THE SEQUENCE OF ANALYSIS IN SOLVING PROBLEMS
Deborah Lamm Weisel · 2003
Abstract: Traditional crime analysis has limited utility for police problem solving. Such analysis usually involves summary reports and aggregated statistics, primarily of Part 1 crimes, providing little insight into most crime problems. Although technology and techniques such as Geographic Information Systems are increasingly used to address crime and disorder and identify trends and patterns, such methods, which focus exclusively on temporal and spatial relationships, typically lack the rich contextual variables that offer us the potential for understanding problems. These methods are useful for enumerating, establishing prevalence and identifying subsets of problems to be examined. Analysis for problem solving requires an iterative process of developing and testing provisional hypotheses, often through the collection of primary data about community problems. Meaningful analysis in problem solving requires a fundamentally different approach than the secondary analyses that dominate crime