Overview
036 — In this episode, I’m joined by Amanda Bruner, a crime analyst and adjunct professor with a rich background in crime analysis, intelligence, and law enforcement. We discuss how crime analysts support their organizations, key skills for success, advice for aspiring practitioners, and more.
Amanda currently works at CNA’s Center for Justice Research and Innovation, providing training and assistance to nearly two dozen U.S. law enforcement agencies. Previously, she served as the first crime analyst for the Matthews Police Department, implementing the Stratified Policing Model, and as a corporate intelligence specialist for Bank of America.
A Michigan State University graduate with criminal justice and law enforcement intelligence degrees, Amanda has contributed to publications, conferences, and podcasts on automation, dashboards, and data analytics. She also leads professional organizations as President of the International Association of Crime Analysts and the Carolinas Crime Analysis Association. Recognized with industry awards, Amanda’s impact on the field is significant, and it’s an honor to speak with her.
Don’t forget to check out the Carolinas Crime Analysis Association 2025 Annual Training Conference, March 25-28, 2025, Wilmington, North Carolina: https://www.carolinascrimeanalysis.org/page-18075
Highlights from This Episode
- Networking as a Key Career Strategy: Building strong connections is essential for career growth in crime analysis and adjunct teaching roles.
- Importance of a Portfolio: A tangible portfolio demonstrating analytical skills (e.g., dashboards, maps) is a valuable asset in interviews.
- Use Public Data for Practice: Aspiring analysts can use open data portals to create meaningful insights and showcase their initiative and skills.
- Upskilling Through Online Platforms: Platforms like Udemy and Coursera offer valuable technical training, often accompanied by mentorship or project-based learning.
- Critical Tools for Analysts: Familiarity with Esri’s ArcGIS Pro and Power BI is important for both public and private sector roles.
- Adjunct Teaching Opportunities: Networking with academic institutions, proposing new courses, and connecting with department chairs can open doors to teaching roles.
- Proposing New Academic Courses: Adjunct educators can contribute by designing courses that fill gaps in existing curricula, such as technical skills for analysts.
- Crime Analysis Fundamentals: Dr. Santos’ Crime Analysis with Crime Mapping is a recommended starting point for understanding the field’s principles and practices.
- Annual Training Opportunities: Events like the Carolina Crime Analysis Association’s conference offer exposure to advanced topics and networking.
- Engagement with Students and Younger Professionals: Amanda emphasizes the value of sharing expertise with aspiring professionals and the mutual benefits of educational roles.
Memorable Quotes:
- On Creating a Portfolio: “Showing that you can apply the skills that you’ve listed can make the difference between landing the job or not.”
- On Using Open Data in Interviews: “Most police departments have an open data portal…and if you created a very simple Power BI dashboard, it not only shows your initiative, but it also demonstrates your skills.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Books:
- Crime Analysis with Crime Mapping by Dr. Rachel Santos
- Modern Policing Using ArcGIS Pro by Dr. Eric Pisa
- Websites:
- Training Courses:
- Courses on Udemy
- Courses on Coursera (e.g., projects that provide or require sourcing data)
- Topics for Exploration:
- Open Data Portals (from police departments and public entities)
- Public crime-related datasets
- Professional Organizations:
- Carolina’s Crime Analysis Association (Annual Training Conference in Wilmington, NC)
- Technology/Tools:
- Esri’s ArcGIS Pro
- Power BI
- Events/Conferences:
- Carolina’s Crime Analysis Association Annual Conference (March, Wilmington, NC)
Use CONTROL + F to search the transcript below if you want to learn more!
Transcript from this episode
*Note: this transcript was generated using automated software, and may not be a perfect transcription. But I hope you find it useful.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Security Student Podcast...
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It's an honor to be on.
Speaker 1: Of course. So I like to start some of these conversations with like a fun hypothetical that I could throw at you. And I think it'll be interesting to get your input too, since you have such broad experience working as an educator, working as an analyst, even working with professional organizations. So I was curious, like, if you could imagine that you had a magic wand and this wand gives you the power to change any one thing about the security and risk industry, what would you change and why? And maybe you have your educator hat on, maybe you have your analyst hat on. I'm curious to learn what you would change and why with that magic wand. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So I would say that I want to see data people doing data things. So what I mean by that is coming from the public sector, I've often seen analysts hired for their expertise, but assigned unrelated tasks. That might be handling general administrative work in Excel because they know how to use a computer, printing banners with a plotter, even if that's for a party because that's normally used for a map, or creating social media content, again, because that analyst might be really adept at creating different visualizations.
