6 Months Later

It has been a long time since my last blog. My excuse is that I've been too busy. I purposely used the word excuse rather than reason, because 'being too busy' just sounds like an excuse.

As some of you who might read this blog now around 6 months ago I started a new job. It has been enjoyable, but it has been very hard work. In April of this year I started work as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst working for Greater Manchester Police. So far it has been a steep learning curve and I know I have still got a long way to go. I'm beginning to get into my stride and so the stress levels have dropped. Consequently I've got a bit more time on my hands. So I'm going to try and blog again!

As I am talking about my new job, I might as well continue the theme. So what exactly is a Criminal Intelligence Analyst? This is generally how my day goes...

I get in the office around 7am to the chimes of the Elvis wall clock. One of my colleagues collects wall clocks. There are around 10 scattered around the room, each showing a slightly different time. Then are clocks ranging from a Steven Segal clock to a clock that works backwards. There are two clocks that chime on the hour. First to go is the Looney Tunes clock, followed about 5 seconds later by the Elvis clock. The clock plays a few Elvis style guitar riffs and then Elvis words a different phrase each hour. I have to say that Elvis has a very short working day; he leaves the building at 2pm each day.

Once settled at my desk with a coffee and Elvis has had his say, I get on with my work. I have to plot any new offences that have occurred overnight on a map. I look at two weeks worth of data on the map, and clearly mark the overnight offences. Any hotspot areas will be analysed in detail to look for common MO's or any offender descriptions.

Once this is done I will use the data from within the hotspot area and look for peak times. The peak times are very important because they will be used to help with resourcing police staff in the local area. All this information is then passed on to Local Intelligence Officers (LIO's) who will add any recent intelligence that has been gathered and post all information to a bulletin website on the intranet. Once this has is complete I can move on to any other analysis work that I have been tasked with.

All the analysis work that I do is based on the National Intelligence Model (NIM). The NIM is ‘A Model for Policing’ that ensures that information is fully researched, developed and analysed to provide intelligence that senior managers can use to provide strategic direction, make tactical resourcing decisions about operational policing and manage risk. For those interested I will go in to this in greater detail in future posts.

For now I think that is enough for my re-entry back into the world of blogging.