Boston and Violent Crime

Maybe you can learn from Boston? 

City of Boston Plan to End Violence

"No one imagined what the city of 650,000 has seen so far this year: four homicides, a 78 percent reduction from the 18 that took place over the same period in 2023." in the June27, 2024 New York Times: A Plummeting Murder Rate Stuns Boston. But Can It Survive the Summer?

DICE as a resource

Early in my crime analysis days, I wondered why crime stayed in certain hotspots for DECADES. That is what the data showed me. It made no sense. Geographic patterns like this can be addressed. This post is about a resource for that:

"DICE™ focuses on why certain activities occur at particular places. It's the place-based approach to crime prevention."

"What is DICE™?

DICE™ uses Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to diagnose crime patterns, prioritize places in need, and coordinate resources for prevention. Law enforcement is minimized, and only one part of the effort.

DICE™ empowers multiple community organizations to become co-producers of public safety. It's transparent and effective, and tailored to local problems.

Data analysis is a key component of DICE™, but so is the human element that makes analytic outputs relatable and connected to lived-experiences."

Visit the website at this link.

 "DICE™ was first developed by Joel Caplan and Leslie Kennedy at Rutgers University and tested through the Newark Public Safety Collaborative. Replication began in Dallas, TX through the Child Poverty Action Lab."

2024 New England Crime Analysis & Intelligence Conference

I highly recommend that analysts attend conferences like the one below.  Networking and training opportunities are invaluable! 

From this link, which will give you registration information for the 2024 New England Crime Analysis & Intelligence Conference.

"October 7 - 11, 2024

Hotel 1620

Plymouth, MA

We are excited to announce that our annual conference will be Monday, October 7 through Friday, October 11, 2024 in historic downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts.  We are also thrilled to partner with NESPIN again this year, bringing their top notch training and technical assistance to all our attendees.

The Massachusetts Association of Crime Analysts has hosted an annual training conference for 23 years, gathering analysts, officers and command staff from across New England and throughout the country for five days of world class training. We have subject matter experts teaching breakout sessions and national leaders in policing giving the keynote addresses.

We invite you to join us!

Partnership:

NESPIN

Keynote Speakers:

Nancy La Vigne - Director of NIJ"

Researchers Can't Access All the Crime-Related Data

One thing seldom discussed as law enforcement agencies work with academics (who contribute greatly to the identification of what works and what does not work in policing) is how limited access is for academics to all the data analysts work with in law enforcement. Much of police data is sensitive and protected. Academics usually see only a fraction of it.

Because academics have limited data access, it is safe to assume but seldom recognized that they do not have all the possible information needed to see the ground truth, the full picture of what is happening. They make assumptions from incomplete data.

This makes the role of the law enforcement analyst even more important.  The analyst can identify gaps of knowledge and bring intelligent, informed opinions to the table.

~

"The Role of the Crime Analyst in Policing (Osborne") can be found at this link at the bottom of the list on this page of the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts website. This is my 2001 Master's Thesis.

From the thesis (page 11):

    "Criminal justice researchers everywhere know the difficulty of accessing the type of data found in law enforcement agencies, and the problems associated with the lack of good data. Some data are confidential, and researchers cannot access them because they do not have the “right to know. “ The crime analyst has access to information in a police department that is not available to researchers. Because of this, an agency’s crime analyst, at an unprecedented level of thoroughness, can conduct the scientific process of analyzing crime using inference and data analysis tools.

     The crime analyst position is also very advantageous in sharing information where it will have immediate impact. Tactical crime analysis can, when used as a tool by officers, affect the arrest of criminals and the deterrence of crime. Most researchers do not have the pleasure of seeing the immediate benefits of their research."

Salaries

One of the perhaps silent problems the profession of law enforcement analysis faces in a brain drain, especially at the local level. This is hard to measure, but a number of fine local level law enforcement analysts I knew went on to leave law enforcement to work in the private sector or in higher education. Some move on the federal analyst jobs, where the payscale is often much better.

I have observed that salaries for local level crime analysts have not risen enough in some jurisdictions, including the state of New York, where many analysts at crime analysis centers are contract employees without pension benefits.The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services contracts analysts through universities and the analysts are not in the state retirement system, like I was when I worked as an analyst in Buffalo, NY. This is, in effect, a pay loss and the job is much less secure. 

Having experience as analyst at both the local and federal level of law enforcement, it is my perspective that it is more challenging to work at the local level. The skills needed are broader and the work is more varied. Quality analysts need quality pay and job security.