Criminal Investigations: Understanding Crime Analysis in Law Enforcement - Research Paper

Introduction

The rates of criminal offenses such as burglary, rape, homicide, cybercrimes, and white-collar-crimes continue to increase in the current world demanding significant tools to support law enforcement organizations. The analysis is a useful tool in criminal investigations because it involves the identification and analysis of information to solve problems. Crime analysis occurs at the strategic, operational and tactical level; therefore the analytical unit is police department is necessary for successful investigations and prosecutions. The essay aims to provide a proposal for a new analytical unit to improve various activities conducted in a police department. The unit will support all law enforcement personnel and departments such as detectives, supervisors, patrol officers, command personnel. The function of the proposed analytical unit is to acquire and study data to identify possible perpetrators, trends, and establish correction methods. Once the police department implements the proposal, the process of investigation will be easy and fast, because the analyst will find evidence from the vast collected and examined information. The outcome of the unit is expected to reduce criminal offenses by apprehending and prosecuting lawbreakers. The community will also benefit from the peace and security. The proposal will describe the analytical unit's mission, objectives, goals, and, the function of analysis within the department. It will also outline significant factors such as staffing, procedures, training, and the expected outcomes once it is implemented.

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Mission, Goals, and Objectives

According to Keay and Kirby (2018), the analytical unit plays a major role in police departments because it reviews data, arrest reports, calls, and intelligence from other organizations. However, most law enforcement agencies do not understand the objectives of analytical units because policing is often linked with the traditional technique of street investigations and confidential informants (Lewandowski, Carter, & Campbell, 2017). The proposed unit mission is to support the operations and administration elements conducted by police by collecting, investigating, evaluating, and disseminating on crime to identify possible solutions and predict future patterns.

The investigation concentrates on data collection, which can be worthless if it is irreverent to the case at hand. The process of the systematic evaluation conducted by the analytic unit identifies patterns and trends in crime to enhance proper planning and allocation of resources to prevent or reduce the offenses (Strickland, 2014). All police departments rely on the intelligence of the analysts to plan functions such as administrative services, patrol deployment, tactical units, investigation and research, and development. Police analysts use both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data when assessing crime patterns and factors contributing to certain offenses. The factors can be behavioral, psychological, environmental or economical, for instance, an increase in burglary can be attributed to youth unemployment. The goal of the analytic unit is to assess data to determine the useful and non-useful proofs. It organizes data to demonstrate what essential evidence is missing for a successful prosecution. Another goal of the proposed analytic unit is to provide relevant, functional information and disseminate it to all personnel in the law enforcement agency to enhance criminal identification. The objective of the unit is to improve crime reduction, patrol deployment, and identification of criminals through investigation and informed predictions.

Role of Analysis Within the Police Department

According to the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts, Inc. (2005), analysis core in the police operations because it provides the intelligence required by decision-makers to target criminal activity and focus on developed priorities. The analytical unit collaborates with other departments to conduct strategic, tactical, and administrative analysis and develop intelligence-related techniques for law enforcement. The tactical analysis involves immediate criminal offenses and the analyst develops quick feedback for identification of the offender. The strategic analysis focuses on operational techniques and aims at solving an on-ongoing issue. The administrative analysis involves complex projects such as economic information for the city council. Drawve, Belongie, and Steinman (2018) stated that the crime analysis unit enhances the study of current series and patterns in criminal activities. Moreover, it develops an effective strategic examination of crime-linked issues in a certain jurisdiction. It offers law enforcement officers with the intelligence of emerging trends and patterns in crime to enhance patrol and resource management. The unit prepares weekly and monthly reports and criminal notices to facilitate organization and management in the police department. Osborne and Wernicke (2013) asserted that crime analysis is significant because it supports the investigative process when connected with intelligence techniques. The unit prepares investigative plans using data acquired through surveillance, warrants, interviews, and subpoenas. The data must be analyzed and organized to derive meaningful reports. The pieces of evidence required to accuse a perpetrator are collected, abridged and organized by analysts (Drawve et al., 2018). They also provide expert testimony and flow charts to explain the events of the crime.

