Jacqueline Zee predicts crimes for the Arlington Police Department, slams hockey pucks with the Arlington police ice hockey team, and transforms into a disc jockey for Middle Eastern cultural events. And she’s barely 22.

As a geographical profiler, Zee analyzes crimes that occur in a series, such as burglaries. But unlike with psychological profiling, she studies the time and place of each occurrence. At the end of the workday, she can predict the probability of where and when a certain crime may happen again.

“A lot of people think what I do is like CSI,” she said of the popular CBS crime drama. “It’s not forensics. I don’t deal with the physical evidence of violent crimes such as homicides.”

Recently she worked on a series of bank robberies in Arlington, Austin and Houston, and her contribution helped lead to an arrest. Along with studying specific crime occurrences, she also examines the criminal offense history of parts of north Arlington at the request of officers. Her profiles help the police allocate resources.

Zee became interested in crime analysis as a teenager. She graduated from high school at 14, entered junior college the same year and transferred to UT Arlington at 16. As an undergraduate, she interned with the U.S. Customs Service and the North Texas Drug Trafficking Area (NT-HIDTA). She was treasurer for Alpha Phi Sigma national criminal justice honor society and president of the Criminal Justice Student Organization.

After earning a criminal justice degree, she worked for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Baltimore Metropolitan Council until the APD offered her a job.

Now a doctoral student in the School of Urban and Public Affairs, she thrives on analyzing police cases and hopes eventually to teach at the college level.

“I don’t see myself ever strapping on a gun and running after criminals,” she said. “I really like being a computer geek—you know, analyzing data.”

— Kim Pewitt-Jones