Policing and Data Analytics

ThisPolicing and Data Analytics program from University of Essex examines key challenges in contemporary policing and provides students with strong quantitative analysis skills to analyse policing. Students will have the opportunity to gain an advanced understanding of how policing works in and tries to adapt to the contemporary world.

Police play a crucial role in society, and policing has a direct impact on the lives, freedoms and security of citizens. Police rely increasingly on evidence and research to design interventions, allocate resources, and evaluate their work.

Students from the Policing and Data Analytics program from University of Essex will address cutting-edge critical, conceptual and theoretical analyses of policing, human rights, privacy and surveillance studies, domestic violence, hate crime, and gender-based violence. They will gain an applied understanding of different research methods and concepts including randomised control trials, the use of ‘R’ and conceptualisations of causality, allowing them to design and critically analyse approaches to gathering evidence.

They will have the opportunity to hear from police themselves about how they respond to these challenges. They will be taught by the academic experts who have worked closely with police as well as campaigning for police reform to address brutality, abuse and misconduct. The module equips students with the necessary skills to evaluate the current academic and policy literature on policing and develop a critical understanding of key topics in policing.

Your future

Essex Sociology and Criminology students have gone on to high-powered, dedicated careers in criminal justice, working for organisations such as these:

• Suffolk County Council

• Wellcome Trust

• ACTAsia

• The World Bank

• Essex and Metropolitan Police Forces

• Office of Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner

• Civil Service

• United Nations

Courses included:

• Contemporary Policing

• Modelling Policing, Crime and Society

• Sociological Research Design

• Machine Learning

• Text Analytics