Analyst Talk - Matt Sessions - The Underlying Causes Analyst - Leapodcasts

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.

(00:01):
It's like coffee with an analyst,or it could be whiskey with an
analyst reading a spreadsheet,linking crime events, identifying a
series, and getting the latest scoopon association news and training.
So please don't beat that analystand join us as we define the law
enforcement analysis profession.
One episode at a time.
Thank you for joining me.
I hope many aspects ofyour life are progressing.
My name is Jason Elder and todayour guest has 10 years of police

(00:26):
department experience with zeroyears of law enforcement analysis
experience, but he plays one at work.
He is currently the learning and researchconsultant for Cambridge Center for
Evidence-Based Policing in the uk.
He also spent time as the problemsolving tactical advisor to both
Warwickshire Police and sre.

(00:49):
Police department.
He holds a Master's of science andforensic psychology from the University
of Kent here to talk about, among otherthings, of course, problem solving.
Please welcome Matt Sessions.
Matt, how are we doing?
Excellent.
Thanks for having me here today, Jason.
And how is the UK these days?
It's pretty good.
It's pretty, I suppose itdepends how you look at it.

(01:09):
Turbulent, I mean, politics.
I, I suppose we shouldn'tmaybe get onto that already.
Politics in the uk maybe Politics inAmerica are both turbulent times, I'd say.
All right, well, hey, I, I youask that question, you never
know what answer you get.
We could be just like old men andtalk about the weather, but yeah,
you can always talk about politicsand it's always a turbulent topic.

(01:30):
Definitely.
And it's funny you should say thatabout the weather because just
a few hours ago, my own father.
Sent me a text saying, I've gota weather warning for your area.
I live nowhere near him and hehas weather warnings on his app
for my area, just so he can updateme to talk about the weather.
So I think he'd love to be joiningin that conversation., It is
funny how that becomes a topicof conversation as you get older.

(01:53):
So,
all right.
For our listeners, of course Mattis not my typical guest that I have
on the show, but as I mentionedthat he has had a career in problem
solving and we have not had.
An opportunity, I guess, totalk about problem oriented
policing in quite some time.
So I thought he was a, a perfectguest to have on here to give

(02:16):
us a different perspective.
So.
Alright, Matt, first, how didyou discover problem solving?
I mean, it kind of justfell upon me really.
I mean, I guess if I go back to myeducation and where that came from.
Studied as you said, psychologyand then forensic psychology at the
University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
After that I was kind of lookingaround what will I do next?

(02:38):
Do I, do I do the doctorate ora, or a PhD? Do I just continue
being the forever student?
At that point I was kind of thinking,okay, do you know what I want
to just start working somewhere?
And because I'd studied forensicpsychology and my interest around
that, I guess I was kind of naturallydrawn to whether it's working in a
prison or a secure unit or withinsome form of criminal justice.

(02:59):
So naturally it's not surprisingthat I probably looked at policing.
I did actually sign up to alerts to, toget on the fast track scheme, which I
dunno if you have an equivalent in, in thestates whereby you'd start as a constable
but sort of receive extra additionaltraining and have to do extra project
work to progress to the rank of inspector.
Sort of quite quickly.

(03:20):
But after almost immediately it seems,I hope that wasn't the reason why me
applying for it, why they pulled it.
But within a few about a monthor two, they they pulled that
scheme or paused it at least.
So I thought, okay, I'm gonnaneed to do something else.
Maybe I won't, won't be an officer.
And I basically found the first jobI could find that was in policing it
was working in Intel as a processor.

(03:42):
I didn't really knowwhat any of that meant.
I didn't know the worldof policing at all.
I started in that and I did thatfor a year and I really struggled.
And that's probably the closest role I'dhave to a lot of your listeners, I guess,
working in Intel as a, as a processor.
The reason I really struggled with it wasbecause I was just processing information.
You receive a call, someonesmells drugs next door.

(04:03):
Some other piece of intel.
You sanitize it, you put it on thesystem, data input, data entry.
You share it with the right peopleto make sure the right people get it,
and then you move on to the next one.
And you go home at the endof the day and guess what?
You're coming back in the next day.
And there's a whole loadof more data to process.
And I think I really struggledwith that because you couldn't
really put your own spin on it.

(04:24):
You couldn't do much with it.
There weren't manyopportunities to develop.
So I kind of tried to take onsome extracurricular projects.
I think I remember I was doing oneproject supporting someone with their
master's actually around domesticabuse and restorative justice.
That involved me calling upsuspects and offenders of.
Of domestic abuse and asking themquestions around restorative justice.

(04:45):
So that was quite eye-opening.
I think someone sort of full-timestudent up until this point coming in
and, and then trying to sort of expandmy learning and knowledge a little
bit and having to call up offenders,having just sat in a backroom office
job effectively processing data.
So doing that kind of thing started toopen me up to, to different opportunities.
And then I moved on toa safeguarding role.
I thought it was gonnabe a lot more exciting.

(05:06):
Mm-hmm.
I thought that I was gonna be triagingwith multi agencies all around and
we'd be making decisions about riskand what we would do around vulnerable
adults and children that police werecoming into contact with and working
with statutory agencies in the uk.
So your children's services, adult socialcare people that work in mental health.

(05:26):
I thought it was gonna be thisexciting job and it turned out
that scratched a little bit beneaththe surface and it was exactly the
same job that I just come from in.
Instead of processing Intelreports, so someone saying there's
some smell of drugs next door.
I was processing child andadult vulnerability reports.
So the officers would come into contactwith the child, they would submit the

(05:47):
report, it would explain what happened.
I was, add a bit extra to it, do alittle bit of research on the system
to add some extra clarity, share itwith the relevant partner agency,
and never hear about it again.
And I, again, really struggled withthat because I was back in that same
situation about not being able to addmuch value or the value that I was adding.

(06:09):
I didn't feel like it was hugelycontributing or making a difference.
So again, what did I do?
I started looking around for otherthings to do, other opportunities
within my role and, and to sort ofdo project work and develop how we
do things and make, make it better.
And one thing that I'd noticed whichis really the, the prelude if you like,
to me getting in, into, into problemsolving was that consistently when

(06:32):
we would complete these referrals, Iwould see that other referrals had been
generated but hadn't come via our team.
And our team was this central team,if you like, that all of these
referrals should come through and wewould then have the responsibility of
sharing them with the right agencies.
But I would see that lots of them wouldcome in, hadn't been shared and to a

(06:54):
lot of the department, if I'm beinghonest, it was a sort of, well that's
that extra, that's not part of our job.
To, to question that or toask why that that happens.
It, it just happens.
Sometimes they don't come to us and Ican leave that where it is because my
job is to go through these reports thatI get given at the start of the day.
I get through them and Istart again the next day.

(07:14):
But to me.
I found that incredibly infuriating.
And when you would read through them andthen subsequently share them, you would
sometimes find so much risk And concerningthings like, for example, let's say an
officer goes out and there's a childwho's self-harming and has been suicidal.
And naturally we complete a referralas police officers to make sure that

(07:37):
other agencies who have a responsibilityget that information and can act and
safeguard that child well what ifthat referral got lost in the system?
Obviously the, the sort of negativesof that, the, the, the worst
case scenario are pretty dire.
And there are many that willfall through the cracks and won't
get picked up on until somethingreally significant happens.

(07:57):
So that really didn't sit very well withme, so I would regularly pick up on these.
So the point that I said to mya, a, a department lead we really
ought to do something about this.
Do you mind if I have some extratime to, you know one day a week
or something to, to look throughthese and, and work out the extent
to which this is actually a problem?
That was kind of a phrase thatthat we would use in in the uk.

(08:18):
I dunno if it would translate poo-pooed.
It sounds, it soundsvery English, doesn't it?
It sounds so English.
It was poo-pooed.
It was put down as as, as the reason wasthat was we have enough work already.
Why do we want to give us more work?
So a little bit of time went byand I asked again, except this
time I didn't ask the same person.
I asked my immediate line manager andmy immediate line manager was someone

(08:40):
who was very blue, very analyticallyminded, very logical thinker who
said, well, lay it out for me.
What's the kind of case for this?
And when I did that, he said.
That makes complete sensethat we should do that.
Okay.
Why don't you just spend X amount oftime over the next month doing this and
then we'll take it together to, to thebosses and I'll kind of back you on it.

(09:01):
So I did this work and I found that9% of every single one of those
referrals that was completed that shouldhave come to us, never came to us.
So that's almost one in 10 of thesepotentially really risky piece of
information never coming to us.
So as a result of that, we raisedit up the flag power, if you like.
I then put recommendations inplace how we might change that to

(09:22):
eradicate that issue and stop itfrom happening to protect people.
That got implemented.
We checked to make sure thatit was having the right effect.
There was also a safety net justin case things slipped through.
And at the end of it I. Basicallyhadn't realized that I'd sort of been
problem solving, and I only realizedthat I'd been problem solving when I
found out what problem solving was,which is when I applied for a problem

(09:43):
solving tactical advisor role thinkingthat that job title sounds pretty cool.
And, and when I gave them that as anexample in my interview, they said
to me, you are a problem solver.
You just don't realize it yet.
Which I thought that sounds a prettygood feedback to get on the interview.
Saying is the job title is problemsolving tactical advisor, but I still
don't exactly know or understand orappreciate what exactly they're saying.

(10:04):
It's probably only now inretrospect that I realize I
really was doing it not as well.
Undoubtedly as I, as I maybe think I coulddo it now with a bit more experience.
I was probably just playing at it.
But that kind of led me tothe world of problem solving.
Yeah, so, well, it fits the theme, right?
You, you're an analyst,you just don't know it.
You, you're a problem solver.

(10:25):
You just don't know it.
As I listen to your story,I think it's fascinating.
How just different folks are and howdifferent people's journeys can be,
because there's certain people thatget into a job like that, that's
very clerical, very straightforward,and they're as happy as a clam to

(10:47):
sit there and do the, tasks that youwere describing there, where it was
just data entry or just, you know.
Making sure that certain reports getto the certain, certain places or
just to stay in the lane that youwere hired to do and then mm-hmm.
There's nothing wrong with that perse, but I think with analyst, with

(11:08):
problem solvers, there is somethingthere that it's I don't know if it's
a free spirit type of thing or what,but it's something that, as you
mentioned, it doesn't sit well and youjust can't sit still and just take it.
Right.
For a lack of a better, better term.
., Do you feel that you werealways this way even growing up?

