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.
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"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."
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