Criminal intelligence analysis facilitates proactive policing, optimizes resource deployment, enhances collaboration, uncovers hidden crime patterns, and sharpens tactical responses.
Strategic Insights in Action
Crime Intelligence Analysis does not simply help in solving crimes; it also provides strategic insights that improve the general strategies of law enforcement. In this way, it can be linked to a transformation of regular policing, based on the strategic insights that direct the development and implementation of decisions and policies.
Transformation of Policing Strategies
Incorporating crime intelligence can significantly transform regular policing strategies, making them more dynamic and effective. For example, by providing police departments with a visualization of heat maps showing the locations of most crimes, crime intelligence allows deciding where to put a higher focus on police patrols and presence straight away. As a result, resources are used more efficiently, and the crimes are potentially prevented.
Good Examples Of Applying Strategic Insights
Operation Ceasefire is a good example of how the provision of strategic insights based on the analysis of crime data can work. It was a program based in Boston in the 1990s when the city and other places around the US suffered from gun violence caused by youth gangs. A CRJ report on Ceasefire explains that, based on crime intelligence, police could make an assumption that most of the gun violence is driven by a certain group of people, which in this case was youth gangs.
The program communicated directly with the potential criminals, offering them support to lead a better life and leave guns alone. At the same time, police made it crystal clear that further violence would not be tolerated because legal arrests would follow. The program had proved to be very efficient, as it decreased the rate of homicides among youth dramatically.
Improving Resource Management
Decisions driven by crime intelligence also help in the sphere of resource management. As stated previously, it makes it easier to decide where to concentrate patrols and other resources and when. It follows that with the strategic insights provided by crime intelligence, law enforcement organizations can manage the resources in a more optimal way, ensuring that personnel and equipment are always there where they are needed.
Real-Time Decisions
At the same time, crime intelligence enables real-time decision-making and planning. For example, during big public events, crime intelligence centers might sit and monitor the situation in real-time, predicting situations and taking action before the crime happens. This is what was done at the occasions of the past Super Bowl events in the US. Thus, the provision of strategic insights helps in increasing both the efficiency and timeliness of decisions. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the strategic insights are very difficult to apply. It requires constant readjustment of applications to reflect the current tactics of criminals, complex data systems that include numerous links, and training of personnel to use and interpret the insights.
At the same time, regardless of the challenges, I believe that the use of crime intelligence is generally of the biggest benefits for society. Mostly, it seamlessly combines the goals of resource and decision management, as well as optimal planning, but also improves the efficiency of patrolling and police presence in particular areas. The programs such as Ceasefire, which resulted in few people going to prison and decreased youth violence, are proof of those effects. At the same time, it is always necessary to remember that we need to maintain the balance between efficient law enforcement and respecting civil rights as well.
Strengthening Predictive Policing
Predictive policing is a strategy aimed at preventing crimes before they happen. It is possible by employing data and analytics to predict potential criminals or the places where crimes are expected. Not only does Crime Intelligence Analysis contribute to building such a system. Instead, it serves as the core element of predictive policing, since it provides information that makes this strategy proactive rather than reactive.
Defining Predictive Policing
In fact, predictive policing refers to the use of “mathematical, predictive, and, in most cases, prescriptive problem-solving analyses for predicting, preventing, or responding to crime”. For the most part, it allows law enforcement to be proactive. The main idea is focusing police work in areas and at times when and where crimes are more likely to take place.
Role of Crime Intelligence Analysis
As it has been already stated, Crime Intelligence Analysis provides data and information necessary for predictive policing. The main activities in this field are collecting and processing crime data in the past. The next step is analyzing this information to predict the locations and times of future crimes. As a result, police work can be focused and targeted on stopping crimes in advance.
Techniques
There are several techniques employed in predictive policing. First, it uses data mining, as well as statistics methodologies and, following the pattern of modern policing initiatives, machine learning. An example of a technology used in predictive policing is PredPol, a program adopted by the Los Angeles Police Department. It is designed to predict the areas where future crimes are expected, and some sources state that it reduces burglary rates significantly. Another example is Memphis Police Department’s Operation Blue CRUSH that also helped decrease serious crimes by about 30% of violent crimes by about 25%.
Improve Resource Allocation
One of the key aspects of efficient law enforcement is effective resource allocation. Crime Intelligence Analysis allows police departments to vastly improve the ways they allocate personnel and resources, ensuring they are applied in the needed areas.
Key Principles of Law Enforcement Resource Allocation
The primary goal of resource allocation in such a context is to minimize any wastage of valuable resources. Police resource allocation concerns the determination of when and where officers and equipment are most efficiently utilized to prevent crime. The approach is data-driven, requiring in-depth analysis of the patterns and trends of all kinds of crime.
Impact of Crime Intelligence Analysis
The key value of Crime Intelligence Analysis in this context is providing the necessary data. By analyzing past patterns of crime, the police can determine where and when such activity is the most likely. When this information is received, it allows for resource deployment in a focused, rather than simultaneous, manner. As a result, valuable resources are not wasted and the prevention effort becomes more efficient.
