I have had the privilege of talking to some bright, young crime analysts recently and to hear how this past year or so has been overwhelming because of several issues.
One major stress was the analysts' changing roles during the protests and riots of the past year. More work involved scanning social media for potential threats to the community. This was added to their current responsibilities and so there is a sense of overwhelm, not enough analysts to do the work. There is also an urgency to monitoring social media for threats that is stressful. It is up to you to find the possible threat so that it can be counteracted, if possible. No matter what, this work prepares a police agency to deal with emergent problems.
Other analysts spend more time than ever determining geolocations of phones and vehicles for investigations. Because law enforcement analysts are the people with high level computer skills, they often become the technicians for using software. More violence and violent crimes in communities leads to more investigations wherein suspects are identified and need to be linked to their criminal activities via tools that determine suspects' activities. Some of this analysis is very time consuming and takes analysts away from other types of analytical work. Traditional crime analysis work (such as identifying crime patterns and strategies to solve them) is being supplanted by investigative support work.
The current call to "defund the police" by some citizens is a stressor for analysts who worry about job security. Unfortunately, the role of the analyst may be devalued when it comes to considering budget cuts, despite the fact analysts are force multipliers by helping police agencies better determine how to allocate limited resources. The morale in law enforcement agencies is low and that affects everyone who works in them. Uncertainty is stressful.
How do you handle the sense of overwhelm? Recognizing it is a first step.
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