in any part of the world, the right information is absolutely priceless. Businesses invest a great deal of money, time, and resources in the quest to acquire informationinformation about their products, and how to improve them; information about their competitors, and what theyre up to; information about customers and what they want; information about the business itself, and how its various divisions are doing. Governments rise and fall on informationinformation about the opinions and attitudes of their citizens; information about allies; information about enemies. Information wins wars, builds cities, heals the sick, enriches the poor, andmost relevant to our purposessolves and prevents crime. Industries, organizations, and companies realize these principles on an operational level. Consequently, they devote individuals, units, and sometimes entire divisions to collecting, processing, and disseminating information. Businesses have product researchers and testers, budget analysts, management analysts, and market researchers. Every division of government has policy analysts, and the federal government hires and trains spies and intelligence specialists. Insurance companies employ actuaries and claims analysts. Every
This list applies primarily to municipal police departments, but other law enforcement and criminal justice agencies can enjoy the benefits of crime analysis even if their charters do not include some of the goals listed above. Wherever a crime analyst is employed, his or her job is to provide information support for the agencys overall mission.
Data, Information, and Knowledge
Information shares some characteristics with other commodities like metals, grain, or automobiles. First, human effort has to go into
Exploring Crime Analysis
the production of these commodities. Metals must be mined from the Earth, grain must be planted and harvested, and automobiles must be manufactured on an assembly line. Second, all commodities are created from raw materialsore, seeds, and parts in our examples. Third, the production of these commodities serves little purpose until they are delivered to a consumer. An analysts effort is what creates information, whether that information is built or mined. A metaphor that works well is to see the analyst as a sculptor. Some sculptures are created by combining and molding pieces of clay, much as an analyst creates information by combining pieces of data. Other sculptures are created by chipping away extraneous pieces of stone to reveal a shape inside, much as an analyst filters out extraneous pieces of data to find the one that reveals a fact or truth. Either way, the analysts raw material is data, which might come from numerous sources. Out of this data, the analyst seeks to create information, which he then delivers to his consumerthe police agency. This information, once internalized, becomes knowledge that informs police action. Two processes are at work: 1. Data becomes information when it is effectively analyzed. 2. Information becomes knowledge when it is effectively communicated. Though the title crime analyst focuses on the analysis process, both analysis and communication fall within the crime analysts area of responsibility. In Figure 1-1, note the lines from Information and Knowledge back to Analysis. The transition of data into analysis
is a self-feeding loop, as new data is juxtaposed against existing information and knowledge to create further levels of analysis.
Figure 1-1: The transition from data to knowledge
Table 1-1 shows some ways in which this process works in a typical municipal police agency, with examples of tactical, strategic, and operational applications.
A History of Crime Analysis
The practice of crime analysis probably predates the profession. Some of the most essential functions of crime analysissuch as identifying hot spots for extra patrolwere likely performed in ancient times. In the modern era, crime analysis techniques and products were used in the first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, in the 1800s. Detectives, who identified patterns of crime, were first assigned in London in the 1840s; crime statistics were available for the city as early as 1847; and it was within this department that the concept of modus operandi, and of classifying offenders and crimes based on it, first appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Chapter 1 Fundamentals of Crime Analysis
Table 1-1: Examples of the transition from data to knowledge in a typical police agency
Data Individual Incident Reports in a records management system Statistics showing number of officers per capita throughout the state Crime volume of current year compared to past years; individual records in RMS; jurisdictional information Information Six of the reports are related in a series of robberies Your police department has 20% fewer officers per capita than average Auto theft is up 20%, with most of the increase in Police Beat 5 on the midnight shift, probably influenced by new sports arena Knowledge Robbery series is prime topic of discussion in next detectives meeting Chief has this information in mind when preparing his budget proposal Officers internalize this information and consider it when patrolling Beat 5 Result Robbery offender is apprehended Strategy & Action Agency is granted additional officers by city Auto theft is reduced
As other police around the world adapted or emulated the London model, they developed their own versions of these techniques. Methods of pattern identification and analysis are performed by every patrol officer in the regular course of his or her duties. As one early crime analysis manual observes:
Informal crime analysis, in its simplest sense, is performed by all officers as they investigate crimes. Crime analysis is the quality of examining one crime occurrence and comparing it with similar past events. In essence, the officer is a walking crime analysis unit as he compares his investigations with his past experiences and with the experiences of others.1
Communication
Analysis
purposes) pin mapping, the regular review of police reports, and the formation of patrol districts based on crime volume.
When Vollmer mobilized his beat officers on bicycles in 1909, he laid out beats in accordance with the number of calls anticipated from each part of the city.2
Though the term crime analysis had not yet appeared in law enforcement literature, one quote from Vollmers The Police Beat shows he was familiar with its concepts:
On the assumption of regularity of crime and similar occurrences, it is possible to tabulate these occurrences by areas within a city and thus determine the points which have the greatest danger of such crimes and what points have the least danger.3
American police reformers in the twentieth century began to formalize the use of crime analysis techniques. One early proponent of the use of analysis, August Vollmer (18761955), has been called the father of American policing. Vollmer served as the Chief of Police of Berkeley, California, from 1905 to 1932. His innovations range from police radios to fingerprinting, and include (relevant to our
1Robert
Vollmers protg, Orlando Winfield Wilson (1900-1972), served as a police executive in a number of agencies, including the Chicago Police, where he was Superintendent from 1960 to 1971. Wilson wrote several influential books, including Police Records (1942), Police Administration (1950), and Police Planning (1957).
