Crime analysis: An empirical analysis of its effectiveness as a crime fighting tool

Crime analysis is a widely-used crime fighting tool in the law enforcement community. However, little is known about its effectiveness. This study touches on this issue and examines the effects of crime analysis on police effectiveness measured by crime and clearance rates. The three aspects of crime analysis, activity, specialization, and departmentalization, are examined in this study. Activity is measured by the crime analysis functions scale comprising 22 items and developed by O'Shea and Nicholls (2002).Specialization refers to the number of personnel assigned to crime analysis duties. Departmentalization shows whether a police agency own a crime analysis unit. A set of control variables are also included in the examination of the relationship. The hypotheses of interest used in this study state that the at least one of the three aspects of crime analysis is associated with lower crime rates and higher clearance rates. Through OLS regression, these hypotheses are tested by using a nationally representative of 477 police agencies with 100 or more sworn employees. The results of OLS regression indicate that the breadth of crime analysis activities are related to lower violent crime rates and higher violent, property, and total clearance rates. The number of crime analysts and the presence of crime analysis unit do not contribute to crime and clearance rates in the expected manner. This study also offers some policy implications in order to increase the quality and breadth of crime analysis activities, such as integrating crime analysis into decision-making environment of police organizations, providing training for crime analysts as well as police managers, and tapping into information-sharing networks.