Every day, the police work with ever-growing amounts of data. But how much of that data do we truly turn into useful insights and concrete actions in criminal investigations? On Monday, April 13, the new whitepaper “The CSAE Framework for Data-Driven Policing” was presented to deputy commissioner of the National Police of the Netherlands Wilbert Paulissen – an approach that directly addresses this issue.

Practical Focus

Dr. Erik van de Sandt – police investigator and honorary research fellow at University of Bristol – is one of the authors of the whitepaper. “What makes this whitepaper particularly interesting is that it is not just theoretical. The framework originates from real-world practice and is already being applied for the last ten years in large-scale international intelligence projects and criminal investigations. In the whitepaper, we describe how to move from fragmented, unstructured data to factual, well-founded interventions – not by adding more tools, but by using a language we can all speak and learn: Collect, Store, Analyze, and Engage.

Wilbert Paulissen is enthusiastic about its content: “Data-driven work is not a simple issue, but a journey within a complex reality. That is precisely why we need a shared framework to work effectively with data together.”