And they're kind of given these unrelated tasks just because they can do them. And I really want to see analysts be empowered to focus on their true expertise. And so within that, I think that hiring individuals with that specialized skill set is crucial. Training can bridge gaps, but there's a reason that specialized roles exist and why roles are defined. So I would say see data people do data things.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's so common for, yeah, for many security roles out there to end up getting responsibilities that aren't necessarily related, but we know that they could do them really well. Like it's funny you mentioned, like, of course, data people are going to know how to do all the things in Excel. So being able to send them a spreadsheet and say, hey, can you help me create a visual for this? Or can you help me analyze this or format this?
That's, that's really funny. And I think that also gets back to really just like the way that security professionals describe the work that they're doing and how they can sell that to management and executive staff, which I think is like its own big project in itself. And then also like a personal project for security professionals just to become better communicators, but also adult, it can't just be the analyst too. We need to develop that in our managers and our leadership so that they could sell the specialization and the experience and what those specialized roles can do for the organization. So I do think that's, that's a really fascinating insight.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I agree exactly with what you said. And I think that recognizing these positions for what they are is key to their integration within various organizations. Yeah, I could definitely see that.
Speaker 1: And Amanda, I was curious, could you tell us a little bit about the role that you play in your organization today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So I work in CNA's Center for Justice Research Innovation. I serve as a crime analysis advisor supporting the crime analyst in residence, project safe neighborhoods, and public safety partnership grant programs.
Those are federally funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. So in my role, I provide crime analysis training and technical assistance, we call it TTA, to about two dozen law enforcement agencies across the US. And these agencies range from small and mid-sized departments. I think my smallest agency was about 35 sworn all the way up to large urban organizations with thousands of sworn individuals. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, that work sounds so interesting. And for the people that you're training, what are typical projects that they would work on for their organizations? Or what are some of the key areas that they support, for example, something like public safety? Could you share a little bit about that? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So essentially what I do just about every week is to travel to different law enforcement agencies to provide that TTA. But that TTA typically has two parts to it. So many of these visits involve conducting crime analysis capacity assessments, where I work alongside other subject matter experts to interview department members about their use of analysis. So we then compile reports that summarize their current practices and then provide strategic recommendations to enhance their analytical capabilities at that agency. So the core component of my job then is to assist with implementing these recommendations to ensure meaningful improvements.
So my area of technical expertise includes extracting and integrating data from disparate sources, automating workflows, and creating models and tools like Power BI, ArcGIS, and so forth to support analysis. So what I train them on is how to extract data from the police databases, how to clean that data, how to create visualizations with it, and then how to produce actual analytical products, such as repeat incident reports, patterns, problems, and so forth. So essentially what the goal is is to help those analysts learn how to produce these products that identify people and places that are disproportionately responsible for crime and calls for service within the jurisdiction. So we're trying to provide insights to commanders to institute problem-solving strategies. So whether that's where patrols should be directed, whether that's linking cases for investigators, whether that's identifying addresses where we're seeing escalation in domestic violence, and so forth. The goal is to kind of identify those gaps in the agency, make those recommendations, and then provide the training to fill in those gaps.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And as you're talking, one thing that stood out to me was how you talk about trying to identify people and places where you tend to find that crime. So as a consultant, I've worked with many organizations, public, private, and it's really interesting when you get to interact with some of the people in the operations center, whether it's private or public, and you get to see the vast amount of security resources that they might be managing and coordinating, and then all of the security systems that are feeding them data. They have their intrusion detection, they have their video surveillance, they have their officers out there in the field, they have a team of intel analysts. So you're just, and then of course, all the incident reporting that's going to be coming from the field personnel, from the people working in the operations center. So for me, like trying to zoom out and think about, hey, how could we use, like you mentioned, all of this disparate data coming from people, coming from technology, coming from video analytics, how could we use all of this to understand our organization when it comes to where threats and incidents are originating from, when it comes to how we could better deploy resources, how we could better coordinate field personnel and the operations center. It just seems like that's a huge task that having a specialized person who could analyze the data, clean it, and develop meaningful insights, how that could be a huge contributor. And then I imagine also could probably save a lot of money and of course, improve safety and security.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And there is so much data to go through. And that's why a lot of the skills as an analyst and that expertise is important. And so not only are we looking at internal data sources, like I mentioned, arrest reports, calls for service when a police officer is dispatched, incident reports for offenses and so forth, but we're also working to combine social media information. We're looking at call detail records that come back in search warrants. We're looking through social media and license plate readers and so many other sources.