Crime analysis plays a critical role in crime prevention because it provides intelligence information on intended offenses, preparing detectives, and patrol officers to investigate and stop them from happening (Nangia, Singh & Ali, 2019). The analyzed information also helps the personnel to make strategic decisions for dealing with crimes. Currently, law enforcement officers may access analyzed data online on various agencies' websites (Rathore et al., 2017). The availability of reliable information enhances the process of investigation because the officers observe crime patterns in geographical and demographical basis. According to Strickland (2014), crime analysis helps the police department to manage resources and human power efficiently. The analysis provides information on major crimes such as drug and human trafficking. Computer forensic analysts solve complex crimes such as cybercrimes and white-collar-crimes through computation (Rathore et al., 2017). The analysts play the role of both the source of information and an intermediary to other stakeholders such as academia, to help in the co-production of information that can be utilized to influence policy, and manage policing resources.

Staffing

The success of the analytical unit depends on the availability of qualified and passionate personnel. It comprises of a supervisor or commander, three to twelve analytical officers, and three to five intelligence officers. Representations from other units such as supervisors, detectives, administrative officers, and patrol officers will be included in the analytical team for effective investigation and dissemination information. The unit will only include enthusiastic representatives who work extra hard to achieve the objectives and also maintain a positive reputation within the department. However, the number of staff in the unit will be determined by factors such as the size, roles and the location of the police department (IALEIA, 2005). For instance, the proposed analytic unit will have 75 sworn officers because it will serve a large population. A small unit may be staffed with two or three sworn officers to perform primary analysis and serve as intelligence liaison workers. The ratio of the analyst to detectives will be 1: 5 because the police department deals with specialized and complex crime. If an agency deals with a general crime the ratio of the analyst to detectives is one to ten. The selection of staff will also consider factors such as qualifications, training, and experience. The commander or supervisor must have at least two years' experience in a law enforcement agency. Moreover, the manager should demonstrate leadership skills to coordinate the workers and achieve target goals. The supervisor should also demonstrate ethical characters necessary in police operations. They include integrity, passion, diversity, confidentiality, and time management.

Analyst personnel qualification depends on their level of operation. In most countries including the United States, police agencies employ college or university graduates with a four-year analysis degree. The highly experienced analyst personnel would be positioned in prioritization role and strategic targeting. The less experienced analysts, for instance, those without experience would be work to support various criminal cases in the police department. The major characteristics for analyst officers include persistence, effective communicator, independence, and other skills of police practices. The skills include creativity, logical thinking, computation literacy, visualization skills, and excellent writing and research skills. Traditional without education were found in research, journalism, and social sciences (Keay & Kirby, 2018). Independence is a significant trait because the officers should be self-directed when uncovering crime mystery. They also have to decide the line of inquiry and resources necessary for effective investigation. Specialist analysts focus on the line of education and training, for instance, strategic, financial or criminal activity (cybercrimes). Some may deal with criminal groups such as drug cartels. The unit will also hire computer data analysts to support data entry and allow the analysts to focus on data collection and investigation. Staff rotation will be implemented after five years to improve innovation and strategies (Davenport et al., 2010). The hiring process will involve the application and interviewing of the shortlisted candidates. The candidates will be asked to demonstrate in a chart the steps they would follow to investigate a white-collar-crime. Logical reasoning and mental fitness tests will be conducted to assess their relationship with others and their critical thinking capacity.

Procedures

The analytical unit should have a controlled process of data collection, collation, examination, packaging, analysis, and distribution. A written procedure guideline will be useful in regulating unit operations. The operations in the proposed unit should be organized logically to enhance the proper implementation of the unit. The procedure outlines the various products provided to support the investigation, the tools that are used for the analysis process, and the results designed by the agency. The document should be provided to all stakeholders in the police department to create awareness. The document is crucial to the unit because it acts as a checkpoint to control the operations and keep the analyst towards the objective (Davenport et al., 2010). The analysis relies on various units within the department such as patrol deployment, an investigation among other's various employees hence the organizations of plans and tactics of data collection and identification is significant.

The procedures under the data collection focus on the mode of data acquisition and validity to the case at hand. The analytical unit will be offered with systems and products that promote easier access to information. Analysts must use ethical and legal methods of retrieving data from people or scenes of crime. The process of collecting data should follow the applicable federal and state laws and regulations. In the United States, the unit must comply with the 28 Code of Federal Regulations 23.20 that ...