Crime analysis

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Crime analysis is a law enforcement function that involves systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends in crime and disorder. Information on patterns can help law enforcement agencies deploy resources in a more effective manner, and assist detectives in identifying and apprehending suspects. Crime analysis also plays a role in devising solutions to crime problems, and formulating crime prevention strategies. Quantitative social science data analysis methods are part of the crime analysis process, though qualitative methods such as examining police report narratives also play a role. [1]

Contents

Functions

Crime analysis can occur at various levels, including tactical, operational, and strategic. Crime analysts study crime reports, arrests reports, and police calls for service to identify emerging patterns, series, and trends as quickly as possible. They analyze these phenomena for all relevant factors, sometimes predict or forecast future occurrences, and issue bulletins, reports, and alerts to their agencies. They then work with their police agencies to develop effective strategies and tactics to address crime and disorder. Other duties of crime analysts may include preparing statistics, data queries, or maps on demand; analyzing beat and shift configurations; preparing information for community or court presentations; answering questions from the public and the press; and providing data and information support for a police department's CompStat process.

To see if a crime fits a certain known pattern or a new pattern is often tedious work of crime analysts, detectives or in small departments, police officers or deputies themselves. They must manually sift through piles of paperwork and evidence to predict, anticipate and hopefully prevent crime. The U.S. Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice recently launched initiatives to support “predictive policing”, which is an empirical, data-driven approach. However this work to detect specific patterns of crime committed by an individual or group (crime series), remains a manual task.

MIT doctoral student Tong Wang, Cambridge (Mass.) Police Department CPD Lieutenant Daniel Wagner, CPD crime analyst Rich Sevieri and Assoc. Prof. of Statistics at MIT Sloan School of Management and the co-author of Learning to Detect Patterns of Crime Cynthia Rudin have designed a machine learning method called “Series Finder” that can assist police in discovering crime series in a fraction of the time. Series Finder grows a pattern of crime, starting from a seed of two or more crimes. The Cambridge Police Department has one of the oldest crime analysis units in the world and their historical data was used to train Series Finder to detect housebreak patterns. The algorithm tries to construct a modus operandi (MO). The M.O. is a set of habits of a criminal and is a type of behavior used to characterize a pattern. The data of the burglaries include means of entry (front door, window, etc.), day of the week, characteristics of the property (apartment, house), and geographic proximity to other break-ins. Using nine known crime series of burglaries, Series Finder recovered most of the crimes within these patterns and also identified nine additional crimes. [2]

Machine learning is a tremendous tool for predictive policing. If patterns are identified the police can immediately try to stop them. Without such tools it can take weeks and even years of shifting though databases to discover a pattern. Series Finder provides an important data-driven approach to a very difficult problem in predictive policing. It’s the first mathematically principled approach to the automated learning of crime series. [3]

Sociodemographics, along with spatial and temporal information, are all aspects that crime analysts look at to understand what is going on in their jurisdiction. [4] Crime analysis employs data mining, crime mapping, statistics, research methods, desktop publishing, charting, presentation skills, critical thinking, and a solid understanding of criminal behavior. In this sense, a crime analyst serves as a combination of an information systems specialist, a statistician, a researcher, a criminologist, a journalist, and a planner for a local police department.

Profession

Crime analysts are employed at all levels of law enforcement, often as civilian professionals while other agencies appoint sworn police officers to a crime analysis position. In the United States, most crime analysts are employed by municipal or county police departments. In countries other than the United States, crime analysis is often called "intelligence analysis" or "criminal intelligence analysis," but in the U.S., this term is generally understood to apply to a different law enforcement discipline. Many medium and large local law enforcement agencies have dedicated crime analysis units, while many smaller jurisdictions (e.g. townships) may have a police force that consists of just a few police officers who do not specialize in crime analysis or any other specific aspect of law enforcement.

As a profession, crime analysis has existed since at least the 1960s (though some of its most essential functions were probably performed even in ancient times). The earliest known reference is in O.W. Wilson's 1963 edition of Police Administration. At first only present in very large municipal agencies, the profession got a boost in the 1970s under funding supplied by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). It was during this decade that the first standardized "manuals" of the profession began to appear. After suffering a dearth of funding in the 1980s, the crime analysis scene changed dramatically in the 1990s with the computer revolution, the existence of new funding under the U.S. Department of Justice's COPS Office, the rise of several professional associations and federally funded training programs, and the new emphasis within police departments on community policing and problem-oriented policing.

