The International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA) is in crisis. Over the past decade, its explosive growth has only amplified long-standing structural problems. Despite a larger membership, the IACA of 2025 is a shell of its former self, an organization that fails to serve the needs and interests of crime analysts. The policies and practices of the IACA's leadership are fundamentally flawed, and some individuals are exploiting the association for personal benefit. Here are some of the key areas in which the IACA has failed.

A Crisis of Leadership and Governance

The IACA's leadership consistently fails its members by not operating in a transparent and responsible manner. This behavior erodes member trust and damages the association's integrity. There is an urgent need for greater transparency and more complete internal policy and procedural documentation.

• Unaccountable Leadership: None of the current IACA board members were elected to their positions. Additionally, three of the last six IACA presidents have resigned, indicating deep-seated issues with the association's stability.

• Inadequate Training: IACA's board members oversee an organization of 7,000 people without any formal training in non-profit management. The IACA does not require ethics, compliance, or nonprofit management training for any leadership positions.

• Poor Decision-Making: A former IACA President made a controversial appointment in late 2024, deliberately bypassing the authority of the incoming president by filling a position that was not yet vacant. That action was a clear violation of the association bylaws and overtly disrespectful towards the incoming president and the members who elected her. The entire executive board was complicit in that action. Read more here.

• Lack of Oversight: Despite handling over a million dollars a year, the IACA has no audit committee, no formal oversight, no strategic plan, and no association budget.

• A Weaponized Code of Conduct: The Code of Conduct, which is the basis for ethics complaints, can be modified by the board without discussion or member consent. This "back-door" method has been used to negatively influence the ethics complaint process and silence dissent. In December 2024, when the IACA was embroiled in numerous ethics complaints, broad changes were made to the Code of Conduct without member review or approval. Two specific prohibitions were removed from the Code of Conduct: "Members will not...Solicit or accept any gifts in connection with official IACA duties in excess of $150.00 (USD)" and "Members will not...Solicit or accept any bribes in connection with official IACA duties". These clauses were removed from the IACA Code of Conduct sometime between December 17, 2024 and January 16, 2025. Modification to the Code of Conduct were also made so the IACA could police member-to-member communications, and they altered reporting requirements to require members to report members charged with "crimes of moral turpitude", not convicted.  The vague nature of this document has allowed bad actors to weaponize it for their gain. You can review the archived versions of these pages here: and here

• Records Mismanagement: The IACA has systematically failed to preserve official records, establish a records retention policy, or make documents consistently available to members. Sharing official records is even grounds for an ethics complaint. This intentionally limited insight into IACA operations is troubling and undermines the trust that should be built through consistent and transparent governance.

• Loss of Core Mission: While it once collaborated closely with academics, created whitepapers, newsletters and shared the latest criminology research, it now lacks a strategic plan, vision, or direction. The association produces little meaningful work product, instead focusing on collecting member dues and offering a few training classes.

Poor Financial Oversight

The association's financial health is unstable, with a clear negative trend. The overall financial picture has deteriorated over the past five years compared to the prior five-year period. You can verify this with the IACA's official IRS financial filings 

• Reduced Auditing: Despite a four-fold increase in revenue over the last decade, the IACA has less financial oversight than it did a decade ago. The association's tax filings used to be reviewed by an independent accounting firm. Since 2020, they have either gone unreviewed or have only been reviewed by the IACA Treasurer. This reduction in oversight is deeply concerning.

• Deteriorating Financial Health: From 2014-2018, the IACA averaged a net income of $7,826 per year. In stark contrast, from 2019-2023, the association averaged a net loss of $20,131.20 per year. This demonstrates mismanagement and a clear downward financial trajectory.

• Significant Losses: The IACA reported losses of over $209,000 in 2022 and 2023, with a single loss of over $90,000 on the 2023 conference alone (glossed over on slide 7 of the annual report here). The only recent year with a significant net increase (2021) was when the in-person conference was canceled.

• Inconsistent Reporting: Financial reporting is so inconsistent that it is difficult to understand how association dollars are spent. Specific expense categories have been reported erratically or have disappeared entirely from filing to filing. At best, this is incompetence. At worst, malfeasance.

A Call to Action

Reforming the IACA will be a significant challenge. The only way to make it happen is through the collective force of its members. This will require members to do more than simply ask for change; they must demand it. The following actions must be taken to correct the problems in the IACA:

Three Mandatory Audits

Independent audits are a critical aspect of nonprofit management and a good governance practice for nonprofits. In this case, the IACA needs a comprehensive baseline audit since no prior audit has ever been conducted and because there are significant unanswered questions about how the IACA does business.

1. Independent Financial Audit: A third-party firm must review the association's finances and accounting practices to provide a transparent, objective report on its financial health.

2. Compliance Audit: An audit is needed to ensure the IACA is following all federal, state, and local laws, as well as all internal policies and bylaws.

3. Operational Audit: An examination of the IACA's internal systems, management structure, risk management, and resource allocation is required to ensure the organization is functioning effectively.

The IACA needs a comprehensive, independent audit to drive meaningful change. Currently, the IACA does not know what needs to be changed because it has never been audited. Without this kind of informed assessment, any proposed changes like creating a Senate, creating committees or changing policies, would be based on uninformed opinions. A top-down review of the IACA in the areas of finance, operations, and compliance is the key to understanding the association's strengths and weaknesses. Once the results of the audit are published, only then can members debate how to prioritize the auditor's recommendations and make changes to strengthen the association.

