Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis

Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis

FYI

Power Law Distribution and Solving the Crime Problem

Power Law Distribution and Solving the Crime Problem

By Tim Hegarty, Captain and Patrol Division Commander, Riley County Police Department, Manhattan, Kansas

International Association of Crime Analysts' Crime Analysis Unit Development Center

 Crime Analysis Unit Development Center

 "This area of the IACA website contains all of the information you need to start a crime analysis unit. The Development Center is intended to provide knowledge and resources to help your department design and develop a crime analysis unit."

Mortgage Fraud Update

"January 6, 2011

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Third Quarter Reports of Mortgage Fraud Up Slightly
Mortgage Fraud as Percentage of All SARs Remains Steady

VIENNA, Va. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today released its third quarter 2010 mortgage fraud report, Mortgage Loan Fraud SAR Filings. The report shows that suspicious activity reports (SARs) characterized by filers as indicating possible mortgage loan fraud (MLF) increased 2 percent to 16,693 in the third quarter of 2010 up from 16,339 MLF SARs in the 2009 third quarter."

War on Terror or Policing Terrorism? Radicalization and Expansion of the Threats

Interesting read....and more work for analysts.
War on Terror or Policing Terrorism? Radicalization and Expansion of the Threats

Developing Creativity

A significant portion of a crime and intelligence analyst's work involves creativity, yet, creativity is seldom discussed in the world of law enforcement.

"Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art etc.) that has some kind of value." Wikipedia definition.

A link chart, a map, a report... so many analytical "products" involve creativity if they are to be truly useful to law enforcers. In fact, it may be, in the not-too-distant future, that the only truly valuable analytical products will be those that involve creativity. Merely summarizing information, condensing it, reformatting it, and spitting it out in another format is not creative. Simply looking things up for those who do not have access to certain information is not creative. In fact, analysts who do not go beyond this basic benchmark - the summarizers, condensers, reformatters, looker-uppers - will be obsolete once information technology advances enough to bring these tools to front-line law enforcement.

Edward De Bono states: "If we make no effort to develop the skill of creativity, it can only be a matter of talent and personality."


What value can you add as an analyst? Can you develop creativity? What does creativity look like in the field of LE analysis? I will explore these questions in future posts.

Resuming Analysts' Corner

I have reopened the blog and will post occassionally. Feel free to send links to appropriate material.