Law enforcement trends and crime analytics in a pandemic
A research paper projecting trends and changes in law enforcement should the COVID-19 virus become airborne, addressing First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues, explaining how crime analytics would be used to help law enforcement, and identifying what evidence would signal such trends and what methods would gather it, having first researched what crime analytics is, what a crime analyst does, and what tools and information they use.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 13, 2026
Fix the premise, then project
The premise contains a technical error and how you handle it sets the tone of the paper. Respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2 already transmit through the air, and the scientific consensus on airborne spread was established well before most people stopped arguing about it, so a virus becoming airborne is not a future event. What the question is reaching for is a far more transmissible pathogen, and that is a coherent and interesting scenario. Say so briefly and precisely in the introduction, restate the premise as a substantial increase in transmissibility or severity, and proceed. That is not pedantry and a marker will not read it as evasion; it is the paper demonstrating in its first paragraph that it understands the subject matter well enough to know what the scenario actually implies for enforcement. Two sentences are enough, and they buy you credibility for everything that follows.
The four amendments are named for a reason and each raises a different question, so treat them separately rather than writing one section about civil liberties. The First is implicated by restrictions on assembly and worship, and by the treatment of protest against the restrictions themselves. The Second becomes relevant through firearms purchasing surges and through decisions about whether gun retailers count as essential, which was litigated in several states. The Fourth is engaged by any expansion of surveillance for contact tracing or compliance monitoring, and turns on the reasonable expectation of privacy in location data. The Fifth reaches compelled disclosure of health status, and its takings clause reaches the closure of businesses. Anchor each to concrete enforcement actions rather than to abstractions, and note that most public health authority sits at state rather than federal level, which is where the doctrine actually operates. Say which level of government would actually be issuing each order you discuss.
The crime analytics half is a separate research task and the prompt sets it out as one, telling you to start by researching what crime analytics is and what a crime analyst does. Do that first, because the answer disciplines everything after it. Crime analysis is conventionally divided into tactical work supporting active investigations, strategic work on longer-term patterns and resource allocation, and administrative work supporting policy and command decisions. An analyst works with calls for service, incident reports, arrest data, field interviews and geographic information systems, producing hot-spot maps, temporal analyses, series identification and forecasts. Knowing that division lets you say something specific: a pandemic scenario is primarily a strategic and administrative analysis problem, since the question is how the pattern and distribution of demand shifts, not how to link one burglary series. Naming the division early also tells the reader which tools belong in the later sections.
With that in place, the projection can be evidence-based rather than speculative, and the earlier pandemic gives you a documented baseline to reason from. Reported crime did not simply fall; the composition shifted. Offences requiring public presence and opportunity, such as certain thefts and commercial burglaries, moved with the availability of targets. Domestic violence reporting fell in some jurisdictions while service demand rose, which is a reporting-versus-incidence problem an analyst would have to name explicitly. Calls for service shifted towards welfare checks and disturbances. Online fraud rose. Say what an analyst would monitor to detect each shift early, which indicator would move first, and how they would distinguish a genuine change in offending from a change in reporting behaviour, since conflating those two is the central analytic risk in the whole scenario. Say which of the two you would expect to move first and why that ordering matters operationally.
On execution, the prompt tells you to use all available sources and it also asks how you would find these sources of information, which means the methodology deserves its own section rather than being implied. Name the actual repositories: uniform crime reporting and incident-based systems, agency open data portals, national victimisation survey data that captures unreported crime, and the research bodies that publish evaluations. Be explicit about what each can and cannot tell you, since agency data measures reported crime and survey data measures experienced crime, and the gap between them is precisely what a pandemic disturbs. Keep the constitutional analysis grounded in decided cases rather than in commentary, distinguish clearly throughout between what is documented and what you are projecting, and mark every prediction as a prediction. Separate the documented baseline from the projected scenario with a clear heading rather than a change of tense.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Correct and restate a technically flawed premise without abandoning the question.
- 02Treat the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments as four distinct issues.