(11:31):
I think so.
Now you're saying that,now I'm thinking back.
Mm-hmm.
I, I think so.
I think it's kind of born out ofthis pure, purely logic driven.
Kind of personality and way ofseeing the world, just as you've
described in terms of the not happyand content staying in your lane.
There's something about,there's a logical way, there's
a better way to be doing this.

(11:52):
Why shouldn't we be doing this?
Which I think for those people thathave it and have that view of the world.
They find it incomprehensible that otherpeople don't have that view of the world.
It's, it's impossible to put yourself inin someone else's shoes and, and sit there
and go, how would you be happy with that?
And, and obviously peopleare completely entitled to be
happy with, with doing that.

(12:13):
There are more things importantthings in this world than work.
In particular, I think that's somethingI probably struggle with being able
to switch off from problem solving.
And, and that's a, that's one issueI think when you get into this world
and you see everything through thelens of, of causes and, and, and
different ways of doing things.
You can't stop but see itin everything that you do.
Whether I'm like driving along the roadand see a sign written in a certain way,

(12:37):
and it just makes me think about this.
I think it's innate and it's interesting.
I mean, skipping along quite a bitalready, but I've had conversations with
people around problem solving beforewhere I've kind of debated and said,
can we really give this to the masses?
Is it accessible enough to the masses?
Should we get everyoneinvolved in doing this?
And I, I speak to some peoplethat say, oh, Matt, we have

(13:00):
to, it's the right thing to do.
We have to, and I say, I knowit's the perfect idyllic world.
And these problem oriented forceswhere everyone gets it, everyone
feeds into it perfectly andeveryone gets their, their role.
But whether or not actuallyeveryone is, is built that way
or has, that way of thinking.
You don't need to all havethat perfect way of thinking.
Of course there are differentroles for people to play, but it's

(13:21):
something that I've definitelystruggle with at times where you're
trying to get the masses to do it.
And, and not everyone can quite see theperspective, the way that you can see it.
Yeah, it definitely is a mindset.
I, think of my own career.
Looking back and once I got into therole of an analyst, I actually found I

(13:42):
was gravitating towards process, processimprovement, data improvement, and my,
career has, gone more along the lines of.
A data analyst and managing data asopposed to some of the other avenues
that an analyst can go at, whetherit's problem solving or tactical.

(14:03):
Strategic, . But , for me, it was thisidea of like, well, this data flow
is horrible and I, I can't, I, it is,it, it is something inside me that
says, like, I, I wanna improve it.
Like, it shouldn't be this hard.
So we, we have to spend time ofthinking of the best ways to improve.

(14:23):
And I, I think in a way, if I'mhearing you correct, I think that's
the similar path where you landed,where you got into a role and
thought, well there's definitelygotta be a better way to do business.
Definitely.
And I think the way that you've explainedthat there, I think if I hadn't fallen
into that, that role that had appeared atthat time, at a time where I was probably.

(14:43):
Desperate for a differentrole to get me excited.
Mm-hmm.
I think it could have been anything,and I would've found a way of making
it like that, whether it could havehad nothing to do with, with problem
oriented policing, but that logical,that process, like you said, whether
it was, if it was, I could have falleninto exactly the same role role, what
that you described around improvingdata quality because it made sense.

(15:05):
Why are we not improving this?
Because you can see that the, thebenefits that it could have, finding
ways of improving that, making itmore usable, could, I could have
potentially got just the same joy outof that as preventing loads of crime.
And that's something I think I, I Isometimes talk to people about that.
I, you can sometimes struggle withmentally the kind of self-reflection

(15:28):
of do I, do I do problem orientedpolicing because it's the right thing
to do by the communities becauseit's going to result in less crime?
Or do I do it because it just.
Damn logical sense.
Like we should just definitelybe doing it this way.
The alternative is not asgood simply, simply speaking.
And I think that's, I, I've, I'vecome to accept that that's okay.

(15:48):
It's okay for me to think that,do you know what we should
all be doing problem solving?
Because it's the best way of working.
It's effective and it's efficient.
Not just because I have some deep thingwithin me that says I need to give
back to my community and I have to dosomething that is fulfilling and protect
people that can, that can be part of it.
And I can feel good aboutthat when that happens.

(16:10):
But as, as you've kind of pointedout there, that I could have, I
could have potentially like yourself,maybe pointed that, that perspective
at one of a number of jobs and, andprobably found the same internal joy at
resolving problems, whether they were.
Policing issues and crimeprevention or something.
Absolutely.
Something logistical in aprivate business, for example.

(16:30):
Yeah.
As you mentioned, you get the title,you move on to being an actual
problem solving tactical advisorand this is right at March of 2020.
So this is right on the brink of Yeah.
Of COVID.
And so I guess take us back to thattime, walking into the police department.

(16:54):
And just how you felt,what you experienced,
I think it was obviously, given whatyou just said, I mean, the worst time
in history to create a new team, mm-hmm.
It was the, it was the, it was thefirst team in the force that we'd
had dedicated to problem solving.
I'd gone from always working in theoffice to suddenly being given a laptop,

(17:16):
not that we had laptops to start offwith, so we had to go into the office.
But two of our small team had laptops,so they worked from home and there was
two of us that didn't have laptops.
So we went into the office duringCOVID and, and it was the two of us
sat there and our boss, who was great.
Our chief inspector at the time, markoffered, who then went on, I, I believe
he's now, whether his superintendent orchief superintendent he was great except

(17:40):
he was almost immediately seconded tothe, the forces' response to COVID.
Mm-hmm.
So it was kind of, okay, youguys crack on and, and kind of
do what you feel need to be done.
Which, which in many ways was reallygreat because it gave us that freedom to
read up on academic theory and understanda bit more about what this whole world
of problem oriented policing was.

(18:00):
The, the challenge was that I washaving only worked in policing for about
four years at that point and mm-hmm.
And not within problem oriented policing.
I was by far and away the, the seniorperson in that team, because my
colleague, who was in the same role wasan external candidate, so she came from.
A different background.
She was looking for a career change andshe joined knowing nothing about policing

(18:23):
at all in terms of the culture and the,the acronyms and the, the departments and
the way things work, which looking back,I think maybe I'm harsh about my first
couple of roles, but in actual fact, I'dhave to just accept that I was young and
it was the first couple of roles thatallowed me to understand the organization
and the world of policing a bit better.
But that meant I had a figurativelyspeaking more senior role or there

(18:45):
was a bit of responsibility there,but, but to be honest, I didn't
really feel like it because I didn'tknow anything about this world.
So we kind of just jumbled it together.
Put together what we kindof thought made sense.
And I would say one of the hardestthings about that was that this world
of, of problematic policing and problemsolving can be incredibly isolating
for people that are working in it.

(19:05):
I, I mean, I can't speak for allthe various departments in America,
but with 43 forces in the uk whenin England and Wales specifically
you've got so many different waysof working and that's just 43.
I mean I don't, I don't want toknow how many departments there
are in America in comparison.
Mm-hmm.
But in many of these forces, thereare no problem solving roles.
Right.
In some of them it's an attachmentonto someone's, like a bolt on

(19:28):
your, a champion of problem solving.
You are this, you are that.
And for some, we have tactical advisors.
Now, for us, there wasn't any blueprint.
There was no team before.
We had to kind of make it up as we wentalong, which was really challenging when
trying to deliver training and having to.
Do talk people through the processand explain what they ought to do.
Because I'll be honest, like anybodywho's a few months into the job, we

(19:49):
didn't really know what it involved.
And I mean, I'm sure if I watch myselfback now giving those training inputs and
giving advice to people, I would, I woulddie and I would die of cringe at even
like, turn of phrases and think, oh God,Matt, why are you wording it like that?
That's the wrong way, orthat's not a good idea.
I think I do, you know what, if I'mgonna be honest, then I'm gonna admit

(20:10):
'cause it's one of my, one of the thingsI talk about most often during training.
Now, I think right there inmy first training session,
I definitely tell people.
Don't worry about assessment, thelast stage of problem solving.
That's at the end.
We'll deal with that when we get to it.
And now that is justlike one of the red flag.
Don't you dare say that.
You need to start thinkingabout it really early on.

(20:31):
But we didn't have anyoneto learn from particularly.
We were really beneficial that acouple of academics who were massive
and still are massive in that world.
Aiden side bottom and Karen Bullockboth gave us gave us both time right
early on just to have a chat aboutthings and kind of let us know.
The sort of just the basics aboutwhat this world was all about.

(20:51):
It probably wasn't until I actuallydid my first effort, if you like, and
only to this point, effort in actuallyowning a problem that I really kind of
started to understand a lot more aboutthe challenges and, and, and the benefits
and, and really get to experience whatit was like and be able to then train
people in, in what it's actually like.

(21:12):
Yeah, I, I think a lot of, what I'veheard from other departments, it.
I don't know the exact, I'm gonna butcherthe exact saying, but it's you're, you're
building the car while it's moving.
Right?
And you're, yeah.
I, I think one of the problems that Ithink happens is you have this new unit

(21:34):
or this new project and it's like, oh,we have to produce something as quickly
as possible instead of sitting backand actually strategically planning and
building the unit or the project to.
To make sure that every piece is wellthought out instead of just doing

(21:56):
something as quickly as possibleor just being reactive, like play
whack-a-mole on a, on some issue,trying to throw as many problem
solving techniques at it as you can.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, that analogy willresonate with anyone in the world of.
Of problem policing in terms ofthinking about reacting to problems

(22:17):
and just throwing, throwing a scattergun of of interventions at something.
I think at the time I think Iprobably wasn't experienced enough
to, and I wasn't being paid, or thatwasn't in my job description, if
you like to, to take a step back andthink more strategically about it.
And our, our strategic leader,who was great, as I said, was

(22:37):
immediately seconded to anotherdepartment to deal with, with COVID.
So we didn't have, we, we probably,to be fair, just had the luxury of
time to be able to do that in, in ourdefense, because it was a new team.
There wasn't anyone hounding us becauseeveryone was so busy with COVID and,
and everything going on with that.
But because it was just the two ofus in this whole new world and we

(22:59):
were kind of muddling through it.
I think we weren't thinkingstrategically enough about it.
As I say that I wasn't in that role,if you like, and that that was a
role that when I moved onto the, thesecond force that I worked for, where
I was then in taking a fairly minorbut a, a management role I had to
start thinking more strategically andless about single individual plans.

