Crime Analysis                                                                  

The Wauchula Police Department strives to stay up to date with innovating police strategies.  One method we have incorporated into our department for the fight against crime is the use of a crime analyst.  Officer Maria Rojas-Quinn is currently assigned to these duties.  An analyst is used in many aspects of police work such as combating crime, strategical planning, and administrative duties.

How is crime analysis used in the fight against crime? 

  The Crime Analyst scrutinizes all the crime data that enters the police department daily through police reports.  After extracting the relevant crime data.  An analysis of the data is put together and used to:

• Concentrate on crimes that are an immediate threat to the community such as burglary, robbery, and auto thefts.
• Focus on organized crime such as narcotics, money laundering, gangs, and terrorism.
• Detect a pattern from crimes by studying and linking common factors together such as method, suspect physical description, and weapon used.
• Disseminate information regarding the anticipated crime to patrol officers and to detectives to provide suspect leads and to prevent the crime.
• Establish criminal profiles that include prior crimes and criminal relationships to aid in making a connection between members and the organization.
• Use telephone toll analysis to plot telephone activity to determine the size and location of criminal groups and individuals involved.

• Forecasting future occurrences in crime series so the agency can attempt to apprehend the offender.

• Preparing a regular newsletter or bulletin for the agency.

How is the crime analysis used in strategical planning?

The Crime Analyst collaborates data for strategical planning for the present and future.  The information gathered will assist agency supervisors in making resourceful decisions on different aspects of policing. Such as, to determine where police presence needs to be increased or decreased.  The Crime Analyst gathers the following information to assist with strategical planning:

• Analyzing traffic accidents, noise complaints, and other non-crime quality of life issues.
• Preparing monthly, quarterly, or annual reports (including statistical reports) for the agency.
• Conducting and analyzing community surveys
• Forecasting police activity volume in future months and years.
• Analyzing workload distribution by shift and geographic area.
• Providing database querying, statistics, and other types of law enforcement information on demand.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of police programs.

Administrative crime analysis is used to:

• Provide special reports to chiefs of police and city councils that interpret crime statistics categorized by factors such as geographical locations and/or economical conditions.
• Keep officers informed of crime statistics and patterns.
• Justify the number of officers within the agency or requesting more officers.
• Write a request for a federal grant to increase the agency’s budget.
• Give speeches on crime prevention to organizations such as Neighborhood Watch Programs.

• Preparation of charts, graphs, and maps for reports, community presentations, or courtroom presentations.

In order to perform these tasks, crime analysts must have a number of skills, including:

• A solid understanding of criminal behavior
• Thorough knowledge of the analyst's particular jurisdiction
• Knowledge of research methods
• Ability to collect, manage, collate, and query data
• Ability to understand and synthesize crime information
• Critical thinking skills
• Ability to calculate descriptive, inferential, and multivariate statistics, and to create meaningful charts and graphs based on those statistics
• Understanding of demographic analysis
• Strong writing skills
• Strong computer skills, including databases, desktop publishing and word processing, spreadsheets, and statistical packages
• Ability to use a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a thorough understanding of spatial analysis and spatial statistics
• Presentation skills
• Interpersonal communications skills