ABSTRACT
A few years ago, Herman Goldstein (2003) identified a pressing need for better-trained crime analysts to implement problem-oriented policing and develop intelligence-led policing. The police analysis business is changing rapidly, and new analysts now often come into the crime intelligence field with backgrounds not in criminology but in other disciplines such as geography (Clarke 2004). This is partly an indictment of the quality of much criminological training – a problem based in the unwillingness of mainstream criminology to embrace a research agenda for both policy and practice that is evidence-based (Bradley et al. 2006: 173) – and is also reflective of the range of skills necessary to interpret the criminal environment of today. The 3-i model argues that this analytical stage is only one of three symbiotic conceptual parts of the business model of intelligence-led policing. However, the decisions made in the interpret phase dominate the rest of the model. Analysis and the accurate interpretation of the criminal environment are essential to intelligence-led policing and crime control.