(23:20):
That might be a, might be a good winner.
And actually more how do we embed this?
How do we work with analysts?
How do we work with other departments?
What's the data quality side of things?
How do we record it?
How do we evaluate it?
I was a, I was a, I was a piece in thecog if I was a cog in the machine, rather.
Mm-hmm.
Rather than the second, rolehaving to take on more of the,

(23:40):
that autonomy around the wholeof the, the machine, if you like.
Yeah.
So I, do want to get to the award-winningprojects that you worked on, but I
am curious about the first projectthat you work on, that the deciding
the, the, the first problem that youidentified and how you worked through it.

(24:00):
Well, that was, that was the, wasn't
Oh, see, like, look, hey,it just naturally happened.
You know you didn'tneed to cut your teeth.
Well, well, I mean, it took a long time.
It took a lot of effort.
And I think it was a bit like.
When I look back at like, Goldstein,Herman Goldstein came up with Pop and
when he originally did the originalcouple of studies on it to really
like showcase what it was, you lookback at those, they're like 150 pages.

(24:24):
And I, I'm looking back at thatthinking, wow he'd come up with
this, this way of thinking by God hewas gonna do it to the nth degree.
He was really going to, to, toreally smash it, if you like, and,
and try and cover every single area.
And obviously I would scale mine down,so like 2% of that in comparison.
But I, I took the same attitude towardsit in terms of saying, if I'm going

(24:45):
to do this and I'm gonna teach peopleabout it, then by God I'm going to
do this to the nth degree and tryand do this as well as possible.
So, yeah.
What happened was our we had aa serious organized crime unit.
So a department that focused onorganized criminals and they'd noticed
an influx in the number of catalyticconverter thefts that we were having.
So catalytic converters beingbit underneath your car.

(25:08):
Not on electric vehicles, but on,on normal and hybrid vehicles that
clean the emissions coming out there.
And they contain lots of precious metalsthat people like going after around COVID.
There was a massive spikein the number of incidents.
It was, it was.
Correlated with the with theprice, the value of the metal.
So why offenders were going after them?
I think from memory, thestates was a little bit slow.
The offenders in the states were a littlebit slow on this compared to the uk.

(25:31):
We'd sort of spiked the yearbefore before it came to you guys.
But it definitely, it definitely came.
And they'd noticed this issueand they'd been made aware that
our team had been created really.
And they sort of said, well,we've been trying our hand up.
Doing covert operations and just and,and at the same time, neighborhood
teams, local teams doing overtpatrols and it's not really working.

(25:54):
It's things are just getting worse.
It was one of those, when I describeit to people and, and share people the
slides around it, it was one of thoseperfect scanning opportunities where
the, the scanning writes itself, thejustification writes itself because
you've got one of those lovely barcharts that just goes like a staircase.
So everything is just going up as the,the quarters progress really nicely, which

(26:16):
kind of said, okay, this is the perfecttime for us to be, to be tackling this.
So they kind of approached usand said, would you like to
work on work on it with us?
And I thought it was a greatopportunity to actually have a go
at properly owning it or co-owningit with the inspector at the time.
So I said, great, I'll, I'll start workingon it from a problem zone perspective
and went through all the motions andI'm sure I'd do a million things.

(26:37):
Differently now, but what, what thedata side of things that came out,
and I did the analysis myself and whatI should say is that we actually had
two analysts in our team, but I reallywanted to do a lot of this work myself
to actually experience what it was likebecause we were asking frontline officers
to be doing this, a lot of this work.
So I I, I wanted to go throughand, and kind of learn.

(26:57):
So as I were going through the,the, the thing that jumped out
at me, the, the, everyone talksabout the light bulb moment.
It doesn't always happen, the lightbulb moment, but what it does, it's.
It's memorable and it's,it's very enjoyable.
The light bulb moment.
Yeah, it is very, and that, that,that moment for me was seeing that
94.7% of CATA converter theftswere not reported via 9 9 9.

(27:21):
So our emergency contact numberin the uk, and to other people
that might not sound exciting,that might not sound enlightening.
But combined with the rest of the picturethat we're seeing and that kind of
thought process around causal factorsand what is contributing and why do we
see the patterns that we see, not simplyreporting descriptive statistics and

(27:43):
saying, oh yeah, they're not reportingvia 9, 9, 9, saying, what does that mean?
What does that tell us?
Putting all this information together.
We came up with the idea that actuallythis was happening so frequently in busy
car parks in the middle of the day becausethere was just no risk for thieves.
So they were doing these crimesin in clear sight of other people.

(28:06):
Because they knew they could get awaywith it and they could take their time.
I mean, it took them 60 secondsnormally, but they didn't have to rush.
They would nick 10 in one go.
Sometimes they wouldjust go from car to car.
So if you, I always sort of say if youput your elbow through a car window
back in the day, I dunno if thathappens much anymore to be honest.
What with what with windows these days?
But everyone turns around.
Everyone looks, someone callspolice security are coming over.

(28:30):
There's a commotion you needto get out of there quickly.
Whereas you put on a high visjacket and jack up a car and
either people don't see it.
Or they, because it's,it's, it's blending in.
Or if they see it, theythink, oh, that's a shame.
Someone's, someone's broken down.
They need some assistance.
Mm-hmm.
So, because of that, because the factthat it was happening in busy car
parks in the middle of the day, we werekind of thinking, hang on a minute.

(28:52):
Shouldn't we be gettingloads of 9, 9, 9 calls?
This is happening in front ofpeople and it's really loud.
It should be reallyobvious, but it wasn't.
So we were realizing that thiswas contributing to the problem.
It was making it really easy.
And one way of us to resolve this wouldbe to improve what we call the, the
capable guardianship of people around.
So I pitched it that people were incapableguardians because they were there,

(29:16):
but they were incapable of making adifference because their presence made no
difference whatsoever to the offenders.
It wouldn't matter ifsomeone's walking past.
So we needed to change that.
So everything that wedid was around awareness.
So we kind of threw every other responsein the bin and, and to give you a
selection of some of the other things thatwere going on, you were having patrols.
Even though even if you have a high sortof hotspot car park, you're not talking

(29:40):
about huge numbers when you consider everyhour of the day right across a month.
So what's the chance of you, ofyou being there in that moment
trying to cover across a, a, awide, a wide area across a county?
It is pretty unlikely.
We actually even had an examplewhere offenders waited for police
to leave the car park before thenoffending, which I think was the

(30:00):
perfect example to give to local teamsto say, look, it's not working guys.
This, this isn't actuallydeterring the problem.
So everything was about comms.
One of the comms that we wereputting out, I was har back to
beforehand and all forces, to behonest, in the UK were doing it.
We were saying park under a light.
But this was happening in the, in themiddle of the day, but we were still

(30:22):
telling people park under a light.
They were, we were tellingpeople don't park up a curb.
So the sides are up on the, thefew for American listers up on the
sidewalk, if you like, in terms ofup, up with two leg two wheels up.
Because that gives accessto under the vehicle.
But.
It takes them all of about fiveseconds to jack the car up.
They are not just looking forcars where you can get a little

(30:44):
bit of extra access underneath.
So these are the kind of thingsthat we were, we were putting out.
And it wasn't making a blind bitof difference, but it wouldn't stop
us putting them out all the time.
And I think that's another thing thatwill resonate with, with problem solvers
out there, seeing forces routinely doingthe same things over and over with not
really an understanding of whether ornot those things are gonna work or not.

(31:05):
So we changed the narrative.
Everything was about awareness raising ofwhat it looks like, what it sounds like.
Call 9 9 9, sort of cuttingthrough everything else.
So lots of visuals.
We did interviews.
There was campaigns in person with bigadverts on the side of a van leaflet in
the right cars in the right areas, rather.
As I say, lots of interviewsand presentations.

(31:25):
We created a, an advert onan online advert with a, with
a, with a vehicle company.
We did loads of.
And what did we see?
Well, we, the key thing was we didn'tjust see crime come down, but we
actually measured the other things.
We measured 9, 9, 9 calls.
We measured how many suspect vehicleswere identified so on and so forth.
And that actually generated a loadof arrests in a short period of time.

(31:46):
And we hadn't arrestedanyone for six months and.
Stack bought, bought us some credibility,if you like, with local officers.
Mm-hmm.
That they were excited about that element.
It, it pains me obviously that thatwas the bit that they were more excited
about, but we could use that as leverage,if you like to say, well actually,
look, there's, there's something in it.
For that side of things,enforcing the law as well.
There are these opportunitiesto, to nick people as well.

(32:08):
But that would contribute to theoverall sort of elevation of risk.
And we would really publicize that wherewe could in terms of , the arrests that
were happening, but also the creating thisidea that anyone in that car park might
be about to call the police and that thatrisk is elevated, made the difference.
And we saw huge reductions in thenumber of our thefts compared to
nearby forces that didn't see thosereductions when, when we compared.

(32:30):
And what I would say is that.
The, the, the assessment, the evaluationwe did of that was by no means
watertight in any way, shape or form.
We didn't run statistical analysesand all of that kind of thing the
controls, they weren't controls, itwas just comparisons with other forces,
especially because when you're doingsomething on a large scale, it's very
difficult to have control groups.
It wasn't like we were just targetingone car part that wouldn't have

(32:52):
made much a difference acrossa whole across a whole force.
But what I did was I measured thingsalong the way that I was looking for.
So it was almost like hypothesis testingof, well, if I see this in the data,
that will give me a confidence that thisis happening and what would I expect to
see next and next and next until finallywe see those reduction in offending.