And so you're trying to identify and connect the dots between these, right? So if we have a particular individual who is driving up crime or is responsible for a series within that jurisdiction, we want to know more about them. We want to know kind of their pattern of life. We want to know some of their contacts. So it kind of combines both that traditional crime analysis space, as well as some of those intelligence resources.
Speaker 1: I see. Yeah. And I think another big contributor there could be, especially as like, well, really for any organization, is just going to be able to have a tangible way to communicate the successes of the security and risk team, whether that's in the implementation of new technologies or making policy changes or any number of these factors to really show the successes of security and also being able to speak to the value that security is bringing, especially as you make changes in the organization, whether it's policy, whether it's resources. So I can see that being a really important factor when it comes to management being able to speak to very tangible successes of, hey, we increased resources here and this is the ROI that we got. So I could see that being a really important point, too.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Generating buy-in is critical. If you're trying to integrate a new crime analyst or crime analysis unit into the agency, we often kind of run into this problem that we call the crime analysis black hole where maybe products are put out but not necessarily used. There's not necessarily that feedback loop to help improvement and fixing that, identifying those wins, identifying the links of how analysis supports some of those end results is really key in creating that buy-in and institutionalizing analysis in the organization.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And as I think about some of those responsibilities, it makes me curious, could you share a little bit about some of the important competencies or specific skills that make someone successful in that role? Because so far, one that stands out to me is going to be, of course, there's the technical stuff and then it's also being able to, I guess, in a concise way, make sense of all that information and present it to executives in a meaningful way. But could you share a little bit about some of those competencies and those skills that are essential for a crime analyst?
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So I would say that your spot on as it relates to some of those technical skills, you need to be able to understand a relational database. You need to be able to read a database schema and understand how the tables relate to each other. From there, you then need to be able to query and clean that data. And what I mean by that is no police department out there is going to hand you a perfectly clean Excel file. It's going to be your responsibility to pull data from those various sources, prepare it for analysis. And police data is messy, just like any data out there.
There's inconsistent address formats, a lack of fixed fields, and other issues like trailing spaces or capitalization or whatever it may be. So once we've got that data out and cleaned it and so forth, then we need to visualize it. So whether you're creating maps or dashboards, charts, whatever, you have to be able to effectively visualize that data to uncover insights.
And crime analysis is really about going beyond what you know about patterns and problems to uncover what you don't know. This is about telling a story. You need to be able to kind of communicate those insights. And I'm not saying necessarily put together a 30 page report.
We want to be able to condense that information down, have this package that we can send out to patrol officers, investigators, commanders, and so forth that they can act on. I want to be able to give them something they can read, develop a response, and implement that response. And so within that kind of realm, I think obviously the technical skills are important. But just as much are kind of the public speaking skills, critical thinking, some of those soft skills when we talk about the communication of those insights.
So you have to be able to advocate for yourself, be able to present that material concisely, and so forth in order to help generate that bind, in order to help them be able to understand and utilize the products that you create.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one thing that I was thinking about as you were talking, when you talk about telling stories with it, there was a book that I there's a book that I had to read in my grad program called Storytelling with Data. I think it was by some data analyst from Google. And it was really fascinating.
Like the book was so, the book was super non technical, but it gave so many interesting ideas when it comes to presenting information to stakeholders or creating visuals, just from the perspective of an end user keeping things simple to get your point across. So I do think that's, like you mentioned, that's definitely one really critical skill. And I think in security or like any niche technical profession, it's easy to kind of assume that the audience you're talking to has a similar perspective as you, or that they're going to look at things in the same way. But it's so critical to understand the perspective of the specific audience you're talking to and being able to take all of the hours and hours of research that you did and just put it in a very succinct, meaningful way to the audience. Exactly.
