You want me to calculate what?
All those years of math class will finally come in handy as a crime analyst. It is important to be on your toes when it comes to math problems because they are around every corner in this field. Math dilemmas include everything from calculating response times to figuring out how many seconds a year someone spent on a call -- having a quick answer to these issues will help the entire team move forward on a case.
In this course you are going to practice the basic statistical operations a crime analyst would likely be called on to compute. Regardless of which type of analyst you are (tactical or administrative), you will have to draw on your killer math skills frequently while on the job. You will even use them to predict human behavior when you do crime forecasting.
As a strategic analyst, you will also need to be up on your math skills. Although it may sound daunting, the tools have already been created for you in the form of widely used statistical formulas. In order to be a successful analyst, it is vital to learn how to use these formulas. Narrating your interpretation of crime data will be part of your job, so whether or not you like math isn’t the issue -- you just have to know how to use it. One can never over-emphasize the importance of understanding the statistical portion of crime analysis.
This course teaches students how to calculate basic statistics, identify situations where statistics are used in crime analysis and discuss possible ethical conflicts that can arise from manipulation of statistics.