(33:12):
And that's exactly what we saw,which gave me a lot more confidence.
I think if I just looked at the number of.
Thefts and saw they reduced, Iwouldn't have felt confident that we
had actually made that difference.
But for me, that was the one in termsof being able to do that project, see it
through, become a bit obsessed over it.
I was unfortunately checking crimestats every day and I would not advise.

(33:33):
And I know there'll be many of youranalysts out there that will do the
same thing and they'll buy into it.
And I completely get it.
But try not to, because itjust takes over your life.
I mean, it does make it feel when youhave another day, another day without
one on there you feel more confident andyou and then, and then you see there's a
spate of a three or four the next day and,and it, and you, it is heart wrenching.
But but no, that was the, thatwas the, that was the thing that

(33:54):
kind of kicked everything off.
So why weren't the victims calling 9, 9 9?
'cause they didn't know what it looked like.
Well, so they had no cluethat this was a crime.
But I'm talking about thepeople that owned the vehicles.
When the people that came back totheir car in the parking lot started
their car and their car wouldn'trun, they realized that the, mm-hmm.

(34:19):
The vehicle had been tampered andthe Cadillac converter was stolen.
Why did they not then callpolice and report the theft?
Well, you had a mix, right?
So you had some that didn't realize.
A crime had occurred, and I'veput that in the majority actually.
They would call their breakdownservice company and say, my

(34:41):
car's making a funny noise.
You need to have someone sent out.
They would explain it and theysaid, you've been a victim of crime.
And they would go, what?
And at that point they would thencall 1 0 1, which is our non-emergency
slow time police response line.
Oh, okay.
And, and it would be too late.
They obviously wouldn't be calling 9 99 for most of these because they were in
car parks where they were in the, theywere working in the supermarket or they

(35:04):
were visiting somewhere or in hospitals.
So, I mean, it from an emotionalpoint of view, it was highly
impacted because it was happeningin the middle of COVID and mm-hmm.
I don't, I, I don't know.
I, I, I dunno what the language wasused was, was like in America, but
the language over here was all aboutkey workers and that encompassed
everyone who was working, still sortof public facing at the time of COVID.

(35:25):
So that, whether that was hospitalsthat was police or whether that.
Supermarket workers whohad to keep going to work.
So it was targeting thoseparticular individuals.
So they would come backto their car hours later.
Probably an important detailthat I've, I've, I, I missed out.
I'm glad that you picked up on that.
'cause that was the kind of key punchline,I guess, after the 95%, is that that
why they didn't recognize it was becausethey didn't know what it looked like,

(35:49):
and therefore we needed to educatethem about, about what it looked like.
Hmm.
Yeah.
And I've talked to analysts that, andeven during my time as an analyst did
there, as soon as the price of , thosemetals would go up, we would see an
uptick in Cadillac converter theft.
And I, I think a lot of the responsewas targeting the scrap yards, uhhuh,

(36:15):
the, the people that were taking inthe catalytic converters , coming
up with a program where they.
Had an idea of who was coming in withlike 10 catalytic converters at a time.
Definitely like being able todocument like, who is this person?
And set allowing them to have camerasand allow them to go back and say, okay,

(36:38):
yeah, this person came in with like 10different catalytic converters on this
day, and you that was able to curve alot of the problem because then they
would have inventory and not any realability to get rid of the inventory.
And, and that, that what you'vetouched on there is the perfect.
Explanation for why problemsolving is problem solving

(37:00):
and why it's the right thing.
Mm-hmm.
Because for us, that wasn't an optionbecause at the start of this work,
we did all of the checks on the scrapyards and couldn't find anything.
And that doesn't, that doesn't mean to saythat some weren't a problem don't get me
wrong completely, but what the intel was.
Pointing us towards was organizedcriminals coming from much

(37:21):
further afield across the country.
That was the consistentthing we were thinking.
And I remember during COVID being satin my bedroom with a laptop thinking,
how on earth am I gonna be able toinfluence their behavior when they're
getting all of these and then drivingfor two hours, three hours, four
hours in a different direction, intoa completely another jurisdiction.

(37:42):
People were shipping them out ofthe country in ports and again.
We didn't have any ports, so in ourforce, so I was thinking again, what
is actually within my locus of control?
What do I have actualopportunity to influence here?
Do I put all my eggs in the, let'stry and legislate change through
the governance and say they needto do recording of scrap, scrap

(38:04):
yards, et cetera in a different way.
Do I need to work with other agenciesat ports to try and influence it?
And do I think that would makea meaningful difference to the
people in my county that I'mresponsible for, for tackling it?
No, I don't think it would'vemade very much difference at all.
And the beauty, again, was added thatwhen we went to the, the Goldstein
Awards as a finalist with this project,someone came up to me after the project

(38:27):
and they said after the presentationand they said, oh, that was great.
, Thanks for doing that.
He said.
We did something completely different.
Mm-hmm.
They said we had a local problem wherebyoffenders were stealing the grinders.
The angle grinders from shops.
And then committing thely converter effects.
So they said, well, what we did was workedwith the shops that were selling the angle

(38:50):
grinders to put them in certain places andput target hardening measures around them
to make them harder for them to steal.
And I thought that is just perfect.
I love the fact that you've donethat and you've told me that because
that is what this is all about.
That is saying what is your specificproblem that you are seeing?
If you are working in an area wherethere's a port and you think 90%

(39:11):
of them are being shipped out viathe port and that's the main reason
they're doing them in that area,then you bloody well target the port.
If you, if, if you've got this anglegrinder problem like they're describing
and that is accessible to you to be ableto influence the, the mo of the offense
from even before they've committed theoffense, how they get the tool and you can
influence that, then you go and do that.

(39:32):
That just wasn't the position that wewere in, which is why we went down the
route that we went down because thatwas something that was in our reach
that we could actually influence.
Yeah, well it, it comes down to theunderstanding the complete process,
and that's when you get into the dataand start understanding the, the parts.

(39:53):
Of the process that aren't in the data.
So just as you mentioned there that,okay, , how are they stealing this?
Okay.
What tools are they using?
Where are they getting the tools?
Okay.
Or what are they doing with it oncethey have the catalytic converter?
That's not gonna show up on any reallypolice report, but that's something where

(40:14):
you have to understand the differentparts to the timeline, the process
from beginning to end and be able totarget a that point in the process.
What's the biggest bang foryour books, so to speak?
Right?
In terms, yeah.
Completely of, of that, to disrupt that.
And then there's probably termsfor all this that I'm not using,

(40:36):
but that's, that's just kindof where my head is going.
It's like the dom, it'slike a domino effect.
Where can you take one of the dominoesout so that they don't knock, don't
knock the rest of them over in terms ofwhere their, where is their opportunity.
And I think that's why.
One of the most common things, actually,just kind of on that theme is that,
and thinking about opportunity, oneof the most common issue issues I

(40:57):
say is it's not an issue as such.
It's, I used to, I made themistake for many years until I
clocked the difference about rootcauses versus underlying causes.
So everyone always talksabout root causes, right?
It sounds right.
Why wouldn't we go after the root causes?
It sounds wrong to say anythingelse that's that that's
more meaningful, isn't it?
To go after the root cause of the problem.
Why wouldn't you go after theroot cause of the problem?

(41:19):
But in the context of heart, really weare talking about underlying causes,
not root causes, because the root causesof problems are inevitably things like.
Poverty things hundredsof years in the making.
Sometimes generational factors, thingsthat are gonna cost millions or billions
of pounds and dollars to try and changethat are not within our in our degree

(41:41):
to of control or opportunity to change.
So what we are after are thethings that contribute to the
problem that we can actually makea meaningful change of tomorrow.
So, for example, we can, likethat example, take away their
access to the angle grinders.
That doesn't change the, the, thevalue of the catalytic converter.
It doesn't change the vulnerability of it.

(42:02):
The fact that they will continue tobe added to cars, the fact that people
will continue to be able to sell them onthe, the fact that people continue to be
drawn into life of crime otherwise whenyou're looking at root causes, are we
inevitably not for organized criminalitytrying to stop people from getting
involved in cri in criminality as a child.
It's things like that that.
The, it often detracts if wejust think about root causes, it

(42:25):
detracts from the ability that,that, that we can all have on very
realistic things that we can change.
As I said, tomorrow we can't changeexactly the reasons why men are
often more violent to towardswomen, and we see a lot of issues
in violence against women and girls.
But what can I do in that bar,in that nightclub where women

(42:46):
are being targeted by men?
Do a handful of things with the securityguard's behavior, with the positioning of
the cameras, with the entry policy, withthe bar prices, with the ability to take
glass outside afterwards with lots ofpeople lingering outside the bar and not
getting in a taxi very quickly afterwards.
So you get more people lingeringwhen they're lingering for a while.

(43:07):
They have disagreements and thenarguments happen and then fights happen.
I can make little changes there.
I might not be tackling the root causeof it, but I'm tackling contributory
factors that makes the problem worseand they are within my reach and
that's, that's the beauty of what thisis, is what's within your reach to
actually make a meaningful difference.

(43:31):
Hi, this is Steve French, and I havea little phrase for you to remember.
A phrase that stuck with methroughout my time as an analyst
is a quote from Sherlock Holmes.
When you've eliminated theimpossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth.
What's going on?
Analysts?
My name is Manny San Pedro.
I'm the technology director for ACA.

(43:51):
And here is my public serviceannouncement for analysts.
Don't become overly reliant on Excel.
Use it to analyze andbreak down your data.
It's a fantastic tool.
Fantastic.
And it's free as part of theMicrosoft office offering, but
don't use it as a database.
Use a database as a database.

(44:12):
Connect to the database with Excel.
And then use it for your pivoting,for all your slicing and dicing, even
developing your dashboard, but again,don't use Excel for everything because
it may not be the best tool for you.
Hi, I'm Svetlana Gubin, BusinessAnalyst from Oakland Police Department.