Speaker 2: I actually had that conversation with a few analysts that I was on site with this week. And we were talking about, we could always make a map, say that map shows bank robberies or something within a particular time frame. The traditional way that that would have been disseminated would have been as a PDF, which is perfectly fine. We could have points on a map, we can have labels, we can have different colors and so forth. But what if we took that and instead created a web page or an interactive dashboard or a story map using Esri ArcGIS online? And then it allowed the end user to click a link to a URL, scroll through, and then interact with the map, zooming in, zooming out, opening pop-ups, reading information.
Maybe there's a video that goes along with it. How does that end user experience differ? And that interaction is again, hopefully kind of going to get them into that analysis a little bit more and have it be used. And that's where it all really goes back to that storytelling concept. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I feel like as security professionals, we can never go wrong trying to put ourselves in the perspective of the end user, whoever that is, whether it's us designing a system in the operation center, whether it's us creating a product, like a product, a PDF, an interactive page that's going to go out, you can really never go wrong when you try to put yourself in that person's perspective. And that makes me think to Amanda, are there any specific, are there any specific technology programs that you think it's useful for, let's say there's someone out there who's interested in crime analysis, maybe they're still in school right now. Are there any interest, are there any specific technology programs that you think are useful for someone to gain experience in as they prepare for that type of career? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So I would kind of put that into three different buckets that I recommend. So every agency that I work with has a records management system that is holds their incident reports. And those systems vary. But being able to use some type of tool to query that data. And a lot of times, even though it's maybe not the most modern tool, we do use Microsoft Access for a lot of that, because ultimately these agencies have fixed budgets.
Microsoft Access is freely available with their Microsoft licenses. And just about every agency has that. So that's a pretty common tool. Obviously Excel, working on pivot tables, nested functions, so much more. Power BI has really been growing. The crime analysis space used to heavily focus on Tableau. But Tableau is a lot more expensive than Power BI.
So we're starting to see Power BI really be kind of the primary topic of a lot of training recently. And then the third bucket, so I've got Excel Access, I've got Power BI, and then that third bucket would probably be ArcGIS or some other type of mapping platform. There's an open source version called QGIS.
There's a couple other programs out there. But the mapping and spatial analysis piece, right? So if I look at a table of data, that's great. But if I want to visualize that data on a map and across a particular area of the United States or something like that, I'm going to want one of those mapping tools. So those are kind of the three areas that I really recommend and are kind of the core pieces that I use in my day-to-day job.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah. And I imagine there's probably many courses out there on Udemy, Coursera. I'm sure there's a number of free courses too that give you a lot of step-by-steps and tutorials on how to develop your skills in these areas. Is that about right? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: You hit the nail on the head. A lot of my learning has been hands-on, so I've developed it on the job, trying to solve problems or shadowing other subject matter experts, but I've also invested a lot of time in those online courses. So as you mentioned, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy, those have really helped me build those technical skills and stay updated on new tools.
I did one through Coursera and I learned about Tableau and R and things like that. That's all really, really helpful and it's also incredibly affordable. Maybe not as affordable are some of the programs through some different universities, bootcamps. I completed a series of professional courses for mapping through Northeastern University and I've done some Microsoft bootcamps for some of their certifications. There are some online training tutorials and so forth that go along with those Microsoft certifications as well, but there's a lot of those resources. But really, it's a combination of that practical experience, that continuous self-education, and then some of those formal courses that have helped me develop those skills. And those are what I would really recommend to anyone growing in this field, looking to enter this field and so on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point too because it all can't be just Udemy and doing projects on a computer. Of course, you need to get out there and do practical projects to develop experience, work with other professionals to try to learn from their years and years of experience. And that makes me get back to you, Amanda. I also wanted to ask you more about your career. So, was there anything in particular that inspired you to get involved in crime analysis? What led you down that path?
Speaker 2: Yes. So, my journey into this realm was shaped by both some academic and personal influences. So, I earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and a master's degree in law enforcement intelligence and analysis from Michigan State University. And during those studies, people would often ask, what are you going to do when you grow up? What's your career path going to be? And oftentimes, that was, do you want to be a cop or do you want to be a lawyer?
And I considered both of those at different points when I was studying and I realized during an internship with a police department that my strengths were better suited to work behind the desk rather than on the street. And so, a pivotal moment came when I spoke with one of my cousins and he was an analyst for the state of Ohio. And he kind of started sharing some information about what his data they looked like. And that kind of started opening my eyes about what analysis was in an agency.