Mandatory Training

IACA leaders must be trained to manage a non-profit. The IACA is a 7,000-member organization handling over a million dollars a year, yet it is run by people with no formal training, no demonstrable expertise, and no meaningful exposure to common non-profit management practices. Every person in a leadership position should be required to complete at least 8 hours of nonprofit management training from an independent provider. Training provides accountability and builds trust. After documented training, IACA leaders can no longer play ignorant about basic nonprofit management principles.

Prepare for Resistance

The IACA leadership will resist efforts to implement substantive change. They will thwart any attempt at reform. Here are some of the roadblocks and gaslighting efforts members should expect to see. So many of these tactics have already been used by IACA leadership that it's easier to indicate which ones have not been used yet with a (*):

• Deliberate Lack of Transparency: The IACA's opacity is designed to limit members' ability to unite and oppose the leadership. 

• (*) Rejecting Audits: The leadership will claim audits are "too expensive" or "unnecessary."

• Asserting Competence: The leadership will insist that the current leaders are fully capable of managing the association without external oversight.

• Denying the Existence of Problems - They may insist "everything is fine" or that concerns are exaggerated, even when members present evidence of financial losses, bylaw violations, or ethical breaches.

• Interfering with the audit: The leadership will choose "friendly" auditing firms that are tied to law enforcement or friendly nonprofits like IALEIA to avoid impartial review. They will sell it as a commonsense choice, but the underlying goal is to prevent "too much" independent analysis of the association.

• "Compliance Theater": The IACA board will hire token auditors or consultants and will restrict their scope, cherry-picking the results, or bury their reports on the website.

• Reversing Blame - When members raise issues, leadership might claim it is the members themselves who are misinformed, disruptive, or "toxic," reframing criticism as the actual problem.

• Feigning Compliance: The board will act cooperative on the surface while quietly undermining reforms behind the scenes.  The board might create "feedback opportunities" or committees but control the rules, mute critics in meetings, or bury reports - then point to those processes as proof members were "heard." Remember that comprehensive Ethics process review report you were supposed to receive in May? Yeah, we're still waiting for it too.

• Delay Tactics ("Study Committees"): The IACA will create endless committees or "fact-finding" groups to stall action until reform momentum fades.

• Tightening Control of Communication Channels: Leadership will restrict access to newsletters, emails, or conferences to silence reform voices.

• Changing Meeting Rules: The leadership will alter voting and quorum requirements or mute speakers to limit member participation and the spread of adverse perspectives.

• Legal Threats: The leadership will use nonprofit counsel or threaten lawsuits to intimidate outspoken members.

• Recasting Power Grabs as Normal Practice - When they violate the bylaws, they may argue such moves are "standard procedure," or "necessary", convincing members to question their own understanding.

• (*) Selective Transparency: The leadership will release financials or records in unusable, confusing, or incomplete formats.

• (*) Redefining Membership Categories: The leadership will create new tiers or restrictions that limit voting rights for reform-minded members. (Proposed by a current candidate)

• Shifting Blame to External Factors: The leadership will blame financial and governance failures on inflation, travel costs, or broader challenges.

• Leadership Turnover as a Pressure Valve: The leadership will identify a scapegoat to appease members while installing insiders who maintain the status quo (ask BW).

• Weaponizing the Code of Conduct: The leadership will change ethics rules without member input to target dissent or silence whistleblowers.

• Restricting Records Access: The leadership will maintain weak or absent retention policies so members cannot access documents to hold leaders accountable.

• Suppressing Member-to-Member Communication: The leadership will police conversations and limit forums where reform-minded members can organize.

• Undermining Whistleblowers: The leadership will use vague or overly broad disciplinary rules to punish those who raise transparency or ethics concerns.

• Financial Obfuscation: The leadership will continue inconsistent, incomplete, or misleading financial reporting to keep members in the dark about true spending.

For the sake of the association, members must not give up. The IACA can only improve if its members stand up against this failure of leadership and demand change now.

Questions to Ask Your IACA Leaders

The business meeting on Friday at the conference is a great place to start the conversation. There are so many questions that deserve answers, but here ar some to warm up the room:

• Other than cutting corners on subsequent conferences, what steps have you taken to prevent massive conference losses like the $90,000 lost by hosting the 2023 conference?

• Will you commit to an independent financial, compliance, and operational audit of the IACA, and share the report with the membership by May 2026? If you will not commit to funding a comprehensive audit of the IACA, will you publish a statement indicating your reasons for rejecting it?

• Will you commit to providing at least 8 hours of non-profit training from a third-party source for everyone in a leadership position within the IACA (board and committee chairs)? If you will not commit to mandatory nonprofit training for IACA leadership, will you publish a statement indicating your reasons for rejecting it?

• Will you commit to implementing a whistleblower policy by December 31, 2025? If you will not, will you publish a statement indicating your reasons for rejecting it?

• Will you commit to creating an audit committee by December 31, 2025? If you will not, will you publish a statement indicating your reasons for rejecting it?

• Will you commit to an annual review of the IACA's finances by a certified CPA, and share the report with the membership? If you will not, will you publish a statement indicating your reasons for rejecting it?

• The IACA spent twice as much in the last five years as it did in the preceding five, and lost more than twice as much. What value are you providing to justify those expenses and losses, and how are you quantifying that value to the membership?

• How much does the IACA spend, per attendee, to host the conference? How has that expenditure changed over time, and how do you quantify the value you provide to justify this expense?

• How do you measure the value you provide to members, and what goals and specific metrics prove you’re fulfilling your nonprofit mission?

• How are you aligning your efforts across committees to ensure all IACA activities are supporting your programs of work?

• What are the IACA's top 3 priorities and how were they determined?