(44:34):
And my advice, don't be afraidto discover something new.
Just try, do some small steps, findthe people who can support you, and
it will help you in a regular life,in your future job, and you will be
surprised how more doors will open to

(44:56):
you.
So I see here that you and yourteam were one of the finalists for
the Goldstein Awards, and you alsowon the Neighborhood Tilly Award,
which is named after Nick Tilly.
And for those that don't know,Nick Tilly is essentially the

(45:18):
Herman Goldstein of the uk.
Is if correct,
yes.
Yeah.
I mean, Nick, Nick is a wonderful guy.
Very kind and very generous withhis time, like so many people.
That's one thing I have tosay about the world of pop.
There are so many people init that are just desperate for
everyone else to get it to.
, To see what they see.

(45:38):
And I think I didn't see it to startoff with it takes time obviously, but
there's a moment where you start to see,okay, I get the perspective of this.
I get why these people are so crazyabout this topic that they, that
they want everyone else to do it.
But, and that's the truth really, is thatthere are so many people out there, like
Nick and I mentioned Adrian and Karenearlier John Eck Julie Wartel, who I
know has been a guest on, this podcast.

(45:59):
There are so many people out there thatare willing to give up their time to talk.
Just, just to chat about it andsay, you know what, what, what are
you struggling with at the moment?
And give you a different perspective.
And I think for me, over the course ofthe last six years or so, working in
specifically within, within pop, that'sjust been invaluable because quite
often it's, it's quite an isolatingtime when you're sat there mm-hmm.

(46:19):
On your own and you're kind of.
Questioning these things again with logic.
'cause you're looking at it thinking,ah, this surely this doesn't make
sense why we are doing it like this.
Am I the only one thinking this?
But often you don't have anyone elseto turn to in your organization who is
looking at it through the same lens.
So, so many people in that world thatthat I owe a lot to, even in this

(46:40):
kinda short time relatively shorttime, it doesn't feel like it for me.
It feels like it's taken over my lifefor the last six years and it probably
will continue to, but big kudos to,to all of the people within, within
this field that continue to drive it.
Yeah.
So just to you, you eventually move on to.
Sure.
I, I guess what went into thatdecision to change departments?

(47:03):
So it was purely personal.
Yeah.
We we moved to the Midlands, which is as,as it sounds, in the middle of the uk.
Well played as opposed, asopposed to in the south.
We were in the south beforemy, me and my, my wife.
Not my wife at the time,but my partner at the time.
We moved to the Midlands.
She was studying her doctoratein clinical psychology.

(47:23):
She's now a a clinical psychologistat the University of Leicester.
So that's sort of bank smackin the middle of the country.
And that's why we moved there.
And I was kind of just looking around.
I was still working for,sorry, remotely at that time.
And I was looking around for similar,similar jobs and thinking I'm, I'm,
I'm not gonna luck out twice and beable to continue this career because
it's such a niche field of policing andwhat am I gonna have to do otherwise?

(47:47):
And I saw the, the problem solvingtactical advisor, but actually team
manager for the problem solvingteam appear for warwickshire,
which was their, the base was15 minutes from my home address.
Mm-hmm.
And it got even stranger whenI emailed them and asked.
Could I speak to someone about this?
And they said, oh yeah, here's thechief inspector that's in charge.
And I emailed this person and Isaid, oh, this is where I live.

(48:08):
And he said, are you joking?
I live there as well.
And it turned out if I'd cut downthe trees in the back of my garden,
in the back of his garden, I couldhave seen the back of his house.
Nice.
So it was, it was kind ofjust a match made in heaven.
It was, you couldn't make it up reallyto be able to continue working in problem
solving, but move up to the next role,if you like, in terms of managing that
team, but also be located close to home.

(48:29):
I mean if, if I, I may not be abeliever, but that might have been
the moment someone was looking down.
Yeah.
So, as you mentioned going,getting into that supervisory
role, now you are more strategic.
In your thought processfor problem solving.

(48:50):
So talk to us a little bit about someof the things that you implemented and
that you, you achieved in this role.
So I think the main difference reallywas that perspective, like I said
earlier, around not looking forthe single individual plan like I
was kind of doing before, and justthinking about what I was doing there.
And then it was thinking moreabout how do we progress this?

(49:10):
So in two, three years time, there is morea structure, it's happening more readily.
People are starting plansfreely and working on this.
So that was my goal really.
So it was much more around thekind of recording processes.
The coordination of the efforts evaluatingplans, making sure that they were,

(49:31):
and when I say plans, I mean problemoriented policing plans, problem solving
plans, whatever you wanna call them.
Following the R model making surethey were visible making sure that
leaders were aware of where the planswere and the progress of those plans.
I think I always say that the mostmeaningful single one thing that I
did in that time was create a a rag.

(49:53):
Do you have Rag in America?
Gimme more information.
Red, amber, green?
I don't think so.
I don't, I don't, I don't follow it.
So in UK
policing, in UK policing,everything is rag rated basically.
In terms of, we, we feel very safewith our rag rating system of to what
extent is this risky or a problem?
Red, amber, or green.
Oh, okay.
So, so to be able to rag rate progressof that plan, so not just was it being

(50:18):
worked on, I think this is one ofthe, the little minutiae things that
the, the traps that police forces fallinto is where they will rag in the uk.
They will rag rate.
A plan based on whetheror not it's been updated.
But that doesn't necessarily meananything because you could just
put one line and you will see it.
There'll just be one line sayingplan is ongoing, and then suddenly

(50:40):
it'll be, ah, this is in the green.
This is all good.
We don't have to worry about that.
So we would actually, we enacteda manual process whereby we would
be reviewing the plans monthly.
And feeding into the machine,if you like, to let people know.
And there was a then a strategicmeeting to be able to highlight
which plans were going astray.
And we would have our recommendationsthere as to why it was going

(51:01):
astray and what support was needed.
And it's something as simple andstraightforward and, not confusing
at all as that, that actually madethe most difference because it meant
that people knew and, and that theywere being checked and there was a
level of accountability and it do Iwish it was all carrot and no stick?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do.
And did everyone comestraight away with that?

(51:22):
No.
No, they didn't because they tried to getaround it by, by doing, just as I'd said
by, by sort of last minute.com, puttingputting an update on saying, there you go.
I, I've put an update on, weare working on it, but obviously
from our point of view.
Putting an update on one day before thedeadline, each month wasn't good enough.
That wasn't showing progress.
So meaningful little things likethat made actually a huge difference.

(51:44):
But that accountability structureis so important to the longevity
of Pop to be able to know.
Where the plans are that anyone couldpull them up at one moment and have a
look at them and audit them and check howthey're doing and give recommendations
for how to improve it compared to whata lot of organizations have in the UK
where it's a bit more muddled and thereis a bit of confusion sometimes around

(52:06):
where the plans are or which, which ofthe latest template, things like that.
You'll go into some forces and this isme generalizing obviously, 'cause there
are some forces that are much betterat it, but there you'll go into some
forces and you'll find six or sevendifferent ways of people recording it.
And that's just a minefield.
If you are trying to embed this as aconcept, you need a degree of consistency.

(52:28):
You don't want them allto look exactly the same.
Like there needs to be a degree offlexibility, but it also, you need
to, at at the drop of a moment, beable to find where the plans are.
Comment on them and be able to seesort of how they're progressing.
So that kind of thing.
In terms of the, the, the meetingstructures around accountability,
making the sure the plans were visiblestandardizing, training things like that.

(52:51):
I would run a monthly webinar once amonth where I would talk about different
pro topic, whether that was a specificproblem or more things like how to
create surveys, how to use excel better.
Things like that, that would actuallybe meaningfully useful for people.
Yeah, it's interesting , 'cause whatit sounds like now is if we think back
of when you first started, you werecreating everything and it seems like now.

(53:17):
Things are established.
The, the, the problem solving processat the department is something well
ingrained in just part of the everydaywork at the police department.
You have all these, , differentprograms, projects going on, and
it seems to be part of the culture.

(53:39):
Is, is that a fair statement?
I think I'd love to say that thatwas exactly how it is and, and
that everything works perfectly.
Would I say that it's, it came onleaps and bounds in that time to
somewhere a lot on the journey?
Yes, it definitely did.
It didn't get to where I would envisageit ideally getting to, but that's a

(54:01):
long anyone that talks, anyone thatyou talk to in the problem world,
policing world is gonna say we,that's dreamland years down the line
where everything systematically workstogether and everyone gets their role.
But would I say on a small scale,what you've said is accurate
compared to where we were?
Yes.
Because when I came into it, therewasn't any real consistency in,
in, in how things were recorded.
People thought they wererecording it the right way, but

(54:23):
when you went and looked at it.
There were various issues.
There was, I remember one issuewith the fact that with the system,
I, as the central person for this,couldn't see any of the plans
the way that they were recorded.
There was a restriction whereby thepeople that created the, the database and
owned it had had a way of saying, oh noyou need to pay more money if you want

(54:43):
to open up access to ev, to everyone orfor select people to be able to see it.
So that meant it was literally hidden.
It was almost like behind a paywall.
We couldn't, we couldn't even see it.
Even though it was my bread and butter, itwas the stuff that I should be reviewing.
So that's the kind ofstandard of where we were.
So I suppose if you made that comparisonto where we were and then where we
got to, it was a massive change.
But we're always dreaming of thesekind of perfect scenarios where

(55:06):
everything is working perfectly.
Yeah.
Now the pushback that you get.
During your time here, do you feelit's similar to what you hear from
other colleagues, or do you feel thatsome of the pushback, you had at this
department was unique to this department?
I think the more that you talk to peoplein this world, the more you realize

(55:29):
they have the same problems everywhere.
Now I'm obviously primarily speakingfor the UK here, but I would, I would
guess that in America you're gonnasee a lot of the similar things.
Maybe there'll be nuance differences.
So we are talking like, a systematicway of recording it that says
this is important and this is howwe do it, and we can access and,
and, and hold people accountable.