A common misconception about a crime analyst's job, is that they go out to crime scenes to investigate; that is the job of a criminalist, to collect forensic evidence, or detective who investigates crimes.

United Kingdom

Crime (and criminal intelligence) analysis in the United Kingdom is governed by the National Intelligence Model, an Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) code of practice that establishes a common approach to the business. This was rolled out in 2000 by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS, now part of the National Crime Agency (NCA)) and adopted by ACPO, becoming a requirement for UK police forces, with a number of minimum standards assessed during inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).

There are varying roles available in law enforcement within the UK, from police forces to the Serious Organised Crime Agency to Her Majesty's Customs and Revenue (HMCR) to related roles in private companies such as insurance and telecoms providers. There is an increasing role for analysis within what is referred to as 'partners' within the police, including council authorities. This has particularly been the case since the Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) Review and the subsequent Crime and Disorder (Formulation and Implementation of Strategy) Regulations 2007, which included a requirement for the annual provision of a partnership Strategic Assessment, including analysis in relation to problems of crime and disorder and substance misuse.

Analysts support policing through the provision and support of four key 'Intelligence Products', these being the Strategic Assessment, the Tactical Assessment, the Problem Profile and the Subject Profile (formerly referred to as the 'Target Profile') and ten 'analytical tools & techniques'. The key skills of an analyst within UK law enforcement must to be identify patterns and trends, make inferences in relation to these patterns, provide recommendations to support action and provide products and briefings that deliver this information and interpretation clearly and in an appropriate format for the audience.

Software

Software tools have been specifically developed to aid Crime analysis in specific sectors. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serious Organised Crime Agency</span> Non-departmental public body of the UK government from 2006-13

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective response strategies. POP requires police to identify and target underlying problems that can lead to crime. Goldstein suggested it as an improvement on the reactive, incident-driven “standard model of policing”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime mapping</span>

Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), allows crime analysts to identify crime hot spots, along with other trends and patterns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Offender profiling</span> Law enforcement investigative technique

Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. Multiple crimes may be linked to a specific offender and the profile may be used to predict the identified offender's future actions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Police intelligence</span>

Police intelligence refers to an element of the British police. Staffed by police officers and support staff, its purpose is to track and predict crime with a view to curbing it. It is an emerging field that gained momentum after the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) launched the National Intelligence Model, which formalised the contribution intelligence makes to policing. There are also intelligence units at divisional level (DIU).

Criminal intelligence is information compiled, analyzed, and/or disseminated in an effort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor criminal activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital forensics</span> Branch of forensic science

Digital forensics is a branch of forensic science encompassing the recovery, investigation, examination, and analysis of material found in digital devices, often in relation to mobile devices and computer crime. The term "digital forensics" was originally used as a synonym for computer forensics but has expanded to cover investigation of all devices capable of storing digital data. With roots in the personal computing revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the discipline evolved in a haphazard manner during the 1990s, and it was not until the early 21st century that national policies emerged.

Predictive analytics is a form of business analytics applying machine learning to generate a predictive model for certain business applications. As such, it encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from predictive modeling and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events. It represents a major subset of machine learning applications; in some contexts, it is synonymous with machine learning.

Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce and deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.

Financial intelligence (FININT) is the gathering of information about the financial affairs of entities of interest, to understand their nature and capabilities, and predict their intentions. Generally the term applies in the context of law enforcement and related activities. One of the main purposes of financial intelligence is to identify financial transactions that may involve tax evasion, money laundering or some other criminal activity. FININT may also be involved in identifying financing of criminal and terrorist organisations. Financial intelligence can be broken down into two main areas, collection and analysis. Collection is normally done by a government agency, known as a financial intelligence organisation or Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). The agency will collect raw transactional information and Suspicious activity reports (SAR) usually provided by banks and other entities as part of regulatory requirements. Data may be shared with other countries through intergovernmental networks. Analysis, may consist of scrutinizing a large volume of transactional data using data mining or data-matching techniques to identify persons potentially engaged in a particular activity. SARs can also be scrutinized and linked with other data to try to identify specific activity.

