Why Is Crime Analysis Important

Technologies has offered law enforcement agencies many useful methods for combating criminal activity, with such tools as GPS and advanced communications systems. Technologies such as body armor, body cameras and less-lethal projectiles also have improved the safety of both police and the public. However, I think in an increasingly high-tech world, more and more crimes involve technologies and police must be prepared for them. It is essential for law enforcement executives to stay current with ongoing technological developments. As crime consistently increase the need for technology has become vitally important to the world of criminal justice. As the volume of police incidents increased the ability for an individual to read every police report, recall every detail and intuit every relationship has become out numbered.

Crime analysis is the systematic study of crimes. Crime analysis can occur at various levels such as tactical, operational, and strategic. Crime analysis is
used to solve crimes, find and apprehend offenders, prioritize investigations, detect and solve community problems and educate the public.
Technology analysis can be as complex as a relational database or as simple as a card file. Simple technologies can be just as useful for basic things such as sorting records by date can prove quite powerful in large data sets. More sophisticated capabilities, such as geo coding records and predictive analysis is increasingly occurring in departments around the country. Crime analysis is a discipline that relies heavily on computer technology, both hardware and a variety of software programs.

Today’s technology is having a revolutionized impact on law enforcement agencies. There have been several forms of technology that has been implemented to enable expanded communication with officers in the field, to expedite and improve crime reporting and analysis, and to better manage the tactical deployment of forces. Technology is changing the operation as well as the overall structure of law enforcement agencies, allowing administrators to effectively manage and deploy resources, monitor crime trends, and target intervention and investigative assets with greater effectiveness. Technology is helping to bridge a collaborative relationship between law enforcement and the community.
Technology has made it possible for law enforcement agencies to have someone’s records through a touch of a button. Through record keeping and research of crimes and categorization by the different offense, patterns, trends and locations technology has allowed law enforcement to accurately manage and control the operation of the justice system. Crime analysis is a process of collecting, categorizing and analyzing information.
Law enforcement agency crime analysis units have their own servers to house there own data; however data used in crime analysis are accessed from data collection and storage systems such as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, records management systems (RMSs), and geographic data systems.
A computer aided dispatch system is a system that uses telecommunications and geographic display to support police dispatch and response functions. Crime analysts use four basic types of general desktop software applications to manipulate data and conduct analyses: spreadsheet software, database management software, statistical software, and geographic information system software. An RMS is a data entry and storage system designed for law enforcement records. Records management system is used to check the quality of data, retrieve incidents, provide information, and search reports and to locate individual reports for court cases and insurance purposes as well as to retrieve lists of cases and
summaries.

Technology plays a big part in the criminal justice field. Technology such as the where and how data is stored, collected and retrieved makes the criminal justice field to be more organized and operate productively. Database is structured to recognize relations among stored items of information. It allows law enforcement officials to easily cross-reference available information in investigations and to analyze crime patterns using a geographic information system. The law enforcement database system is used for a wide variety of tasks such as checking driver's licenses, checking names or addresses, checking for outstanding arrest warrants, communication between police officer, entering evidence into an electronic tracking database, retrieving information for a mission and checking investigative reports. There are plenty of great products and services that help law enforcement accomplish these goals. It's no great surprise that advancements in technology have raised the levels of successful arrests and prosecutions. Technology will continue to evolve and become more and more essential to the criminal justice system as time progress.