I didn't really know that this was an option. And later, I was fortunate enough to gain an incredible mentor at the Michigan State University Police Department. And their analyst, she introduced me to the fundamentals of crime analysis and helped solidify my passion.
So, she showed me how to get data out, how to analyze that data, what products looked like, how to talk to command, all those different things. So, that was kind of really what led me to where I am. And it's just been a journey ever since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could definitely relate. Like, I've had, I think, ever since I was pretty young, I always had an interest in security and law enforcement and, you know, all of these different things. And I think similar to you, my experience was, okay, like, go get experience working in the field, like being the person with being the person with a duty belt with all the gear on it, doing residential security, or being the person who's out driving or working security at special events and all that sort of thing. And I think really what I found was that, yeah, my, I was going to make my most meaningful contribution not being at the field, like out in the field. Instead, it would be, yeah, behind a desk or doing consulting work or in some of these different areas, not necessarily being that person out there who's going to be responding to emergencies and incidents. So, yeah, I think that's a really important lesson for us to learn in our careers too. It's, hey, where are we best suited for and where are we going to make the most valuable contribution and how are we going to use, like, some of these innate skills that we learn that we have?
Continuing on. So, Amanda, could you share a little bit about how your career progressed? Like you mentioned, some of your early work, being able to learn some of the fundamental skills from some of your colleagues, whether it was through internships and some of that work. Could you share a little bit about what your career path has looked like leading up to today? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So, before joining CNA, I established the first crime analysis program for the Matthews Police Department in North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. And during my tenure there, I basically spearheaded proactive crime reduction efforts through stratified policing, which is an accountability model.
And I worked on automated reporting and developed action-oriented products to support evidence-based strategies. So, essentially, I assisted the criminal investigation division and I analyzed call detail records, Google data returns and other data sources to develop link charts, offender workups and more. So, it was a little bit of both crime and intelligence analysis while I was there. And prior to that, I worked as a corporate intelligence specialist for Bank of America. So, a lot of my responsibilities there was open source investigations and monitoring activity at the time, specifically in Hong Kong for potential impact to financial centers during some of the protests that were occurring at the time. And then, I also, prior to that, served as a part-time crime and intelligence analyst for the Michigan State University Police Department that I mentioned previously. I set out as an intern there and then became a part-time employee.
So, that was really exciting. And then on the side, outside of the traditional work environment, I served as an agent criminal justice professor concentrating in crime analysis for Bradford University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. And then, I am also the president of both the Carolina Crime Analysis Association and the International Association of Crime Analysis. So, I basically say I breathe, live, sleep, crime analysis. I climb out of one job and into another or into another activity that revolves around crime analysis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned those professional organizations. And I feel like for me, one really important lesson in my career was to get more involved with professional organizations, whether that's joining a technical working group or contributing on a board or even if it's just showing up to the events, being able to talk with speakers, see lectures, shake hands with other experienced professionals, attend the cocktail hours. For me, it was a really important lesson of how much you could learn and how important it is to develop a network at those professional organizations. So, I hope also some of the younger people that are getting into security, I hope they could also understand that getting out to some of those social events and meeting other experienced professionals that you could learn from, that you can also help, that you could call upon in the future, just how important developing that network is for their career.
Speaker 2: I completely agree. I would say that many of my closest friendships started as professional connections that I made through those activities, through conferences, seminars and so forth. And beyond just building those relationships, networking really opens the door to opportunities you may not expect. So, the people you meet can be instrumental in your career growth and in connecting you to roles or products down the line that you can't even imagine. You may meet somebody at a conference, you may go to their presentation, they become a mentor. Somebody may come to your presentation and then next thing you know, they're messaging you and saying, hey, let's collaborate on this project. You just really never know what doors are going to be opened down the line. And there's just such a great network out there to be able to kind of understand career opportunities, what other people are working on, be able to brainstorm, benchmark kind of what you have and so forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree. There's, of course, learning the more technical stuff, being able to benchmark, learning about what trends your peers are seeing. And then, like you mentioned, there's just the unknown of how useful some of these interactions and these connections can be for you. I know thinking back several years ago, I had written some silly article on LinkedIn and then someone ended up reaching out. We had like a long conversation about like a business that they were starting and then it ended up being a really cool job opportunity.