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is a policing model built around the assessment and management of risk. Intelligence officers serve as guides to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automatic number-plate recognition in the United Kingdom</span>

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) is a technology for automatically reading vehicle number plates. The Home Office states ANPR is used by law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom to help detect, deter and disrupt criminality including tackling organised crime groups and terrorists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Behavioral Science Unit</span> Division within the US Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) is the original name of a unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Division at Quantico, Virginia, formed in response to the rise of sexual assault and homicide in the 1970s. The unit was usurped by the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) and renamed the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit (BRIU) and currently is called the Behavioral Analysis Unit (5) (BAU-5) within the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). The BAU-5 currently works on developing research and then using the evidence-based results to provide training and improve consultation in the behavioral sciences—understanding who criminals are, how they think, why they do what they do—for the FBI and law enforcement communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Crime Agency</span> National law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders; but it can be tasked to investigate any crime. The NCA has a strategic role as part of which it looks at serious crime in aggregate across the UK, especially analysing how organised criminals are operating and how they can be disrupted. To do this, it works closely with regional organised crime units (ROCUs), local police forces, and other government departments and agencies.

In network theory, link analysis is a data-analysis technique used to evaluate relationships between nodes. Relationships may be identified among various types of nodes (100k), including organizations, people and transactions. Link analysis has been used for investigation of criminal activity, computer security analysis, search engine optimization, market research, medical research, and art.

The Classification System for Serial Criminal Patterns (CSSCP) is an artificial intelligence computer system that assists law enforcement officials in identifying links between serial crimes. Working in conjunction with a neural network called a Kohonen network, CSSCP finds patterns in law enforcement databases by analyzing the characteristics of an offender, the criminal activities that have occurred, and the objects used in a crime. Once the links between crimes have been identified by CSSCP, law enforcement officials can then use the data that is produced to build leads or solve criminal cases. Through its capability to run autonomously, the CSSCP has proven that it can operate non-stop without any human interaction and can achieve results with much more accuracy and efficiency than a human.

In the United States, the practice of predictive policing has been implemented by police departments in several states such as California, Washington, South Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Tennessee, New York, and Illinois. Predictive policing refers to the usage of mathematical, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. Predictive policing methods fall into four general categories: methods for predicting crimes, methods for predicting offenders, methods for predicting perpetrators' identities, and methods for predicting victims of crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension</span> US state criminal investigative bureau

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is a statewide criminal investigative bureau under the Minnesota Department of Public Safety that provides expert forensic science and criminal investigation services throughout the state of Minnesota. The BCA assists local, state, tribal, and federal agencies in major criminal investigations. It is headquartered in St. Paul. The BCA's current superintendent is Drew Evans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VALCRI</span>

Visual Analytics for Sense-making in Criminal Intelligence Analysis (VALCRI) is a software tool that helps investigators to find related or relevant information in several criminal databases. The software uses big data processes to aggregate information from a wide array of different sources and formats and compiles it into visual and readable arrangements for users. It is used by various law enforcement agencies and aims to allow officials to utilize statistical information in their operations and strategy. The project is funded by the European Commission and is led by Professor William Wong at Middlesex University.

Predictive policing is the usage of mathematics, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. A report published by the RAND Corporation identified four general categories predictive policing methods fall into: methods for predicting crimes, methods for predicting offenders, methods for predicting perpetrators' identities, and methods for predicting victims of crime.

References

  1. Boba, Rachel (2005). Crime Analysis and Crime Mapping. Sage Publications. pp. 5–6.
  2. Maria Cramer (4 August 2013). "Cambridge police look at math to solve crimes". Boston Globe. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  3. Cynthia Rudin (August 2013). "Predictive Policing: Using Machine Learning to Detect Patterns of Crime". Wired. Retrieved 11 July 2016.
  4. Boba, Rachel (2005). Crime Analysis and Crime Mapping. Sage Publications. pp. 6–7.
  5. "IACA Resource Center". Archived from the original on 2011-10-04.

Further reading