(55:49):
That accountability structurenot having that makes it really
hard to actually get that buy-in.
I, I'd recommend anyone reading up on,on stratify policing, Rachel Rachel
Santos previously, Rachel Boba done alot of work in that really demonstrates
the importance of of accountability.
I think the actual physical pushback.
In terms of the literal pushback asopposed to just some of the challenges

(56:12):
around the culture is probablyagain, you're gonna see different
things, but, but similar things.
So you'll get, for every 10 or 15officers you get, unfortunately,
you'll probably get at least onewho wants to sit at the back of the
classroom with their, with their handsfolded, their arms folded, kind of
saying, this isn't real police work.
This is fluffy stuff.

(56:32):
We should be out therenicking the baddies.
Rather than doing this, preventionside of things, I mean, through.
I always allude people backto the, the PAL principles.
So, so Robert Pill, who foundedthe Metropolitan Police Service, so
the first police service in the uk.
Mm-hmm.
The founding principles notactually written by him.
Everyone always quotes, oh, his PALprinciples, but they're actually written

(56:54):
by a historian, some over a hundredyears later summarizing the work that not
he, but his team had actually written.
So I think he was heavily involved,but maybe slightly inaccurate.
In all these years later we say thatthey were his, but the, one of the
principles there, the first one isjust to pro the goal of policing
is to prevent crime and mm-hmm.
And the other most important one is themeasure of police success is the absence

(57:16):
of crime, not the visible evidence.
Of police action.
So not how many arrests we make,not how many stop searches we do,
but actually the so what afterwards.
So I think there's always a goodchallenge to those people around
what policing ought to be about.
But you always get that, there'salways that underlying tone of,
no, that's not why I signed up.
Lots of lots of cops signed upbecause they want to catch a burglar

(57:37):
at two o'clock in the morning comingout the back of someone's house.
That that's why, that'swhy they want to do it.
So they need to be kind ofwon over by the leadership.
And the leadership needs to be ableto sing, sing the right hymn, hymn
and theme around around problemsolving and, and prevention.
I think a lot of forces say theright things around prevention first.
I think not as many forces.

(57:58):
Are actually truly prevention first.
I think if you were to look attraining, for example, and, and,
and compare how much trainingis put into, say, investigation
standards compared to prevention.
I mean, there's just no comparison.
Sometimes enforce prevention willhave a warning with, with new
officers there'll be an occasionalhour here and an hour there.

(58:20):
Again, that's gonna varyheavily depending on.
Who, which force it isand, and who the leader is.
And some leaders that have risenthrough the ranks that have done pop
and get it and see the value in it havesuch amazing success in their forces.
And then sadly they leave and,and then your new leadership comes
in and, and changes everything.
So I think culture is,culture is a huge thing.

(58:41):
There's, there's many elements to it.
The reactive, the enforcements, the, the,how you measure success, like I said,
around the measure of police success.
But it also allows people to havethe capacity and the resourcing
to be able to do this, to, to,to be able to have the time.
That's one of the most common thingswe hear about the, is the, the,
there's not enough time to do thiswork or support from analysts really.

(59:03):
Analysts are absolutelyessential to this work.
And, and that e even though it's obviousto, to an outsider who, so I guess
to yourself does, it seems obvious, Iwould imagine that analysts are, are
kind of core to the role of problemsolving and problem with policing.
But inside, at least within manypolice forces in the uk that
doesn't seem quite as apparent.

(59:25):
Like it, the analysis gets putback on the officers all the time.
The whole responsibility of the planends up sitting with one officer.
That's not the way to do problemoriented policing, really.
I, and we talked a little bit aboutthis yesterday in the prep call.
I, I think one of the issueswith problem oriented policing is

(59:49):
that it can be too complicated.
Mm-hmm.
It can get bogged down into theidea of having everything be test,
have everything, be documented,have it, it's can be very tedious.
Mm-hmm.
And it gets into more of theacademic, project, if you will, as

(01:00:10):
opposed to a department project.
And I, I do believe that there's analystsat police departments that if you ask
them if they want to be part of that,they're like, no, I, I rather, I'd rather
go do tactical analysis or intelligenceanalysis or even data analysis.

(01:00:34):
. They're not signing upto do this academic.
Type project.
So it doesn't surprise me that you havea scenario where there's analysts pushing
it off of their desk onto somebody else's.
I think I, I think that's for most ofthe analysts that I've worked with,
where they've kind of had that lightbulb moment, they do get past that

(01:00:59):
and they see the, the benefits of it.
I, I get what you mean is that it'swhat we call the is it sexy enough?
Mm-hmm.
Saying, oh, I'veprevented this much crime.
Is that as sexy as, as being ableto say, we arrested this person?
Sure.
And, and having that drive of we gotthem that moment where they come in
and, and there's that kind of conclusion
mm-hmm.
To an
investigation.
It's, it's oftenopen-ended problem solving.

(01:01:21):
We've prevented it a bit,well, when do we stop?
When do we not?
That kind of thing.
I think you're probably, you're rightaround the, the academic thing, I think.
Some, some perspectives can takeit too far that way and it makes
it inaccessible to people that weget caught up in, like you say, in
everything being absolutely perfect.
I think the other thing to reallythink about from an analyst's

(01:01:42):
perspective is seeing theirrole as a part of the core team.
What I see quite often whenanalysts are asked to support
with problem solving in the UK isthat they're an external resource.
They're somewhat sat at headquarters orinevitably working from home now, but,
but, but not based in the local teamswhere the, where the other, the rest of

(01:02:03):
the people working on this problem are andpotentially the partner agencies as well.
In, in, in areas wherethey work closely together.
They're separate.
They get requested via anemail, potentially to their
supervisor that gets passed down.
They don't have necessarily any contacts.
Sometimes with the officer doing the work.
Who's gonna do the interventions?

(01:02:24):
They get asked.
Something quite broad andvague around this problem.
Could you do some analysis, whateverthat is some wizardry around the data.
Can you create some of those niceshiny maps and and tables and graphs
and things that you've done before?
They put this document together,they send it on, and guess what?
They never hear anything back.
They get no feedback.

(01:02:45):
They don't know whether it washelpful or not, and then they
can't improve on the future.
And, and, and if I did that, wouldI want to do that again every time?
No.
I think that's horrible.
Mm-hmm.
I'd be like, why are you askingme to keep doing this stuff?
I don't know whether it's any good or not.
Is it helping at all?
Whereas actually the, the kindof the vision of what this is, is

(01:03:05):
the analyst is part of the team.
They are part of theteam around that problem.
They have a pivotal role and theyneed to work with the officers
and the partners collectively,not this external resource and.
To see their suggestions and theirinterventions actually implemented, I
think would be so much more rewardingthan, than, than often is the case at

(01:03:28):
the moment where for many analysts,and again I'm generalizing here mm-hmm.
To what I've seen, I see many analystswill not put recommendations on their
work in terms of interventions, or ifthey do, it's an extra because they've
been told they have to put something inor it, it looks good to put something in.
And when we do that, it'sinevitably very generic.

(01:03:48):
So it's sort of an, because it's an extrato have, because they have no confidence
necessarily these things are gonna beimplemented because they haven't got they
haven't got some tangible evidence ofthat happening before where they've worked
that closely with the team and they'veseen it implemented their own ideas.
So they, they chuck it on, you'll seeyour patrol do some targeted patrols do
some engagement, have some multi-agencypartnership meetings, CCTV and lighting

(01:04:12):
will be the kind of classics that, that wesee time and time again, whereas actually.
What I wanna see is Iwanna see the handful of.
Tailored interventions that onlythe analysts could have found.
The only analysts through readingthrough meticulously all of those
previous crimes and calls and studyingthem in, in great depth could have

(01:04:32):
picked out because they have adifferent understanding of the problem.
And, and, and they're normallythe person that I want to know
the interventions of from the mostout of all of the people involved.
It's the analyst who spent timeworking on that because they've
spent the last two weeks pouringover these individual crimes.
They know them off the back of their hand.
They need, it's a classic one.
Every analyst back in the day was kindof as, from what I'm told, was trained

(01:04:55):
in it, but it doesn't happen as readilyas it, as it should happen visiting the
locations at the time with the rest ofthe team, walking that location, having
read through some of the crimes to, tomake sure it's targeted, that that just
as a one-off side thing is something.
I see so often people are so desperatewhen they, when they get trained in
this to say, oh yes, we should do asite visit, we should do a walk around.

(01:05:17):
They jumped.
Speak first, straight in andsay, let's go and do the work.
Walk around and I'm saying,hold up just a second.
Can we have a bit of a look at the datafirst before we just end up focusing on
that alley that everyone's obsessed aroundthis alley and you raised the question.
Is, has any crime actuallyhappened down this alley?
And we go, oh, we don't know.
But it looked bad didn't it?
It looked dingy, so that'swhy we're focused on it.

(01:05:39):
But yeah, the role, the role thatanalysts can, can play is huge.
And I think it's the, the experienceof, of doing it in a good environment.
I think one of the barriers andopportunities that Aiden SIBO and
colleagues raised in, in their bit of workaround England and Wales, police forces
and the barriers to pop one of the, well,one of the selling points they said was

(01:05:59):
that it was morale boosting for officers.
And I think it definitely has thepotential to be, but I think it also
has the potential to be the opposite,like you've kind of described.
Mm-hmm.
That actually, if you continue downthat path of not resourcing it, not not
supporting it and just playing at it orlike in the case of the analyst there.
Being requested to do something,but not really feeling part of the

(01:06:20):
team and not being able to see theirinterventions, their ideas come to life.
Then I think it, it doesn't justhave a, a, a neutral effect.
I think it would have a negative effectand actually reduce morale and, and
reduce people's likelihood to wantto do pot because inevitably they'd
think, well, what a load of rubbish.
Yeah.
Well, I, I think too, it's thedifference of being asking them for

(01:06:41):
input versus telling them to do it right.
Yeah.
And that's the attitude of both ofthose scenarios is gonna be quite
different if, if they have the input,if they feel like they're part of
the process, they are going to.
Want to understand and have theunderstanding and fill it out

(01:07:03):
more accurately than somebody whojust was told, Hey, we got this.
We have to fill this out.
Just checking the box.
Like you were just Yeah.
What you were talking about before.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So, all right, well, let's finish up.
You as, I mentioned in your intro, yourecently started out at the Cambridge
Center of Evidence-Based Policing,and you now you're at a consultant

(01:07:26):
and you are overseeing projects overseveral different police forces.
Yeah, I think I, I mean, I was, I waskind of desperate for an opportunity
like this, to be honest, to, to beable to kind of expand a bit more.
I think when you work in one policeforce, it can feel a bit restrictive
when you, if you don't get the buy-inimmediately that you, that you want.

