Crime Analytics

Behind every targeted patrol or fraud investigation today sits an analyst reading patterns in the data. Crime Analytics is a one-year Ontario College Graduate Certificate at Cambrian College in Sudbury, completed in three semesters, that combines data science with intelligence analysis for law enforcement, government and financial crime work.

Semester one builds the technical base through Programming for Analytics, Foundations of Data Analytics, Structured Data Management, Statistics for Data Analytics and GIS and Data Visualization, with an introduction to crime and intelligence analysis. Semester two turns to the investigative side: Intel Theories and Application, Anatomy of Major Case Investigation, Financial Crime Risk Assessment, Professional Values and Ethics and a course on the study of terrorism, while Storytelling with Data and Advanced Stats for Analytics sharpen how you present findings to decision-makers. Anatomy of Major Case Investigation and Financial Crime Risk Assessment show how the same datasets are used when detectives and fraud teams build a case.

Throughout the Crime Analytics certificate you work hands-on with ArcGIS, Excel, Power BI, Python, R and SQL databases, mapping hot spots, cleaning case data and building dashboards. The third semester is devoted to Analytics Capstone, a seven-week project in which you apply those tools and methods to a substantial crime or intelligence problem and present the results as a professional analyst would.

Graduates work as crime analysts, intelligence analysts, fraud analysts, compliance analysts, forensic data analysts and security analysts with police services, government agencies, banks and insurers. The certificate suits diploma and degree holders from justice, policing, business or computing backgrounds who like numbers, maps and puzzles and want to turn data into evidence that shapes investigations.