https://crimede-coder.com Crime Analysis Consulting Services en-us https://crimede-coder.com/images/AndrewWheeler_DataScienceCV_Bullet.pdf services Tue, 2 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Data Science CV, PDF version. https://crimede-coder.com/images/AndrewWheeler_CV.pdf services Tue, 2 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Academic CV, PDF version. https://crimede-coder.com/llms.txt services Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 For the machines, a description of the work I do at Crime De-Coder. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2026/ConfClassification blog Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 One of the common use cases for large language models is classifying text -- but data scientists often want to know the confidence that the text falls into the category. This blog post shows an example using a models log-probabilities to determine if text has obscene language, while setting the recall rate or estimating the precision of the classification. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post024 newsletter Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The reason I started the newsletter was to help folks with backgrounds in social science and crime analysis develop the skills to compete in the private sector job market. I now run a team of close to 10 folks at Gainwell, and I would love to hire more individuals with PhDs, but many lack the requisite skills. This book is meant to give folks the necessary background to be qualified for data science jobs that use LLM APIs. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2026/LLMsForMortals blog Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 I have released a new book, Large Language Models for Mortals: A Practical Guide for Analysts. The book is a tutorial on how to use foundational model APIs in python, with examples for all major model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS Bedrock). And extensive materials on the basics of LLMs (structured outputs, RAG, tool calling). It also includes a chapter on using LLM coding tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Google's Antigravity). https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2026/PlanningExperiment blog Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Do you want to know if your tech purchase or new strategy is increasing arrest rates? This blog post goes over a methodology (with R code) on how to plan how long to monitor your intervention to tell if it is working. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2026/CrimeTrendsMystery blog Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Many criminologists and pundits will speculate about what causes general crime to go up or down, but those theories often do not meet the same rigorous standards we expect when we evaluate evidence based policing interventions. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/CodingAgentRisks blog Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Coding agents, like Cursor and Claude Code, generate a new type of security risk, exfiltration. This is where they leak sensitive data to outside websites through tool calling. I describe ways to reduce this risk in this blog post. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/GraphsBetterThanTables blog Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 CompStat reporting traditionally uses tables of pre-post crime metrics. This can fail to capture the distinction between short term spikes versus long term trends. I show two example charts, a weekly Poisson z-score chart and a monthly seasonal chart, that are better suited to identifying those patterns in crime data. https://crimede-coder.com//blogposts/2025/BookTranslations blog Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 I have translated my data science for crime analysis book into Spanish and French using generative AI tools. Print and epub versions are available for purchase worldwide. See reviews of the English version, and for a limited time purchase the epub versions in any of the languages for $19.99. https://crimede-coder.com/present/Penn_AvoidNoise_Wheeler.pdf blog Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Talk given to the Penn criminology masters students. Avoid chasing the noise when monitoring crime going up or down, or seeing if your intervention reduced crime relative to a control area. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/SPPT blog Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 When examining changes in crime over time, I suggest to use the spatial point pattern test, as other techniques are often too noisy. I demonstrate with python code and open source data from Durham, showing areas with increased thefts from motor vehicles. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/CostBenefitGSD blog Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 I detail how to evaluate the cost and benefits of gun shot detection, from lives saved to reductions in crime. Only areas with very high levels of gun violence do I think it is currently cost effective due to lives saved. There is not consistent evidence it reduces crime. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/StructuredOutputs blog Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 One application of generative AI tools is to extract information from plain text. This example code shows using python, AWS, and Anthropic models to classify elements of crime in police narratives. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/GSUBooksQuery demos Sun, 29 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Dashboard to show how much students spend on books at GSU. Tech stack: Cloudflare R2 to host parquet files, DuckDB WASM to query the data client side, and D3.js to create a sortable table. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/OutlierProportions blog Wed, 25 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Here I show a simple technique, using a funnel chart, to identify when a proportion is an outlier relative to the number of observations. I use a simulated data example in python to showcase the technique. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/DenverStar blog Wed, 3 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Reviving a series of posts I wrote for the American Society of Evidence Based Policing in the Criminal Justician series. First is a review of why I am skeptical that Denver's STAR alternative responder program caused a large crime decrease, and I go over the distinction between CAD and incident reports. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/WDDExtensions blog Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 I have developed several extensions to the WDD statistic, including different temporal periods in pre/post, normalizing per area, combining different harm weight estimates, and continuous monitoring. See the post for examples and a spreadsheet to do the calculations. