Criminal Law: An Analysis of Analytics in Digital Policing Strategies

This report provides an overview of the use of analytics in digital policing, examining its benefits and challenges within the context of criminal law. It discusses how digital policing, including the use of technology by the Metropolitan Police, enhances crime reporting, data sharing, and the efficiency of law enforcement. The report highlights the role of analytics in improving data integration, forecasting capabilities, and workforce efficiency. It also addresses the threats of cybercrime and data theft while proposing solutions for managing the digital policing system through analytics, digital investigations, and collaboration. The analysis emphasizes the importance of innovation in governmental service delivery and the positive impact of analytics on crime prevention and community safety, supported by references to relevant research and policy documents.

Running Head: Criminal Law
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“Use of Analytics in Digital Policing”
Digital Policing refers to the technology function of the Metropolitan Police of London that
focuses on providing effective information technology services to the people present within
current financial constraints. Digital policing helps the Met in providing best possible
technological experience to people from the end of police officers and provide a safe living to
such people. This type of technology provides the opportunity to people to report the crime
through various channels and carry out routine transactions online only (Bryant 2016). The fact
should be noted that the importance of technology is increasing due to which it is becoming more
crucial for the police of the country to make use such strategies to increase the level of safety of
people and become available for them in need. The National Police Chief Council believes that
digital policing is important in the today’s environment as it creates a digital format on which all
the information is stored and shared about the criminal justice system of the country. The digital
policing process will help the people to reach to police fast and it will also help the police to
eliminate paperwork and tampering of the official records as well (Bryant 2016).
Use of digital intelligence by the police will help the people to reach out for help through their
phone itself that will eliminate several crimes if they are reported immediately. Secondly,
transferring of all the materialistic information in the criminal justice system will help the
officials to easily get access to crucial information and save them from tampering as well
(Brayne 2017).
Further, the fact should be noted that use of analytics in the digital policing system would help
the Mets in increasing the efficiency of their work. The analytics system will help in improving
data sharing and integration process to establish the joint technological solution. This system will
also help the agencies to transfer the learning information between each other and gain access to
crucial information as well. The analytics in digital policing helps the officials to effectively
work together according to the embed evidence based practice and use the guidance of partners
like academia and College of Policing (Tong 2017).
This system helps the police to communicate across all forms of public contacts and understand
the wide ranging issues of the public as well. With the help of analytics, new technologies and
social media are implied in the policing system and efficiency is attained. The digital policing

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system helps in significantly forecasting the capabilities and proactively working on them as
well. With the help of this type of system, the organization gets to improve the capabilities of the
workforce as well. Analytics in digital policing helps the Met to eliminate several issues faced by
them on a regular basis and increase the efficiency of their working as well (Patton, et. al., 2017).
Through this process, a common methodology is developed that recognises different types of
threats for the people and make them aware regarding the same. This type of system brings
together several people at a common position and makes them work towards a common motive
as well. Thus, it can be seen that by using the analytics process, critical skills among people is
developed that helps them in serving the communities in a better way and achieving the goal
efficiently as well. Today, innovation is required in every field but sadly, this fact is not
understood by most of the people and organizations resulting in which, the services delivery
becomes inefficient (Dencik, et. al., 2015). However, introduction of digital analytics in the
policing system has given new edge to the governmental service delivery process.
However, digital policing also faces several complications in external environment. Anything
that is related to the information technology industry automatically adopts the threat of data theft
and cybercrime. Similarly, the Mets also faces such challenges in the external environment while
implementing the digital policing strategies. The degree of threat increases when the information
technology strategies are linked with the policing practices as the leakage or tampering of crucial
information stored on the cloud can drastically affect the interest of several people in the external
environment. Also, it is crucial to note that the digital system also backs up the case with several
proofs, video clips and evidences that helps in solving the case (Accenture 2019).
However, if the site is blocked or tampered then it can create a delay in presenting the crucial
information in the court that can subsequently increase the time period of closure of a case. Thus,
it is keen to note that just like several benefits; the system has its own issues as well.
Nevertheless, there are ways to manage the digital policing system using the analytics process.
The analytics system will reach out towards people and communicate with them digitally online.
The system will make use of information shared by the people keeping in mind their interest and
consent as well. The policing system will work digitally, but it will also initiate the officials to
maintain optimum traditional public contact so that they can easily trust on digital policing and
rely on them as well (MET Police 2017). Secondly, analytics will also help in gathering

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information about the victims, offenders and location quickly, which will make them more
responsive. Such revert of the police will scare the people to commit any kind of crime in the
external environment. Developing digital investigation will provide solid proof to the cases and
will square them in no time. Collaborating through analytics will reduce the threat of cybercrime
as the site would be backed up by several other sources as well. Lastly, it should be noted that
the analytics process in digital policing will accelerate the implementation process by identifying
and driving the key solutions as well (NPCC 2019). Thus, it should be noted that with the help of
analytics in digital policing, the officials could eliminate the degree of crime and increase the
prosperity as well.

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References
Accenture., (2019) Digital policing powered by analytics [online]. Retrieved from <
https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-57/Accenture-Public-Safety-Analytics-Delivering-
Actionable-Public-Safety-Insights.pdf> [Accessed on 25 Jul. 19].
Brayne, S., 2017. Big data surveillance: The case of policing. American Sociological
Review, 82(5), pp.977-1008.
Bryant, R. ed., 2016. Policing digital crime. UK: Routledge.
Bryant, R., 2016. Policing Digital Crime: the International and Organisational Context.
In Policing Digital Crime (pp. 129-140). Routledge.
Dencik, L., Hintz, A., Carey, Z. and Pandya, H., 2015. Managing'threats': uses of social media
for policing domestic extremism and disorder in the UK.
MET Police., (2017) ONE MET Digital Policing Strategy 2017-2020 [online]. Retrieved from <
https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/met/about-us/one-met-digital-
policing-strategy-2017-2020.pdf> [Accessed on 25 Jul. 19].
NPCC., (2019) Policing Vision 2025 [online]. Retrieved from <
https://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/Policing%20Vision.pdf> [Accessed on 25 Jul. 19].
Patton, D.U., Brunton, D.W., Dixon, A., Miller, R.J., Leonard, P. and Hackman, R., 2017. Stop
and frisk online: theorizing everyday racism in digital policing in the use of social media for
identification of criminal conduct and associations. Social Media+ Society, 3(3),
p.2056305117733344.
Tong, S., 2017, November. Professionalising policing: seeking viable and sustainable approaches
to police education and learning. In European Police Science and Research Bulletin-Special
Conference Edition (No. 2017, pp. 171-178). CEPOL.