By BARNEY BEAL, Staff Writer

Friday, June 9, 2000 -- (EASTHAMPTON) - The Easthampton Police Department is going high-tech.

With its new computer generated mapping program up and running, the department is now able to track crimes throughout the city with the click of a mouse.

Already the technology has helped the department schedule times and areas for its community resource officers and provided shifts with information for an ongoing investigation on a rash of motor vehicle break-ins on Garfield and Peaks streets.

The next big project is an analysis of traffic accidents in the city.

"It shows you where to allocate your manpower," Officer Mark Popielarczyk said. "It gives the patrol force a better idea of when these things are occurring."

Popielarczyk, along with officers Rick Rogalski and Brian Ross and Detective Sgt. Derrill Stoddard, is a member of the EPD's Crime Analysis Unit.

With state-of-the-art computer software paid for through a $90,000 federal grant, the officers can plug all the information from the dispatch logs into one program, then map crimes, dispatch calls and accidents throughout the city.

Information can be broken down into areas of the city, day of the week, time of day and a period of time that can date back as far as May 1997 and display all the information on a large computer screen.

"This is very complicated software, but you can see how easy it is to use," Popielarzyck.

The software, called Crime View, was created specifically for police departments around the country. Easthampton Police received a grant in 1997 to reduce loitering downtown that it used to purchase Crime View.

Easthampton's was the first department in the state to get the software, but had some challenges getting it up and running. Transferring all the data from the old system took some time.

The system now is on-line and providing some insight into Easthampton crime. One of the first maps to be created dealt with the number of calls the department gets throughout the year.

The city is separated into districts and color-coded and police can easily tell which part of town gets the most calls. Those maps are currently posted on the department's Web site at www.easthamptonpolice.com

The information can get far more detailed. For example, an officer can create a map showing the crimes in one neighborhood for a week. Dots appear on the map where an incident occurred and an officer can then click on that dot and will get a display of the time, date and type of incident.

"As long as the information is put in accurately, we can map it," Popielarzyck said. "But you can't just look at the maps."

The maps are nearly useless without some knowledge of the city. For example, a readout for one particular month may show a sharp increase in the number of citations for loitering. That could mean there are more people out on the streets, but it could also mean officers have stepped up their enforcement of the laws, Popielarzyck said.

The computer system has also brought some changes to department record-keeping. All incidents must have a street number for the program to recognize where an incident happened.

Next step

The next step is to reduce the number of car accidents that result in bodily injury or property damage.

"When we start looking at crash sites, there's reasons they're happening," EPD Chief Robert G. Redfern said. "We can then determine if its an enforcement versus an engineering problem."

With this hard data, the police can go to the DPW or city engineer and point out a place where there needs to be another stoplight, the road straightened or a lower speed limit.

"We don't just want to send officers out there to do radar," Redfern said.

Redfern would eventually like to make it possible for people to download accident reports from the Web site, sparing them the effort of going down to the Public Safety Complex.

The department has adapted quickly to the new technology, according to Popielarzyck. "For the most part, everybody's been great," he said. "This is something that can make anybody look like a superstar."

For something like the rash of car breaks a few months ago, an officer might have to study logs for months to discover a pattern. Now with just a few clicks, an officer can learn when and where to keep an eye out for thieves.

"It's just another visual aid," Popielarzyck said. "We're still developing this program. We're trying to take a pro-active approach."

Easthampton can also contact other departments through the Massachusetts Association of Crime Analysts for tips on how to use the software. While there are only a handful of communities in western Massachusetts with the technology, larger eastern departments have as many as four officers working full time with the system. Departments can share techniques and information far more easily than in years past.

"It's the computer age, everything is going that way," Popielarzyck said.