{"id":11706,"date":"2022-01-05T14:18:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T14:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/?page_id=11706"},"modified":"2023-04-20T20:13:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T20:13:13","slug":"upstate-crime-analysis-center-michele-covington","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/upstate-crime-analysis-center-michele-covington\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Byte Out of Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nUp Magazine<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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New USC Upstate center helps improve policing through data analysis.<\/h2>\n
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Michele Covington, director of the Upstate Crime Analysis Center, works with student intern Kaelyn Scurry at the Greenville campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
When a community experiences a crime spike, examining data to determine where, when and why the incidents are occurring is often the first step in finding a solution. The job of reviewing that data falls to a crime analyst in large law enforcement agencies, but small departments often don\u2019t have the budget for a dedicated analyst. That\u2019s where the new Upstate Crime Analysis Center (UCAC)<\/a> hopes to have an impact.\u201cI think what\u2019s making this work is that we are taking our cue from the community and the needs of the community, because that\u2019s what our job is supposed to do,\u201d says Michele Covington, UCAC director and associate professor of criminal justice.<\/p>\n

Covington says one reason she proposed the center is she realized the region lacked the kind of collaborative and analytical space that other parts of the country have. In speaking to crime analysts in the area, she learned many felt isolated, without any way to connect to others in the field and share ideas. The university seemed like a natural environment to provide such a space, but Covington wanted to make it a little different from the regional centers she\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other places, regional crime centers are generally controlled access. They don\u2019t interact with the public in any way,\u201d says Covington. While the area of the center containing law enforcement data will be restricted, UCAC will be a place for trainings, meetings, and civilian events that help the public understand how police decision-making works, Covington says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people, when they hear crime analysis, they\u2019re thinking about forensics,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s not what it is, it\u2019s really data analysis. We\u2019re the nerds of policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once an analyst has collected and reviewed the crime data, they can look at strategies other jurisdictions have used to deal with the problem, and recommend ways to better allocate resources to address the issue, Covington explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not replacing traditional policing \u2013 you still have to respond to calls and do all those things,\u201d she says. \u201cBut you can use data to try to better understand what\u2019s happening in your area to make it safer, and make sure the policing is there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Visitors tour the Upstate Crime Analysis Center during its official opening in September.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Crime analysis classes are offered entirely online through Upstate\u2019s Greenville campus, of which Covington is the executive director, and a certificate program for non-students was added for the first time this past fall. Covington says the latter option is particularly attractive to those in law enforcement seeking additional training.<\/p>\n

The center will also be a resource for students in the criminal justice program who are interested in learning more about crime analysis or who have a concentration in that area. Senior Kaelyn Scurry, a criminal justice major, was introduced to the concentration through Covington\u2019s courses, and ended up doing a summer internship at the center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different experience from sitting in class, doing the work and listening to lectures,\u201d Scurry says. \u201cThis is hands-on experience. You get to do different trial runs, you see what works and what doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

She particularly enjoyed sitting in on meetings Covington had with members of the Highland community in Spartanburg. The neighborhood is the focus of a grant to reduce crime and improve residents\u2019 safety, and Covington is providing the data for specific areas to focus on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy having the tools and the programs that we have in the Crime Analysis Center, we\u2019re able to help them,\u201d Scurry says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about helping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to partnerships with top vendors in the crime analysis field, UCAC is equipped with powerful software tools enable the center to provide assistance in a variety of areas, including mapping and social media analysis. It\u2019s another way the center can share resources that are too costly for most small law enforcement agencies, Covington says.<\/p>\n

One of the best resources, though, is other professionals, and Covington values the shared expertise they bring through collaboration. \u201cBecause so many crime analysts are self-taught, they tend to be very generous with their knowledge and their time, because they\u2019ve been there,\u201d Covington says.<\/p>\n

So when an agency comes to UCAC with an issue, \u201cwe can say, here\u2019s what this agency, which has a comparable mission and size, did for that, and it worked or didn\u2019t work. We\u2019re just trying to connect those dots for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New USC Upstate center helps improve policing through data analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11706"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13660,"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11706\/revisions\/13660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/up.uscupstate.edu\/archive\/winter2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}