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/LearnSQL blog Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Analysts should learn SQL to get ad-hoc queries faster, make your work more reliable, and have more skills that are transferable to other analyst positions. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post023 newsletter Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Post 023 Alt Academic newsletter. Last newsletter for now, broadening your skills can help buffer against the current volatility in academic and government jobs. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/BOLOs blog Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Analysts working on too many BOLOs is a poor use of analyst time. This post I give several better uses of your time for analyst products. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post022 newsletter Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Post 022 Alt Academic newsletter. Can apply more than once, using python to manipulate mouse for scraping. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2025/JunkScience blog Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Research on detecting lying in 911 calls is junk, and I review a recent paper that makes a major mistake that greatly inflates its accuracy. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post021 newsletter Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 021 Alt Academic newsletter. Don't worry about stack ranking, consulting travel jobs. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post020 newsletter Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 020 Alt Academic newsletter. Rejection is not a normal part of other jobs, project manager if you are not quant, scraping via APIs or playwright. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/PayForResearch blog Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Instead of relying on grants to outsource research, it makes sense for private and public sector agencies to contract directly with researchers. It is much faster and better savings for the researchers themselves. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post019 newsletter Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 019 Alt Academic newsletter. Practice your talks, startup job focused on surveys, Willison blog to keep up on LLMs. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/QueryRMS blog Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Many analysts struggle to connect to data that is crucial for their job. In this post I go over my approach to figure out the proper ODBC connections to query record management systems using python. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/AIApplications blog Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Artificial intelligence has a ton of buzz, but not much substance in current public discussions. This post goes over some of the popular AI applications in policing, gives my opinion of their feasibility, and discusses some examples of AI that are over promising what they can accomplish. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post018 newsletter Sun, 01 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 018 Alt Academic newsletter. Social media experience, UX researcher, Research position and Chase, and use Quarto. https://crimede-coder.com services Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Updated homepage with shorter description for services + footer for links. Any feedback on website appreciated! https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/DurhamHotspots demos Sat, 03 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Updated demo for interactive map. Built using python + folium. Incorporates custom looks and interactions. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post017 newsletter Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 017 Alt Academic newsletter. Salary ranges can be misleading, creating LLC, updated jobboard link. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/Aoristic blog Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Aoristic analysis is necessary when analyzing property crimes that have uncertain times they occurred. Check out this blog post for example graphs and links to python code. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/TechTalkLPRs blog Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 I will be giving a talk on Automated License Plate Readers at an event for the Libertarian Party of Wake County on July 17th in Raleigh. See my slides and overview of how LPRs are used in practice. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post016 newsletter Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 016 Alt Academic newsletter. Python self-published book is out! For those looking to get started in python this is my recommended resource. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/PythonDataScience blog Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 My entry level book on learning how to use python to conduct crime analysis is out and available to purchase in epub and paperback versions. This book not only teaches the basics of python, but how to deploy python programming to accomplish real tasks. https://crimede-coder.com/present/CCA_Temporal_Wheeler.pdf blog Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Slides for webinar hosted by the Carolina Crime Analysis Association https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post015 newsletter Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 015 Alt Academic newsletter. State researcher job positions, PhD can be applied to many fields, probabilities and expected values. https://crimede-coder.com/present/Comment_AI_CrimeDecoder.pdf blog Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Response to NIJ's request for input on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. I provide a working definition of AI, suggest data transparency is key to for algorithms to be trustworthy, and that NIJ should expand funding for more original development of AI models. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/SimpleRule blog Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 If you on average had 0.8 robberies in a month (so in between 9 and 10 per year), and you happened to have a month with 3 robberies, is that weird? In this blog post I show how to use the Poisson distribution to identify outliers in rare crime events. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post014 newsletter Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 014 Alt Academic newsletter. Sending emails are worth it and intro to docker. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/LocalGeocoding blog Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Crime data analysis requires batch geocoding large numbers of events. This can be costly using web based geocoding services, so this post shows how to create a local geocoding engine using ArcPro and python. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post013 newsletter Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 013 Alt Academic newsletter. All about how CICD is an important quality control mechanism for your code, unit testing code, and github actions. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/CustomSoftware blog Wed, 3 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 To better meet police departments needs, CRIME De-Coder builds custom software and algorithms. I give examples of prior projects: social network algorithms, police redistricting, and simple stats to tell if a crime intervention is effective. This approach can also be less costly than an expensive SaaS product. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post012 newsletter Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 012 Alt Academic newsletter. You should not wait for the perfect moment to apply to jobs. Guesstimate that you need 20k observations before tree based models are worth the effort. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/CompstatCounter blog Sun, 17 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This blogpost shows how to use a comparison area to determine if your CompStat intervention has been successful in reducing crime. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post011 newsletter Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 011 Alt Academic newsletter. Don't worry about learning latest new skills, basics of stats + R|python + SQL will get you far. Doing consulting as a side gig to start. Tech advice for how code project directories are organized. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/Surveys blog Sun, 3 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This post discusses the two major types of surveys police departments conduct; post-contact and general attitude surveys. It also discusses how CRIME De-Coder has developed lower cost methods than many firms that conduct surveys. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post010 newsletter Tue, 27 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 010 Alt Academic newsletter. Things may seem complex, but given sufficient effort you can learn them. Don't save passwords in code, use environment variables. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/AIRegulation blog Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This post discusses my vision for the practical application of artificial intelligence regulation in policing; focusing on harms, front end documentation on the validity of the system, and regular monitoring of the system in practice. As well as whom should do the regulation. https://crimede-coder.com/present/Wheeler_FBI_2023.pdf blog Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This is my presentation for the 2023 FBI Dash conference. Paper on how random forests have greater predictive accuracy than RTM, and how you can use interpretable model summaries to describe hotspots and criminological patterns in the data. https://crimede-coder.com/present/CarolinaSimple blog Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This is my presentation for the Carolina Crime Analysis conference in 2024. Illustrates the use of the WDD stat to evaluate pre/post crime changes relative to control areas. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post009 newsletter Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 009 Alt Academic newsletter. My notes on LLMs; deployment hassles, different prompt ideas (RAG, zero-shot, one-shot). https://crimede-coder.com/presentations services Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 A page to display CRIME De-Coders presentations. If you are interested in a tech talk or a workshop, always feel free to reach out! https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/DashboardAdvice blog Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 This post give advice about how to conceptualize what you place on your dashboard, the types of comparisons you make, and whether alternatives such as auto-alerts or standardized reports are better solutions for your use case. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post008 newsletter Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 008 Alt Academic newsletter. Making a public website/portfolio, recommend Duckett's books on web development, and I like Teradata better than databricks/snowflake. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post007 newsletter Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 007 Alt Academic newsletter. People embellishing tech skills vs imposter syndrome, fraud jobs at TikTok and Lexis Nexis, github intro. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/EIS blog Wed, 09 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Early Intervention Systems (EIS), are algorithms used to identify problematic behavior by police officers. This post goes over what they hare, how they should be used, and gives a price range that CRIME De-Coder can build custom software for your department. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post006 newsletter Wed, 04 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Post 006 Alt Academic newsletter. Banking jobs, CTEs in SQL, product/project managers https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/sworn demos Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Dashboard to compare policing hiring statistics to other agencies in the US (based on data from the FBI). Tech stack: Supabase and SQL functions to generate statistics, and D3.js https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2024/PredictSoftware blog Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Before purchasing predictive policing software you should do your own evaluation of how accurate the software is. This post discusses metrics and methods to do this for spatial and person based predictive software, as well as early intervention systems. https://crimede-coder.com/store Store Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Crime De-Coder Store front. Current items include early release of Data Science for Crime Analysis with python book, and GUI tool to download streetview images. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post005 newsletter Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Post 005 Alt Academic newsletter. Up and coming tech cities, increase font size in plots, happy holidays! https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/Training blog Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 What distinguishes CRIME De-Coders training services from other providers is technical expertise, as well as building custom courses to help your crime analysis unit on specific projects. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post004 newsletter Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Post 004 Alt Academic newsletter. Apply a bunch advice, civil service jobs, don't change directory in scripts. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post003 newsletter Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Post 003 Alt Academic newsletter. Healthcare jobs and intro to machine learning with Statquest. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/EarlyReleasePython blog Wed, 1 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 To help crime analysts get started with python, I am early releasing my introductory python book for crime analysts. https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post002 newsletter Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Post 002 Alt Academic newsletter, intel jobs and creating in memory database in python to test SQL https://crimede-coder.com/news/Post001 newsletter Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Post 001 Alt Academic newsletter https://crimede-coder.com/newsletter newsletter Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Alt Academic Newsletter, in which I discuss alt-academic jobs and give professional development advice for PhDs looking into non-traditional professor roles. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/NLP blog Sun, 8 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Even though GenAI is all the rage, I discuss more common applications of natural language processing (NLP) in crime analysis in this post: named entity recognition, semantic similarity search, and supervised learning with text inputs. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/TechRecruiting blog Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 I have a highly advanced network of individuals with PhDs looking for advanced roles. This post discusses why many professors are good candidates for tech jobs, and how I can recruit them for your agency. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/PrimerOpenData blog Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 It is becoming more common for police departments across the US to publicly share crime data. This post discusses the types of data PDs share, and the benefits to doing so. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/survey?surv=se1 demos Wed, 16 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Example police attitudes survey. Using PHP and Google Sheets as a backend. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/Dallas_Dashboard demos Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Fully automated dashboard with up to date Dallas crime trends. Tech stack: serverless dashboard using pyscript and automated daily refresh using github actions. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/PremisesLiability blog Tue, 1 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Establishing foreseeability in premises liability cases is easy. Here I describe more empirically rigorous ways to establish whether a premise has (or has not) provided reasonable security. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/Austin_Map demos Sun, 2 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Demonstration interactive hot spot map of traffic accidents in Austin. Tech stack: leaflet and python/folium to create customized looks and interactions. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/NetworkPrimer blog Sun, 18 Jun 2023 12:00:00 +0000 Social Network Analysis (SNA) is an important skill for crime analysts to learn. This post is a primer on what SNA is, where SNA data comes from, and example use cases in crime analysis. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/WDD demos Sat, 17 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Demo tool to estimate the weighted displacement difference test to estimate crime count reductions compared to control areas. https://crimede-coder.com/graphs/network demos Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Demo tool to upload your own social network and identify prioritized members for a focused deterrence intervention. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/AdditionalServices blog Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Converting stat. code to open source (e.g. SAS to python), building data visualization websites, and scientific writing are three services CRIME De-Coder has offered past clients across a wide set of domains. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/Dashboards blog Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Dashboards that are months old are not useful, they should be automated to include recent data. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/NoPercentChange blog Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Percent change is not a good metric with crime data and encourages chasing the noise. Use an alternative simple statistic CRIME De-Coder developed, the Poisson Z-score, instead. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/MillionDollarHotSpots blog Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Baltimore has a hotspot of crime that costs the police department over a million dollars a year. https://crimede-coder.com/blogposts/2023/ServicesComparisons blog Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 CRIME De-Coder's services are distinguished via quality, providing computer code to be able to audit and replicate results, and cost. https://crimede-coder.com/services/ProgramAnalysis services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of program analysis services CRIME De-Coder can conduct. https://crimede-coder.com/services/PredictiveAnalytics services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of predictive analytic services CRIME De-Coder can conduct. https://crimede-coder.com/services/ProcessAutomation services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of process automation services CRIME De-Coder can conduct. https://crimede-coder.com/services/WorkloadAnalysis services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of workload analysis services CRIME De-Coder can conduct. https://crimede-coder.com/services/CrimeAnalysisTraining services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of crime analysis training services CRIME De-Coder can conduct. https://crimede-coder.com/services/CivilLitigation services Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Examples of civil litigation services CRIME De-Coder can conduct.