(01:07:46):
And that can be really hard.
Like we've talked about some ofthe barriers and the culture.
So to be able to work for the CambridgeCenter for Evidence-based policing and,
and work with 43 potentially differentforces as well as central policing bodies,
like we have the College of Policingover here and also like the government's
home office and then also internationalforces that we've worked with as well.
There's so much more opportunity, whichI, I really value whether it's, whether

(01:08:09):
it's like training auditing forces on popsupporting forces to do problem solving.
So actually getting hands on.
Recently I've been working throughthe home office with, with a force
creating pop plans and that involved.
Sitting down with the analyst,talking them through their comparative
case analysis, how I would write itfrom a problem solving perspective.
Going out with them and the wider teams,visiting locations, running workshops

(01:08:33):
with them, getting out as much informationabout the problems as possible.
So I think being able to still do thefrontline problem solving work and support
it whilst also doing the training and thewider embedding is kind of the dream job
for me, if you like getting to do all ofthose things as well with forces that,
that really want your support becausethey're the forces that are saying we've
got a little pocket of funding here.

(01:08:53):
What help can you give us?
We are desperate to kind of havesome help, which is, which is really
rewarding and I think leans back tothat, that analytical point we were
making around the analyst and therole and the value of the analyst.
Them actually being really wanted and justas you said, bringing them in and saying.
What's your perspective on this?
What would you do differently rather thanthat tick box where maybe they're just
asked to, contribute something so thatwe can say, oh yes, well we did that.

(01:09:17):
So that's the kind ofplace I'm in at the moment.
It, it gives me a lot of variety,which I, I really enjoy and get to
work with so many different forcesand different problems as well.
So one minute you work on knifecrime, another one, antisocial
behavior and disorder in the nighttimeeconomy or an organized crime.
It's it's a really varied role, whichwhich I really value at the moment.
So let's have a, let's do a whatif scenario and what if you , got

(01:09:43):
a position or going next level now.
And you were put in charge andof implementing problem oriented
policing to the 43 jurisdictionsthat you described earlier.
Mm-hmm.
Have you thought about what are somethings you would implement in that role?

(01:10:03):
I think standardizing some of thebasic things across 43 forces would
make a huge difference whereby.
You go into each of the forces andeveryone does it a little bit different.
And some of them, you talk to some of 'emand say, oh, we got this from this force.
Whether it's a training package ora template, the recording system, a

(01:10:24):
way of evaluating the plans, whateverit was, they're always borrowing it
from someone else, but they don'tknow whether the thing they're
borrowing is actually any good or not.
They are, they, it just, itlooked good and they didn't have
many other options because theydidn't know who else to approach.
You've got some forces that are doingexcellent work and I think too often

(01:10:45):
we see across, and this is againcoming back to that same point around
the number of forces, obviouslythe comparison, but we see so many
different ways of doing the same thing.
I think creating some, . PR codesof practice that, and practical
things that people could do, not justguidelines around what good looks like
you should have these sorts of rolesor it would be good to have a training

(01:11:07):
package and these sorts of things.
I want tactical, tangible things acrossthe 43 forces that we can evidence a
good and we can then go into each ofthe forces and test them to see whether
they're working or not, and then changethem and learn together across 43 forces.
So I'm talking as I said, thetemplate and the recording structure.
Which roles are more valuable?

(01:11:27):
The meeting in terms of to have, ifyou're gonna have a limited number
of supporting roles, whether that'sanalyst advisors, so on and so forth.
The leadership level where it oughtto sit at again, you'll get sometimes
an inspector will own problem solving.
You'll get another timeswhen it's the, the a ccc.
So it's sort of like.
Second, third in command,maybe of the force.
It really varies.

(01:11:47):
There's so much there acrosstraining that varies as well.
And, and the College of Policing isdoing in, in the UK is doing some work
to try and to try and standardize that,at least for neighborhood policing.
But, but there's abroader, work to be done.
So I think the first thing I woulddo is try to standardize some of the,
the basic things and get the basicsright because rather than trying
to run before you can walk, I thinkthere are a lot of the basics that

(01:12:10):
would elevate everyone up a bit.
And I think that's that beautiful sweetspot that forces need to not aim for, but.
Start to progress towards, wherebysometimes we come in and say,
everything's gotta be perfect.
These, this is a great example.
One, you're doing more of these ones,rather than trying to say, well look,
can we start doing the basics right?

(01:12:30):
Consistently, can every problemhave at least one baseline measure?
Please?
Can it be routinely monitored?
Is there some evidence ofanalytical work taking place?
Are the responses actually evidence-based?
All of these things that aren'tnecessarily going to the nth
degree, like where you describedaround it feeling too academic.
But if you do some of the basicsright, if we can start to then

(01:12:53):
reach those points afterwards.
So I think standardizing some kindof expectations around, around what
force, what looks good, really.
Yeah.
Well . You're stillyoung, yet you have time.
And someone would
have to create the role first.
Yeah.
And well, and then hey, you'll doso many great things that they'll
create, an award, the sessions award.
Right.

(01:13:13):
And just like we weretalking a little bit Yeah.
About yesterday is the,the, the department that.
Has most integrated problemoriented policing in the department.
Right?
Yeah.
I
think that that would be huge.
I think we look at single plans.
That's how we measure success.
We the convert example.
Now I can't, I can't for asecond stand here and say.

(01:13:35):
Oh, well, we shouldn't do that.
And I would just obliterate mycareer that I wouldn't be able
to springboard off of that.
I'm not, I'm not interested inself-sabotage that much, but
obviously it's incredibly important.
We keep that towards theTilly Awards, the gold season.
We keep championing those individualsuccesses a hundred percent.
But that extra bit, it's potentiallylooking beyond the single individual
sparks of brilliance and in innovationthat we see across time and time

(01:13:59):
again each year with people puttingforward their projects, but instead.
As you say, who is embedding it?
Who's gone from being the bottom ofthe list, if you like, in terms of
forces and really struggling with this.
And they don't have any recordingprocess and no one's doing it to, they
might not be the best and they mightnot have the overall single plan, but
by God they've got 30 plans in theirforce and they're all at least average.

(01:14:23):
I know that sounds really depressing.
They're all least average.
So there's a minimum standard.
We've got a load that are good andthe ones that are average, guess what?
They're all taking learning.
They, they, they've realized wherethey went wrong and how they're
gonna improve it next time.
And we start to see that improvement.
The officer that owned this one did anaverage one to start off with, but now
you can look at the next one they'vedone and look, it's getting better.

(01:14:44):
That kind of evidence.
To embedding it, to changing theculture, to changing the infrastructure
that that enables this to happenis worth its weight in gold.
And it's worth so much more thanone single plan, which, as, as
I say, should still be rewarded.
But I think that's, that's the goal.
That's what every forceshould be looking for.
Not just those one-off plans, butbut systematically embedding it.

(01:15:07):
Yeah,.
It's a good pitch.
We gotta, cut out that part about average.
It can't be the mid award.
I don't wanna
say we're not aiming for that, butI can tell you if everyone was like,
all of our plans are at least 50quality 50% and above, they'd, everyone
would bite your hand off for that.
As long as there's afew good ones in there.
As long as we don't just acceptthat everyone can be 50%.

(01:15:29):
So
here's a more philosophical questionfor you, and it's probably a very meaty
question, but problem solving, shouldit be a police department endeavor or
should it be more of a citywide endeavor?
So it's not necessarily justthe police department taking

(01:15:52):
on this problem solving role.
It is the entire city, the entirecommunity taking on this role.
I mean, it's certainly the visionof even when it was proposed,
that was kind of the vision.
But I think that the turnoff that you'rekind of alluding to is the fact that it's
problem oriented policing, but mm-hmm.
You see many people historically referto it as problem oriented partnerships,

(01:16:14):
and that was one, one person thatas an ex colleague, I think six
months ago, said, why don't we callit problem oriented partnerships?
I can't get buy-in from the partnersbecause we keep calling this police thing.
I think there's nothing to stopus completely changing it and say.
It's problem oriented partnerships becausethat's partnerships are ingrained in it.
And they don't work very well.

(01:16:35):
The plans often without it even for myLY one, obviously we were heavily police
led because of the nature of the crime.
It was very crimey.
It wasn't a problem that was sortof you, you know what I mean?
It wasn't sort of blurring thelines between all our organizations.
We were clearly going to be the lead.
But even in, in that, we still acquireddata and got buy-in and they helped with

(01:16:58):
the interventions, various partners,even though it was very crime focused.
Other, other work, some work I've donerecently with the force around robberies.
Basically every intervention weproposed was not owned by the police.
That wasn't on purpose.
I wasn't trying to to move responsibilityaway from police, but it was just
inevitable that when you open yourmind up to the opportunities of,

(01:17:21):
of preventing crime, there's anyone of countless opportunities.
And, and often very , few ofthem feel police and, and that
really is how it should be.
And I think maybe as youkind of alluded to, I think.
, We involve partnerships todifferent degrees, at least
in, in the UK fairly well.
Whether or not there is ingrainedwithin individual plans as as much as we

(01:17:43):
would like is another question I'd say.
But we definitely involvepartners fairly well.
I would say across the board.
What we probably do less wellis involve the community.
I think we do problem solvingto the community more often.
Again separate case studies can, will,will deviate from that of course.