So it's very funny how some of these, you know, just some of these, I don't know, unpredictable events and connections can turn into things that are so meaningful. And then continuing on, so Amanda, thinking about any aspiring professionals out there who are interested in doing work as a criminal, as a crime analyst, what advice would you like to share with someone who's pursuing a similar role?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say kind of a piece of advice. So we talked about networking. I think that's really huge. I think it's incredibly important. I also recommend aspiring professionals to create a portfolio just to complement your resume. Showing that you can apply the skills that you've listed can make the difference between landing the job or not. And a well-prepared portfolio can demonstrate your capabilities in a tangible way. So you might be able to sit there in an interview and talk about a particular project you worked on or so forth.
But if you were able to pull up on the screen, something and walk through that, walk through that with them, or if you had a binder with some different pages and so forth. A piece of advice that a couple of colleagues and I always tell aspiring analysts specifically is that most police departments have an open data portal or someplace where they kind of provide data that doesn't include PII to the public. And if you walk into an interview and you have that data and you created a very simple Power BI dashboard, you made a map with their own data, that really not only shows your initiative, but it also demonstrates your skills. And that's something where they can sit there and say, wow, that's helpful. That's something I don't currently have. I want to hire you so I can see more of that.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's such a cool idea. Yeah, that's not something I had considered. And I imagine whether it's someone doing public work or even interested in private work as an intel analyst, still that would be a really cool example that you could add to your portfolio of taking public data so it's not anything that's private, proprietary, being able to take public data and generate meaningful insights from it. So you're using real world information and you're able to speak to it and illustrate your insights when it comes to a job interview. I think that's an amazing idea that people could use whether they're interviewing on the public side or the private side. I really like that advice.
Speaker 2: Yes, and there's some of those courses on Udemy and Coursera that kind of help you with almost a capstone project per se. Some of them provide you data, some of them have you go out and get data, but some of the courses on there will also have mentors available that you can work alongside as you develop something. And those can be very tangible to then be able to take on to an interview and so forth.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. Yeah, I hope people out there will go and explore some of those open data sources. And then even outside of crime or like local state, even out of that type of crime, there are other really meaningful databases out there around gun violence and so many other things. So I imagine there's really a whole gamut of different types of data that one could analyze depending on what they think their prospective employer might be interested in.
So I think that's a really cool idea there. And also, Amanda, when it comes to your work as an educator, if there's other people out there in the audience, maybe they're similar to you where they have years of experience and they have a big interest in helping younger professionals or students out there, what advice would you have for someone that wants to get involved as an adjunct professor? I mean, just general advice for someone out there who's interested in maybe just like you, they have their day job or they do all their very technical work, but they're also interested in branching out and being able to share their expertise with students at, let's say, like a local university. Is there any advice you would have for someone like that? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I think that that really honestly goes back to the entire networking concept. So I've, as I mentioned, I teach for Radford University as well as the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. And both of those roles I happened upon because of my network. Both times it was someone that knew what I was working on at an agency and said, hey, I think that this would be a great opportunity and put me in contact with the university. And I was able to apply into that.
Obviously, there are periodic postings and there's open pools that will go on LinkedIn and various different websites. But I would really encourage people to connect directly with some of those individuals that work for the institution. So reaching out to the chairs of the criminal justice department, understanding some of the courses that are offered, even proposing new courses. I have been really impressed with some different academic institutions and their willingness to take proposals for new courses.
So for example, I'm working with my colleague, Charlie Chiburdi, right now on some advanced technical skills and workflows for analysts at Michigan State University. And it's a new course. It's a special topics course.
And a lot of those are taught by adjuncts. And so I think that that has a lot of opportunity. But I really think that that networking piece is critical. Reaching out, establishing that relationship and then having that conversation is likely to go a bit farther than just kind of applying blind into the adjunct role. Just because there is obviously some expectations there, right? We're trying to help these students graduate when they're hiring someone in that doesn't have teaching experience. Realistically, they're going to probably want to have some history with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a very good point. As far as having experience as a teacher, as an educator, but also, I do really appreciate your insights there when it comes to, like you mentioned, being able to leverage your network, whether that's with professional organizations or at some of the different conferences and trade shows. And then also, like you mentioned, being able to get out there and connect with people who are such as the criminal, such as chairs on a criminal justice group within the school, and being able to connect with some of those educators directly. And that is a really cool idea too that you mentioned, of being able to propose a new course.
