NCJ Number
224506
Journal
THE POLICE CHIEF Volume: 75 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 20-22,24,26,28
Date Published
September 2008
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article discusses how law enforcement executives can use crime analysts in making more informed decisions and working more effectively with municipal and county officials.
Abstract
Crime analysts in law enforcement agencies can quantify, evaluate, and visualize changes in crime trends and patterns in relation to urban and community development patterns on a daily basis. Crime analysts can enhance municipal planning and resource development by providing direct knowledge about which neighborhoods in an urban area are most likely to improve, decline, or remain unchanged as a result of changes in urban development, both planned and unplanned. City administrators are in positions that enable them to take action in preventing the degradation of neighborhoods threatened by adverse factors, such as housing foreclosures. They can enact policies that affect these neighborhoods and more effectively deploy municipal resources. Police, in cooperation with municipal officials, can deploy officers to spend more time in these neighborhoods in deterring criminal activity. Crime analysts, based on their training and experience, are in an ideal position to guide this type of integrated problem solving. Maps created by crime analysts can become an effective means of highlighting trends. Using maps, crime analysts can show where resources are most needed. Analysts provide insight and understanding by being on the front line in defining the context in which any solution developed under the cooperative planning by government officials and police administrators must be assessed and on which sound policy and practice are based. 6 notes