- 03Locate public health enforcement authority at the level where it actually sits.
- 04Define crime analysis by its tactical, strategic and administrative divisions.
- 05Project from documented pandemic-era changes in crime composition.
- 06Distinguish changes in offending from changes in reporting.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument. COVID-19 virus became airborne Essay ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours. COVID-19 virus became airborne Essay
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01Projected trends and changes in law enforcement under the stated scenario.
- 02First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues under consideration.
- 03An explanation of how crime analytics would be used to help law enforcement.
- 04The evidence you would examine for hints of such trends.
- 05The methods you would use to gather that evidence.
- 06Preliminary research on what crime analytics is and what a crime analyst does.
- 07An account of how you would find these sources of information.
Four amendments, then the analytics
The premise restated
Why airborne is not the right term, and what scenario the question is actually posing.
First Amendment
Assembly, worship and protest against the restrictions themselves.
Second Amendment
Purchasing surges and essential-business designations for retailers.
Fourth Amendment
Surveillance, contact tracing and location data.
Fifth Amendment
Compelled health disclosure and the takings question raised by closures.
What crime analysis is
Tactical, strategic and administrative divisions, and what an analyst actually does.
Tools and data
Calls for service, incident reports, geographic systems and forecasting methods.
Projected shifts in crime
Composition changes drawn from documented pandemic-era evidence.
Reporting against incidence
How an analyst would tell a change in offending from a change in reporting.
Methodology
Which repositories, what each measures, and what each misses.
Reported crime against experienced crime
Recommended databases
- National Institute of Justice publications
- Bureau of Justice Statistics data
- Agency open data portals and uniform crime reporting
- Legal databases and constitutional commentary
Search sequence
- 1.Establish what is known about airborne transmission before restating the premise.
- 2.Read a definition of crime analysis from a professional or research body, not a general website.
- 3.Find published analyses of crime patterns during the earlier pandemic period.
- 4.Locate victimisation survey data alongside agency data so the reporting gap is visible.
- 5.Identify decided cases on public health orders, assembly and business closures.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Law Enforcement
National Institute of Justice · 2025
Research on policing practice and crime analysis from the federal research body, which is the right source for what an analyst does.
- 02
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Office of Justice Programs · 2025
Victimisation survey data alongside agency data, which is what makes the reporting-versus-incidence distinction testable.
- 03
Fourth Amendment
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School · 2025
The text and annotated doctrine for the surveillance analysis, rather than secondary commentary.
- 04
First Amendment
Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School · 2025
Assembly and free exercise doctrine, which the restrictions half of the scenario turns on.
- 05
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
World Health Organization · 2025
Transmission evidence, needed to restate the premise accurately rather than merely dismissing it.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Accepting the premise uncritically, or rejecting the question because of it.
- Merging the four amendments into a single civil liberties section.
- Treating public health enforcement as primarily a federal power.
- Describing crime analysis without its tactical, strategic and administrative divisions.
- Speculating about crime trends when documented pandemic data exists.
- Reading a fall in reports as a fall in offending.
- Leaving the methodology implicit when the prompt asks for it directly.
- Failing to mark projections as projections.
Submission checklist
- The premise is corrected precisely and restated as increased transmissibility.
- First Amendment issues cover assembly, worship and protest.
- Second Amendment issues cover purchasing surges and essential-business designations.
- Fourth Amendment analysis addresses surveillance and expectations of privacy in location data.
- Fifth Amendment analysis addresses compelled disclosure and business closures.
- State rather than federal location of public health authority is noted.
- Crime analysis is defined by its three conventional divisions.
- The scenario is identified as a strategic and administrative analysis problem.
- Projections rest on documented pandemic-era changes in crime composition.
- Reporting effects are distinguished from incidence effects.
- Specific indicators and their expected order of movement are named.
- A methodology section names actual data repositories and their limits.
- Constitutional analysis rests on decided cases.
- Every prediction is marked as a prediction.
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
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Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.