I think that's really fascinating as well. That's something I wish I could do in the future too. So maybe I'll reach out and ask you for more advice there too. I think that would be amazing if I could help at a local university, whether it's, I mean, even like a community college or something else like that.
I think that would be a really cool experience just to work more with students. So thank you. I think that's awesome advice. Sure thing. And then also, Amanda, of course, I have to ask, are there any books that you've found yourself recommending most over the years to some of your peers? Like what are some of the ones that stand out to you? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I would say that I often recommend two key books. The first is Crime Analysis with Crime Mapping by Dr. Rachel Santos. This text basically offers kind of a comprehensive introduction into the principles and practice of crime analysis. So it's going to tell you what it is, how it's conducted, what crime analysis products look like, what crime analysis is in an agency, types of crime analysis, and so forth. So it's really that great piece to kind of understand the profession a bit more. And it even talks about career development in there and things like that.
The second is on more of the technical side. So we've talked about some of those Udemy, Coursera classes, but a book that I really like to recommend that is kind of on that technical side is Modern Policing Using ArcGIS Pro. And this is by Dr. Eric Pisa. And this book basically provides an overview of Esri products with step-by-step instructions.
So the book goes along with an online repository that has different data sources that you refer to, but it's an instructional, it's a step-by-step process. And I think it's important to note that when I look both at public sector jobs as well as private sector jobs, Esri is really a product that analysts use in both spaces. And so I think that that's really a critical skill to have. And that book is really great with some of those step-by-step instructions.
Speaker 1: Very cool. And I will definitely list those and the resources once I post the show notes. So just look for those, everyone. And then also Amanda, we've touched on so many topics so far, but are there any additional topics before we wrap up that maybe you had a burning desire to talk about or anything else that you think maybe we skipped over that the audience would be interested in?
Speaker 2: So I'd like to take this opportunity for a shameless plug. Of course. The Carolina's Crime Analysis Association will be hosting its annual training conference this March in Wilmington, North Carolina, right on the beach. And the conference will include workshops on relational databases, creating paginated reports, call detail record analysis. There's going to be presentations on critical thinking and intelligence, courtroom testimony, open source investigative techniques, how to use AI and chat GPT in your analysis to write code, and so much more. So this event is open to analysts and investigators from both the public and private sectors. We've had attendees from Walmart, Truist, Racetrack and all sorts in past years in addition to law enforcement.
And so we're looking for a similar crowd this year, and based on the registrations we have so far, it looks like it will be pretty consistent. So I would just encourage all listeners out there to learn more and to register, you can visit carolinacrimeanalysis.org. And there's more information on our website about it and some of the different opportunities for the association.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That sounds like an awesome opportunity to be able to network, to sit through some really interesting talks, and then also you mentioned some really big organizations too. So being able to talk with people like that and learn how to be able to learn what their crime analysts are doing in some of those private and public organizations.
So it sounds like an awesome opportunity. And I will definitely link to that in the show notes as well. So Amanda, we got to talk about some really interesting stuff today about how your career developed, about the work that you do as an educator, how those aspiring professionals out there who are interested in crime analysis, how they can get started with being involved in some of the professional organizations, being able to get some experience with some of those technical tools.
And then also even learning about some of the less technical stuff like getting out there to networking events so that you can learn from other experienced professionals that are around you. So yeah, I really appreciate you joining, Amanda. And before you go, can you give us, can you let listeners know how they could get in contact with you or how they could follow your social posts and other projects that you're up to? Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So I always encourage people to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm sure that you'll put that in the show notes as well. And then anybody is welcome to email me. My email is Amanda K. Brunner at gmail.com.
And I'm always happy to set up Zoom Calls to talk through these topics more, send you resources and just about anything else. And my email is also listed on LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome. Yeah, so anyone out there who's interested in crime analysis or really wants to talk to someone with deep knowledge in that area, definitely get to the show notes. And then I'll have Amanda's LinkedIn info there. And you could go ahead and follow her on LinkedIn and then follow some of her colleagues doing similar work. So I think that'll be very informative. So Amanda, I really appreciate your time today. This was all fantastic content.
And I think a lot of the professionals out there who were unfamiliar with crime analysis or even those who are interested in a future career as a crime analyst, I think they'll be able to get some ton, a ton of great info out of this. So I really appreciate your time, Amanda. Perfect.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. And that concludes today's episode...
