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Abstract
This article discusses the analytic maturity model that was developed by the Vancouver Police Department. The maturity model was developed to self-asses the agency’s analytic process and determine to what degree it was operating. The article explores the various stages of the analytic model and applies them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and FUSION CENTERS in an attempt to show how the maturity model can be utilized by other agencies as well in self-assessing their analytic process. The article concludes by suggesting best practices which are to be utilized in conjunction with the maturity model.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Special Constable Ryan Prox of the Vancouver Police Department for his mentorship in the field of criminal intelligence analysis.
Notes
1. ‘Intelligence-Led Policing: International Perspectives on Policing in the twenty-first Century’ discusses the shift from other policing methodologies to the practice of Intelligence-Led Policing on an international scale. Source: Peterson et al., Citation1997.
2. Analytics is the ‘science of examining raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions about that information. Data analytics is used in many industries to allow companies and organizations to make better business decisions and in the sciences to verify or disprove existing models or theories.’ Source: TechTarget, Citation2008.
3. Often times police managers are resistant to change and will fall back on traditional policing methods as these are considered to be ‘tried and true’ methods of policing.
4. Wardlaw and O’Malley state that an ad hoc process of addressing crime problems does not work and results in fragmented programs and projects which attempt to address these issues. The ad hoc nature of the chaotic stage may generate intelligence but does not adhere to intelligence-led policing principles. Source: Wardlaw and O’Malley, Citation1993.
5. A discussion on the siloing of information in the policing context is available in ‘Information Management in Policing: Improving efficiency and performance by unlocking the value of information.’ Source: Accenture, Citation2010.
6. The term ‘disparate’ is defined as ‘distinct in kind; essentially different; dissimilar: disparate ideas.’ Source: Dictionary.com Unabridged, Citation2013.
7. If analysts are unaware that a pertinent file exists on an investigators computer then they won’t know that they need to look for it in order to extract valuable information from it.
8. Dr Ratcliffe is an established expert in the field of analytics and intelligence-led policing. He has multiple publications on the subject of intelligence-led policing and is a professor of criminology at Justice Temple University. Source: Ratcliffe, Citation2013.
9. The term ‘analysis’ is defined as ‘the process as a method of studying the nature of something or of determining its essential features and their relations.’ Source: Dictionary.com Unabridged, Citation2013.
10. An example of an integrative process would be a system that generates thresholds/early warnings through the mining of data from databases on an automated basis.
11. These skills could be but not limited to, open source data mining, data cube building and analysis, and computer programming/software development.
12. Under the ‘Criminal Intelligence Program’ section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police website, the RCMP state that they are ‘involved in four levels of policing: international, national, provincial and local.’ Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Citation2013.
13. In the ‘Intelligence Coordination & Sharing Audit’ the RCMP state that their primary focus is tackling organized crime with intelligence driven initiatives. Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Citation2012.
14. The lack of interoperability between the software being utilized suggests that it is a culmination of disparate crime analysis tools. This would lead to the RCMP’s tools and technology to be in keeping with the reactive stage in the maturity model.
15. INTELEX Units ‘facilitate the management and sharing of criminal information and intelligence within the RCMP as well as with outside partners.’ Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Citation2006–2007.
16. Rollins and Connors also state that fusion centers were developed as ‘primary platforms for improving law enforcement’s intelligence-sharing capabilities.’ Source: Rollins and Connors, Citation2007.
17. Taylor and Russell provide an in depth discussion on the failures of fusion centers in their research article ‘The failure of police “fusion” centers and the concept of a national intelligence sharing plan.’ Source: Taylor and Russell, Citation2012.
18. The United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted a study titled ‘Federal Support for and Involvement in State and Local Fusion Centers’ which detailed many of the shortcomings of fusion centers including the lack of oversight on the financial spending of fusion centers. Source: Levin, Citation2012.
19. ‘For example, a 2009 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that agencies were still experiencing problems in accessing multiple databases. A qualitative document analysis by Monahan and Palmer (Citation2009) revealed similar findings, although they deemed fusion centers to be ineffective based on a number of issues. Nevertheless, it should be noted that these problems have plagued law enforcement agencies for years and are not unique to fusion centers (e.g. lack of interagency cooperation, agency interests and ego, mission creep, and technological disparities).’ Source: Taylor and Russell, Citation2012.
20. The Vancouver Police Department is a member of the ‘Major Cities Chiefs of Police Association.’ Source: https://www.majorcitieschiefs.com/members.php.
21. Ibata Noric Hexamer and Shalendra Kumar Sharma were two serial sex offenders who were arrested and charged through analytical work conducted by the Vancouver Police Department utilizing the CRIME system.