Crime analysts are a staple of any law enforcement agency, as they are tasked with a crucial role in identifying, gathering, and analyzing data that ultimately serves to assist law enforcement in their investigative duties. Analysts utilize intelligence that is either gathered themselves or by other agents of law enforcement to search for patterns and other useful data that may speed up investigations and allow for better resource allocation. As crime analysts remove a significant burden that would otherwise be placed on law enforcement agents, they allow for these agents to place a much greater focus on preventing and solving crimes. Crime analysts are typically tasked with working in an office environment, and are also most often considered to be civilian members of law enforcement rather than sworn officers. As such, they are more so assistants or partners to law enforcement than they are members of law enforcement, even though their job requirements are fundamentally important to the ability for law enforcement agencies to conduct their own job responsibilities. Regardless, the crime analyst’s purpose in assisting police with crime solving and prevention is greatly influenced by their ability to process and analyze intelligence.

Crime analysts make significant use of intelligence in carrying out the responsibilities of their jobs. As technology continues to advance, so do the intelligence applications of law enforcement and the crime analysts that work alongside them. While sworn officers are tasked with utilizing investigative processes and techniques, crime analysts focus on intelligence applications that serve a more exploratory and broadly focused purpose (Carter, 2004, p. 8). These intelligence applications serve two primary purposes: crime prevention and fostering planning and research allocation within law enforcement (Carter, 2004, p. 8). The International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts characterizes intelligence applications as “analytic” processes that are able to find value within raw data and information (Carter, 2004, p. 12). That value is of course to later become used by agents of law enforcement in the course of their duties, although after first being processed and organized by crime analysts in order to ensure that only useful information is ultimately shared. Crime analysts produce reports detailing their findings and also often communicate with law enforcement directly. The latter allows them to relay intelligence and to further garner understandings of law enforcement’s specific needs in order to shape their own analytic focus and determine the type of intelligence most urgently required by law enforcement. Although crime analysts spend much of their time working independently, their partnership with law enforcement agencies requires such a consideration.

Crime analysts are trained to detect value within specific types of data and by drawing important connections. For instance, crime analysts often analyze crime statistics and criminal trends to develop patterns that can be shared with law enforcement and draw their attention towards particular individuals that may be of interest according to this intelligence. One technique often utilized by crime analysts is referred to as “link analysis,” which requires an analyst to find relationships between entities that may be persons of interest to police, and subsequently document those relationships in a manner that is organized and easily understandable to police (“Criminal Intelligence,” 2011, p. 35). Telephone analysis is another technique employed by crime analysts that allows the development of important connections. Telephone analysis can take the form of qualitative, statistical, or associational analysis, which serve different purposes in finding patterns, suspect locations, and subscriber information, among other valuable data (“Criminal Intelligence,” 2011, p. 60). Collectively, the various techniques and tactics employed by crime analysts allow them to represent irreplaceable law enforcement resources that often make a world of difference in preventing and fighting crime.