Developing a Mature Public Safety and Security Analytics Capability

This chapter explores the complexities of data analytics as an critical  capability for public safety and security organizations  analytics can enable data-driven decision making, can enhance operational efficiency and effectiveness, can improve understanding of the operating environment, can facilitate risk management, can measure performance, can drive innovation and can support continuous improvement of business process and strategic outcomes. Analysis is the process of examining data, information and/or evidence to uncover patterns, trends or insights relevant to an organization’s reality. Analytics can be a critical tool used to better understand complex phenomena in an organization’s operational context. Analytics can take a systematic approach to break problems down into smaller pieces to gain a deeper understanding of the whole. Analysis can be a means to understand cause-and-effect relationships and for understanding underlying factors that affect an organization’s desired outcomes. Analysis can evaluate the effectiveness of tactics, strategies or interventions based on organizational outcomes and performance measures. Analysis can be a transformative process that turns raw data into meaningful and actionable knowledge, enabling decision makers to make informed choices. Certain aspects of analytics may have policy, regulatory, legislative constraints or implications, particularly around ethics, privacy and security of information.