2 G. Hobart Reiner et. al., Crime Analysis in Support of Patrol (Washington, DC: Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 1977), 8. 3 Quoted in Reiner, Support of Patrol, 9.
Austin et. al., Police Crime Analysis Unit Handbook (Washington, DC: Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 1973), 3. Note, though, that the text implies a limited definition of the term crime analysis that focuses only on pattern analysis.
Exploring Crime Analysis
It is in Wilsons second edition (1963) of Police Administration that we find the first written citation of crime analysis:
Crime Analysis. The crime-analysis section studies daily reports of serious crimes in order to determine the location, time, special characteristics, similarities to other criminal attacks, and various significant facts that might help to identify either a criminal or the existence of a pattern of criminal activity. Such information is helpful in planning the operations of a division or district.1
The 1990s brought a Golden Age of Crime Analysis in the U.S., characterized by: The 1990 publication of Problem-Oriented Policing by Herman Goldstein, who worked with O.W. Wilson in Chicago. The formation of the International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) in 1990, and its first conference in 1991. A certificate program in crime analysis offered by the California Department of Justice, starting in 1992. New and plentiful funding from the U.S. Department of Justice. Much of it focused on community policing and problemoriented policing. Powerful, affordable technology, including crime mapping applications, desktop publishing, and relational databases. The development of the CompStat system of strategy development and management accountability within the New York City Police Department. (The first CompStat meetings were held in 1994.) The CompStat process relies heavily on mapping and analysis. The foundation of the National Institute of Justice Crime Mapping Research Center (now called the Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety program) in 1997. The foundation of the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers Crime Mapping and Analysis Program (CMAP) in 1998.
Though this is the earliest known source of the term, Wilsons use suggests that there were already crime analysis units in existence at the time of his writing. His third edition of the book offers several pages on crime analysis and contributed to the growth of the profession in the late 1970s, when many formal crime analysis programs developed across the United States with funding from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). To support these programs, the LEAA published a series of manuals on crime analysis between 1973 and 1977. Crime analysis became one of four facets of the LEAAs Integrated Criminal Apprehension Program (ICAP), and to this day, long after the death of ICAP, some crime analysis units are known colloquially as the ICAP Unit. When the LEAA lost the last of its funding in 1982, the profession of crime analysis entered a dry spell. Few new units developed, except in certain states where local support was strong, or in agencies trying to gain accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). Many crime analysts funded through the LEAA and ICAP lost their jobs.
Orlando W. Wilson, Police Administration, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 103.
This combination of factors caused a proliferation of new U.S. crime analysts and crime analysis units throughout the 1990s. At the same time, in the United Kingdom, the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 created a host of new local-level analysts by requiring local governments to set measurable crime
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Chapter 1 Fundamentals of Crime Analysis
reduction goals and produce regular audits and statistical reports. New analysts in all countries had access to new ideas, literature, professional standards, support, and training that were not available to their 1970s counterparts. The homeland security era of the 2000s has in some ways been difficult for local-level U.S. crime analysts, as time, funding, and attention have diverted away from local-level crimes and into terrorism prevention and war. A recession has reduced the amount of money available to local police agencies, and the development of new crime analysis programs has slowed. But at the same time, the professionals within the field have banded together to develop training, literature, and certification. Conversely, many other countries have seen exponential growth in crime analysis during the 2000s, especially in regions in which there is no distinction between intelligence and crime analysis (see page 12). In the U.K., Australia, and Canada, the homeland security era has coincided with the adoption of intelligence-led policing models and the [Link] National Intelligence Model. Unlike the U.S., where dedication to crime analysis varies between states and individual agencies, these nations and others have shown a national commitment to the profession. This book is being published shortly after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. He has expressed the wish to restore local law enforcement community policing funding to its 1990s levels, but the global economic recession bodes ill for government agencies. It remains to be seen which factors will prevail.
Law enforcement analysis is probably the most common. We may define it as follows: Law enforcement analysis: Processes, techniques, and products that provide information support to the various missions of law enforcement agencies. (Law enforcement agency is a common term that comprises municipal police, state police, and investigative or special-purpose agencies with local, state, national, or international jurisdiction. It is generally understood that these agenciesparticularly local policedo much more than simply enforce the law. The different types of analysis under this heading support all missions of these agencies, and not just those geared toward law enforcement.) Within this overall field, we find crime analysts, criminal intelligence analysts, and criminal investigative analysts.1 Crime analysts study crime and disorder data; identify and analyze patterns, trends, and problems; and create and disseminate information that helps police agencies solve, reduce, and prevent them. Criminal intelligence analysts concentrate on the collection and dissemination of information about criminals, particularly organizations and conspiracies. Intelligence analysts hunt for leads on the structure and hierarchy of criminal organizations, the flow of money and goods, relationships, current activities and plans, and personal information about the participantsusually with the goal of arrest, prosecution, and conviction of the offenders involved.
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Classifications of Law Enforcement Analysis
Crime analysis is one of several types of analysis that fall under a macro-heading variously called law enforcement analysis, public safety analysis, or police analysis. 11
Steven Gottlieb, Sheldon Arenberg, and Raj Singh, Crime Analysis: from First Report to Final Arrest (Montclair, CA: Alpha Publishing, 1994), 11-13. This is the earliest known text to divide the functions of analysis this way. The authors include operations analysis as a category of law enforcement analysis, but other crime analysts seem to recognize operations analysis as a function specific to crime analysis; it is presented that way here.
