Criminal Justice Paper on Crime Analysis in Policing
Crime analysis in policing refers to the exploration of regular reports of serious crimes. The process is aimed at determining the place, time, distinct characteristics, similarities to other criminal attacks, and other important details that might aid in identifying a criminal activity (Gwinn et al. 10). Crime analysis information is significant in planning the operations of law enforcing agencies in a division or district. Consequently, it provides important information to police agencies regarding a crime, disorder, need for service, police operations, and other areas relevant to law enforcing agencies. Explicitly, crime analysts assist police agencies in solving crimes and developing operative policies and strategies to prevent future crimes, find and detain offenders, as well as prosecute and convict offenders.
Crime analysis is among several types of analysis that fall under the main law enforcement, public safety, or police analysis. Law enforcement analysis is a common term, which refers to the systems and products that offer information, which supports several missions of law enforcement agencies. On the other hand, a law enforcement agency is a common term that entails the municipal, state, and investigative police as well as other special-purpose agencies within the local, state, national, or international prerogative (Gwinn 11). It is apparent that such agencies, especially local police, have other several responsibilities besides enforcing the law. There are different types of analysis regarding such agencies, not only geared toward law enforcement, but also criminal intelligence and criminal investigative analysts. Across the globe, policing plays a crucial role in helping to decrease different forms of criminality. The police bears a major effect on what is defined as a crime, felonies that are prioritized, and segments of the community that are depicted as unsafe. There are different approaches employed in reducing crime. In this discussion, the focus will be on the problem of oriented policing (POP) and intelligence-led policing (ILP) crime analysis.
Both problems of oriented policing and intelligence-led policing have different origins, address different problems, encircle various ideas of the function, purposes, bases and responsibilities of policing intelligence gathering and community involvement regarding the underlying criminal threats (Tilley 1). Furthermore, the policing approaches also have divergent ways of thinking and acting and advocate some contrary crucial indicators of success. Nonetheless, the problem of oriented and intelligence policing is in agreement that policing in crime analysis needs to be reformed through a more analytical approach since they are both concerned with reducing crimes.
The basic tenet of oriented policing is fundamental and needs to deal meritoriously with essential police recurring issues instead of simply reacting to occurrences calling for attention of the law enforcing personnel. POP approach advocates for the application of scientific procedures at the heart of policing through identifying and examining persistent crime problems, cross-examining their fundamental sources. This also ensures determining the basics, which will address the causes and risk of the crimes in the long run.
POP deduces attention to problems by exploiting accessible information to the conditions causing them. Some of the main components entailed in POP include aiming at prolific delinquents, criminal establishments, and individuals enlisting new criminals. Through POP Law enforcing officers are also trained on how to respond effectively by working with the community and attaining a long-term deterrence program that is efficacious in dealing with the primary causes of problems in the society.
ILP, the emphasis of policing is on information-collection and analysis. The information on offenders and their networks is aimed at informing the law enforcing agencies about the serious prolific offending patterns. The criminal analysis in ILP focuses on the existing offending patterns. Furthermore, the intelligence used is frequently gathered from informants. ILP does not concentrate on the analysis of non-crime problems since the major information assignment is finding ways of trailing the offender and offending patterns as they occur and eventually disrupting them through deliberate enforcement.
Despite the fact that POP provides space for the intelligence-led implementation engrossed in ILP, the contrary does not hold with regards to POP. ILP offers no space for the extensive conception of policing problems and tasks enclosed in POP. Therefore, POP is pertinent to all issues relevant to police in law enforcing. One of the significant approaches in the current forms of policing is smart enforcement which is important for most issues addressed by the police gathering and community involvement to address the underlying criminal threats (Tilley 3). For instance, children missing from school are an example of a policing problem, but not a smart enforcement problem. Most of the long-term criminal problems are addressed through non-enforcement preventive interventions than in smart enforcement, for instance, car thefts in parks. Both POP and ILP involve approaches for making better and more organized use of intelligence that is different from the traditional forms of policing. Crime analysis is a significant element of pro-active policing, whereby every enforcement agency needs to have exploration competence. Effective analysis necessitates a number of competencies in policing, mainly through information gathering and community involvement to address the underlying criminal threats.
Works Cited
Gwinn, Samantha L, Christopher W. Bruce, Steven R. Hick, and Julie P. Cooper. Exploring Crime Analysis: Readings on Essential Skills. Overland Park, Kan: International Association of Crime Analysts, 2008. Print.
Tilley, Nick. “Problem-Oriented Policing, Intelligence-Led Policing and the National Intelligence Model.” London: Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College London (2003).