Real-Life Cases
One of the clearest examples of Crime Intelligence Analysis to resource allocation is the Strategic Subject List used by the Chicago Police Department. The list was generated to predict which people are most likely to be involved in gun violence either as perpetrators or victims. The focused deployment of resources on these individuals allowed the police to reduce the number of violent crimes taking place. The New York City Police Department uses a similar tool, with the “CompStat” meetings focusing on the analysis of crime statistics and determining where resources are to be deployed most carefully. As a result, the city managed to reduce crimes of all types.
Techniques and Tools
There are many tools and techniques utilized in source placement. Two of the clearest modern methods are geographic information systems, which are used to visualize crime data geographically, and prediction analytics, which are used to predict patterns of criminal behavior and spatial predictions of occurrence.
Optimization and Efficiency
Optimization is not just about placing resources in the areas most needed but also managing the time and duration of their placement. For example, one piece of functionality offered by prediction analytics is similar in nature to the data that is analyzed for the drawing of shift patterns. As a result of that functionality, the NYPD was able to increase police presence at times when crime was most likely to occur.
Problems
Despite the clear utility, Crime Intelligence Analysis brings its own problems. They include the necessity of ensuring data accuracy, the avoidance of bias in data analysis, and the requirement to adjust analysis based on the ever-changing patterns of crime.
Strengthen International Cooperation
Information on transnational criminal activities is a necessity for effective international cooperation in the field of crime intelligence. The International Crime Intelligence Analysis system has paid off when providing analytic support to both law enforcement and political decision-makers. Notably, international cooperation in criminal justice has proved to enhance the understanding of transnational crime which, in turn, increases the security and stability of both foreign states and the home one.
Rationale
Due to a free flow of people, goods, and services, more and more criminal activities cannot be considered separately from other states’ security. Dealing with cases related to organized crime, human trafficking, smuggling, and cybercrime, detecting, and collecting information to solve problems should become priority activities for international cooperation.
Mechanisms and best practices
Because the majority of solving criminal activities require an exchange of information, it is important to locate and redirect the flow of information at the international level. Europol, Interpol, and bilateral relations between the states are examples of means and mechanisms for sharing intelligence across countries. The I-24/7 global police communications system initiated and managed by Interpol is an interesting and effective means of sharing information related to crime. To harmonize regulations, a European Union Agency, Europol, was established to support Member States to share intelligence and operate within a legal environment.
The cooperation between Colombia and the United States to fight against drug trafficking is a good example when further operations of dismantling drug cartels due to shared intelligence and coordinated work provided a positive result. The European Cybercrime Centre of EC3 initiated by Europol is also a success story when members and non-EU partners of Europol share intelligence and sends experts to cybercrime hotspots all over the world.
Problems and solutions
Apart from information sharing, international cooperation in the sphere of crime intelligence assumes conduction prevention, investigation, and prosecution of criminal activities and subsequent assistance to the judiciary system in the given country. Problems include a variety of forms of transnational crime, which are not clear and may not look like a crime from a foreign country’s perspective. Legal systems and principles also vary with issues of sensitive sovereignty, culture, and interests. Solutions are particularly concerned with the establishment of common protocols and continuous dialogue. Training of law enforcement staff, setting up training centers for a region in a non-neutral country, and creation of joint task force also seem to be a good suggestion.
Case Studies And Success Stories
Crime Intelligence Analysis has been immensely useful in multifaceted resolutions and annihilation of worldwide criminal activity. Virtually, any technique, including the analysis of the patterns and connections that would have easily gone undetected, has been very productive in law enforcement, with numerous cases existing throughout the globe.
LUCID
The exemplary case is the use of power of crime intelligence by New Orleans Police in operation LUCID, with the assistance of St. Bernard Sheriefes. Virtual Environments, Inc. and a Locomotion system were used to trace a criminal. Reports were almost instantaneous, tracking human bodies moving over thirty miles per hour and permitted the police to cope with the criminal action. Finally, they managed to apprehend four people in vehicles with drugs .
Operation Blue CRUSH
Another case of the successful use of such analysis is the implementation of predictive analysis used by Memphis’ Operation Blue CRUSH. They used the technique for predicting the spatial and temporal patterns of the violent criminal activity to wage one of the first pre-emptive wars on crime. The results of the police’s effort were more than good, with a 30% reduction of police major violent crimes .
The BTK Killer
Finally, Crime Intelligence Analysis of the DNA evidence and the important computer evidence played a role in the arrest of Dennis Rader, aka BTK. Rader was terrorizing Wichita, Kansas, for more than two decades. The analysts managed to get hold of a floppy disk that he sent to his church. Moreover, the analysis of the church’s papers indicated his fingerprints, leading to his arrest.
Human trafficking
Although Crimes Intelligence Analysis Software can raise a lot of ethical dilemmas, it has significantly improved the human trafficking investigation. For instance, an Interpol-op, where an analysis of communication and financial records led to the arrest of more than 470 individuals and rescuing 245 victims from 13 countries is one of the examples. It definitely implies that Crimes Intelligence Analysis was most useful in the arrested group of people.
Operation Innocent Images
The last example of the exploitation of Crime Intelligence Analysis was used by the FBI in crime operations, such as Touchdown and Innocent Images. They could manage to trace sexually aggressive or murdering criminals and pornography traffickers and totally arrest and prosecute about half the suspects. Keep in mind that huge computer information existed. The solution suggested was tracing the PC IP back to its location, and finally arresting the suspects. Thus, while the data above prove the advantages the usage of such software provides, it also gives evidence of the dilemmas raised.