Mark43 proudly sponsored the International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) 35th Annual Training Conference in Orlando, Florida. This premier gathering for crime analysts brought together professionals for a week of training, case studies, and collaboration. The conference spotlighted how analysts are redefining public safety by impacting operations and driving strategy.
Agencies today are under growing pressure to reduce violence, build community trust, and keep pace with rapid technology shifts. Analysts are at the center of this transformation, turning data into actionable insights. Data and analysis aren’t just tools, they are catalysts for smarter, safer, and more transparent policing.
The conference highlighted that the future of policing—and the ability of analysts to truly shape it—rests on sustained support across four pillars: culture, people, processes, and technology.
Fostering a Culture of Collaboration and Empowerment
Analysts can’t succeed in isolation; they need leaders who create space for them to ask questions, speak up, and share ideas that shape strategy. Assistant Chief Eric Gonzales of the City of Miami Police Department emphasized that collaboration begins with humility and listening. His first step as a leader was meeting with his team to hear their ideas, reinforcing that trust and buy-in come from investing in people, regardless of their rank and level in the organization.
North Miami Chief of Police Cherise Gause echoed this message, describing how embedding analysts directly into operations was a “game-changer” that transformed analysis from a reactive product into a proactive driver of decision-making. By having a seat at the table in CompStat and strategy sessions, analysts not only gained legitimacy but also helped leaders interpret the data and offered fresh perspectives on long-term trends.
Their role extends far beyond producing reports. It is about connecting people, creating feedback loops, and aligning teams around shared goals. Chiefs will always ask, “What did you do? Why? What changed?” and analysts who are part of those conversations can help agencies better understand problems and potential solutions. The most successful departments synchronize efforts between sworn officers and analysts, ensuring analysis is woven into strategy rather than left as a static product on a shelf.
Investing in Analysts to Strengthen Public Safety
The role and influence of the analyst is expanding, and agencies that invest in their analysts are reaping the benefits. Analysts are no longer seen as back-office support but as strategic partners who shape operations, inform leadership, and help drive impact. Professionalization, training, and career development were highlighted as critical to building this capacity.
Investing in analysts means more than offering technical training. It is about building career pathways and opportunities for growth and recognition, cross-training alongside sworn staff, cultivating a network to share experiences and expertise, and creating systems that preserve institutional knowledge. Analysts thrive when they have access to tools, leadership support, and training to confidently own their expertise.
Looking ahead, as AI and other technologies continue to advance, analysts will serve as the essential guardrails ensuring their responsible use. Investing in their growth is not only a matter of retention—it is what ensures that analysis remains a lasting force behind smarter, more effective policing.
Embedding Analysis into Agency Processes
Understanding a department’s processes and policies is essential for analysts to be effective. This means learning the chain of command, asking to attend key meetings, participating in ride-alongs, networking with peers, and building relationships throughout the organization. All of these provide critical insight into how the department operates, where the gaps are, and where data and analysis can add the most value.
Once analysts understand this context, they are better equipped to start shaping processes and policies, so analysis becomes part of daily operations. For example, in settings like CompStat and other briefings, analysts can make data more actionable by moving beyond simple counts or year-to-year comparisons to highlight patterns, outliers, and drivers of crime.
By presenting information in ways that facilitate collective problem-solving and point directly to key decisions and next steps, analysts strengthen the value of these meetings. Over time, this not only makes forums like CompStat more effective but also helps agencies refine their practices, so analytics are woven into everyday decision-making.
The Power of Intentional Technology, Adaptable Tools, and Accessible Data
Technology is often the centerpiece of conversations about modern policing, but the IACA community made it clear that tools alone aren’t enough. Dashboards, flexible data models, and modern analytics platforms can help analysts surface insights and share them across a department, but only if they are connected to the daily work of policing. When the right tools align with how teams operate, analysis moves from background support to the center of strategy.
Many analysts today work across a rapidly expanding mix of tools including dashboarding and mapping products, RMS and CAD systems, license plate readers, data aggregators, investigative databases, and much more. Analysts are expected to pivot between these sources quickly, self-train on new platforms, and adopt without formal support. This makes flexibility a core skill. Agencies that recognize this dynamic environment and establish strong processes to support and train analysts will be better equipped to integrate these tools effectively and transform data into meaningful, actionable intelligence.
Of course, all of this depends on one critical factor: data access. Analysts stressed that without direct access to their agency’s data such as incident, offense, arrest, and call-for-service tables, they simply cannot do their jobs. Conference speakers highlighted the importance of ensuring back-end data access, building centralized data hubs, and documenting data structures so work continues smoothly even through staff turnover.
The 2025 IACA Conference highlighted the vital role analysts play in transforming public safety, with clear themes around infrastructure and technology, data access, collaboration, and the expanding influence of the profession. When analysts are equipped with the right tools, training, processes, and support, they drive smarter strategies and safer communities.
For Mark43, this reaffirms our commitment to delivering platforms that unlock data, strengthen collaboration, and amplify the impact of analysts everywhere.
