Crime and Intelligence Analysis

What is Crime Analysis?

The International Association of Crime Analysts defines crime analysis as “a profession and process in which a set of quantitative and qualitative techniques are used to analyze data valuable to police agencies and their communities. It includes the analysis of crime and criminals, crime victims, disorder, quality of life issues, traffic issues, and internal police operations, and its results support criminal investigation and prosecution, patrol activities, crime prevention and reduction strategies, problem solving, and the evaluation of police efforts.”

Within the field of crime analysis there are four widely recognized types of crime analysis: Administrative Crime Analysis, Crime Intelligence Analysis, Strategic Analysis, and Tactical Analysis.

• Administrative Crime Analysis: is aimed at providing both on-demand and routine reports to internal and external stakeholders to assist in planning, budgeting, and resource allocation, among other efforts.

• Crime Intelligence Analysis: focuses on the analysis of people involved in crimes. This includes not only repeat offenders and/or criminal organizations, but also any repeat victims. This type of analysis may include an analysis of offender criminal histories, telephone toll (cell phone) analysis, any offender/victim relationships, and an analysis of social media activity, among others.

• Strategic Crime Analysis: deals with long-term issues requiring policing strategies, changes in policies and development of crime deterrence and prevention. This type of analysis primarily includes hot spot analysis, problem analysis and trend analysis using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

• Tactical Crime Analysis: is more operational in nature, focusing mainly on short-term policing concerns of crime patterns and series to include determining the who, what, where, when and how of related offenses, locations and/or offender modus operandi.

Crime Intelligence Analysts within the Boca Raton Police Services Department perform each type of crime analysis in order to produce work products aimed at: identifying trends and patterns of activity, preventing crime, the apprehension and successful prosecution of criminals, educating the public, addressing long-term community problems, and developing intelligence to assist in the investigative process and solve crimes.

Additional Resources:

 Boca Raton Community Crime Map

 Boca Raton Public Records Request

 Regional CrimeMapping

 Victim Notification Network (VINELink)