(01:18:04):
But I think by and large we see us asthe, we are the doers and the community.
We know what's best interest of thecommunity and in actual fact, sometimes we
miss some key bits of information and wemiss some opportunities and we sometimes
make things worse occasionally as well.
So I think involving the communitya bit more, and I think I, I

(01:18:24):
think the question would be.
To put back to you, I guess, where wouldit then sit strategically in terms of
ownership and I guess that would comedown to every jurisdiction that is
probably set up in a slightly differentway, but maybe starting to take some
of the ownership away from policingand seeing policing as a role within
that would, would be the first step.
And I often say to partners who come ontraining alongside their police colleagues

(01:18:48):
that I run, I say, you guys are armed.
They say, how, how can we do this?
This is a even though you've explainedto us, it still feels heavily police
and we're relying on the police here.
Mm-hmm.
Said the language now Sarah pop.
Underlying causes baselinemeasures evaluations and control
groups and all of these thingsthat we're talking about, right?
You can use that to your advantage.

(01:19:08):
So when you go back to your partnershipmeetings, which happen mostly monthly in
the uk, you can start using that languagenow, people that haven't been on this
course, inspectors on that will startlooking around going, hang on a minute.
I'm getting internal people saying,where are your problem solving plans?
Your scanning's not good enough.
You need to be doing moreof this, and more of that.
But now the partners are talkingabout it, they understand this, they

(01:19:30):
understand this better than I do.
God, I better make sure that we'rein tip top condition, because I
can't have everyone from all sidesseemingly knowing about this.
So maybe that's not the idealway that we'd like people to come
along in terms of, like I'm sayingwith the carrot and the stick.
But you've gotta take every opportunity,and I think it's definitely an
opportunity around partnerships.
All right.
Very good.
Let's move on to our advice section.

(01:19:50):
So analysts hearing thiswhat advice do you have?
For them.
I think the main thing is tobe inquisitive is to not take
anything as, as gospel truth.
Data quality as you've alludedto and, and, and making sure
it's, it's viable to use.
It's, it's notoriously tricky in policing.
I think the main thing.

(01:20:11):
Is to go beyond descriptives.
It's the critical thinking elementthat makes problem analysis.
What it is.
It's, it's going beyond just saying,okay, they would like some information
around victims offenders locations.
So on, here are all the percentagesthis is the ethnicity of suspects,
the percentage of them that were this.
Mm-hmm.
The, the temporal analysis, this iswhen that happened, but actually putting

(01:20:31):
these things together to kind of makesense of it is, what this is all about.
I, I did, and again, another examplerecently whereby a victim had gone
into a shop asking to borrow a phonebecause they had just been a victim
of crime and their phone had beenstolen and the shop refused them.
They said, no, not interestedin getting involved.
That one off incident doesn'tnecessarily mean much on its own, but

(01:20:55):
to me, that jumped out as being okay.
That tells me that maybe people, maybepeople in this area, businesses are
not being those capable guardians.
They're not necessarily helping people.
If they're not gonna help victims, thenthey're most certainly not going to be
doing anything at the time of an offenseto be able to prevent this from happening
and become those active capable guardians.
So I would then beinquisitive as an analyst.

(01:21:17):
I would ask the questions to say, whatelse would I need to see in the data?
To be able to sort of fulfill thathypothesis that I think there's
a lack of capable guardianship.
So you can start to kind of brainstorm,for lack of a better phrase, different
ways of of, of, of testing that.
So whether for us that was thingslike how many of the crimes
have witness statements on them.

(01:21:37):
If I could work that out as apercentage, that alone isn't going to
tell me about capable guardianship.
But it contributes to my understandingbecause I would be expecting if there
were no capable guardians and peopleweren't supportive of prosecutions
and supporting victims, that I wouldsee a lack of witness statements.
What are there examples and case studiesand members of the public intervening or
supporting victims when incidents happen,what's the time between offense time and

(01:22:04):
reported time for when phones are stolen?
If the time is.
Massive, the gap that tells meno one is providing their phone.
No one's seeing this happening andgoing, oh, you've had your phone stolen.
Do you wanna borrow myphone and call the police?
That's never happening.
So all of those things on their ownwouldn't tell me much about the problem,
but combined, they would create thispicture, this understanding of that

(01:22:27):
critical thinking of how does this dataall come together and tell me something
about the story and tell me why thiscrime is, is being allowed to occur.
And, and if it does, then you can startcoming up with your interventions and
you can recommend those interventionsbased on saying, well, okay, what things
would we be doing differently to enablethose people in that location when those
thefts and robberies are happening tobecome active capable guardians, whether

(01:22:51):
they're members of the public or they'repeople working in the businesses.
So to move beyond thosedescriptive or those one-liners,
for example, saying there wasone incident where this happened.
I don't care too much about one incident.
That's not the the patternthat I'm looking for.
I'm looking about how.
The story comes togetheracross all these incidents.
Where are the patternsbetween them for opportunity?

(01:23:13):
And probably the last thing I'd say is.
Hypothesis testing.
So turning assumptionsinto testable hypotheses.
And by that, it doesn't need to be sortof, as we said earlier, statistical
analysis, but like I said earlierwith the, the example around someone
refusing their phone, that gives mean idea about what I think's going on.
And I say, what else do Ineed to see in the data?
Or by visiting a location, engaging withpartners to make me feel more confident

(01:23:38):
about this particular hypothesis.
And the best way of doing that iscollaborating with the officers.
Because officers involved in theseproblems who are walking these areas
day in day out, experiencing theseproblems will have loads of knowledge
and understanding about those problems.
But inevitably some of those thingsmight be assumptions because we
haven't got an evidence basis for them.
So I find that's a really greatway to merge officers and analysts

(01:24:02):
together as part of that team totake the local understanding and
perspective of the officers and turnthose things into hypothesis to say,
okay, we think that, and what do I asan analyst need to see in the data?
How can I help for usto be confident of that?
So I think that's the best wayof kind of merging it together.
And for the listeners, we will put linksto additional information on all the

(01:24:24):
topics that we talked about here today.
And if you have questions for Matt, wewill leave a way to contact Matt as well.
Alright, Matt, let's finish up withpersonal interests and you enjoy cricket.
Yes.
And I know that might meannothing to American listeners.
It's one of the biggestsports in the world.

(01:24:45):
I have, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, so is football AKA soccer?
But Americans don't seem to beimpressed by that much either,
although it's getting better.
No, but I, no.
Do you know what USA actually hada, a team at the last, the 2020,
which is a format of cricket.
So there are different,different types of waves.

(01:25:05):
We play cricket.
They had a, they had a team at the, thelast World Cup of that, and I believe
they beat Pakistan, which was a, I thinkI, I might be corrected now by someone.
I feel like they beat someone big.
And it was a bit of a coup.
So there's definitely somethingto latch onto maybe for, for
American listeners there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I have talked to severalpeople that, I say several.

(01:25:27):
That's not a, that's not accurate.
I've talked to a couple peoplethat have, that have played it
and explained it to me, and theysaid , you just have to watch it.
Yeah.
I have to someone's gotta coachyou through exactly what happens
when, and then you, get a way betterunderstanding of, the process.
But I think it's the moment then that theytell you the, one of the best formats of

(01:25:50):
the game is five days solid of playingthat everyone normally just switches up.
But that is the best bit.
It is the ebb and flow.
It's like watching chess.
It's like the strategicmaneuvers of, of five days.
One that you think one team's ontop and then, and then, and then
three days later they're not.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
It goes on for days.

(01:26:13):
. And then who's, who's your football team?
Westham United, so East London.
My family's from originally from,from the east end of London.
So we are, they're kind ofhaving a terrible time of it
now, so I'm not really, I'm notreally wanting to talk about it.
We're not, we're not doing so well.
But we actually, a couple of years agowon the first trophy ever of my lifetime.
So at least we've got something tosomething to write at home about.

(01:26:36):
But to, to be honest, when we weretalking yesterday about our interest
and things like that, that we mightdiscuss, and I was kind of just
thinking, I was reminiscing of allof the things that I used to love
doing before I had a 3-year-old child.
Really?
Yeah.
And, if my son, it becomesan analyst in 20 years and it
somehow digs this podcast out.
I, I still love you.
And, and definitely.
I don't regret all of these things.

(01:26:56):
Trading them in playing cricket,going to festivals and gigs.
My my season ticket watchingWestham playing playing in a band,
things like that, that all feellike very distant memories now.
Now I, now it's ha having,having a 3-year-old and.
Just thinking about problem solvingall the time, which, which is which
drives my life, which I, I definitelyneed at least, this is maybe a bit

(01:27:17):
of a wake up call have, having tothink about what my interests are is
a wake up call to definitely createsome more than just indoor cycling.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
All right, Matt, it is been apleasure talking with you today.
Our last segment to the show is Wordsto the World, and this is where you
can promote any idea that you wish.
What are your words to the world?

(01:27:38):
I think it's kind of slightlycliche, but I think you you asked
words for words for the world.
Jason, you're gonna get something cliche.
I think be curious about everything.
If you are, whether this is in thereal world, if you like out or the real
world, the world outside of analysisor not, be curious about everything.
Ask why to everything.
Question.

(01:27:58):
It.
Don't take everything at at face value.
If something in your spreadsheetlooks wrong or doesn't quite add up,
don't bury your head in the sand.
But go and find out.
It's the only way that you'll findfind the accuracy and find the truth.
And, and if you wanna go further,specifically thinking about problem
or policing, you need analysts.
You need analysts tounderstand problem analysis.

(01:28:18):
You need to get 'em to realize the crucialrole that they play because without
them , we're just playing at this really.
Very good.
Well, I leave ever guess with,you've given me just enough
to talk bad about you later.
Thanks very much, Jason.
But I do appreciate you being on the show.
Thank you so
much.
And you be safe.
Cheers.
You too.
Thank
you for making it to the end of anotherepisode of Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.

(01:28:38):
You can show your support by sharingthis in other episodes found on
our website@www.leapodcasts.com.
If you have a topic you would likeus to cover or have a suggestion for
our next guest, please send us anemail at Elliot podcasts@gmail.com.
Till next time, analysts, keep talking.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Analyst Talk - Matt Sessions - The Underlying Causes Analyst