Law Officer Magazine September 2011 Issue

The Clery Act is a federal law that is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education that mandates that colleges or universities that participate in federal student financial aid programs disclose detailed information and statistics regarding campus public safety. It is named to honor the memory of Jeanne Clery who was murdered in her university dormitory in 1986. Among the numerous requirements of the Clery Act is that the campus police or security department provide a public crime log of all crime incidents occurring on campus property or areas under the control of the college or university even if not located on the central campus.

CrimeMapping.com by The Omega Group provides the features that allow for compliance with the required elements for the public crime log under the Clery Act. The critical elements include: (1) the date and time the crime incident was reported;(2) the date and time the crime occurred;(3) the nature and description of the crime incident;(4) the approximate location of the crime or alleged crime;(5) the disposition of the complaint, if known;(6) maintenance of records for all incidents for a minimum of past 60 days. CrimeMapping.com goes well beyond these minimum requirements by using technology that verifies the accuracy of the data and allows for retrieval of the previous six months.

Campus public safety or police departments can immediately implement the public crime log utilizing Crimemapping.com through its Web based service. Crimemapping.com automatically extracts crime incident data from department information systems and displays the data with simple graphics in the form of interactive maps, charts and reports. Furthermore, by registering their email address online, students, parents, faculty and support staff can receive timely alerts from Crimemapping.com about campus crime activity with all the appending critical elements. They can also download a free IPHONE application that provides the same data on a mobile platform.

Colleges and universities use the Crimemapping.com Agency Links feature to provide a connection or linkage to their Clery Act status page of crime incidents so that campus stakeholders can monitor the law enforcement outcomes of these incidents whether these are field interviews, arrests or prosecutions. Consequently, campus community members are well informed about the resolution of incidents.

Choosing where to attend college or university is an arduous process for most students and their parents these days. Trying to find the balance of academics and extracurricular activities that will be the right fit involves a close examination of many factors. The high cost of higher education makes this choice all the more important. CrimeMapping.com is an integral part of the commitment of institutions of higher learning to protect this invaluable investment in our future.

FEATURED IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND USA TODAY
If you would like more information about CrimeMapping.com please contact us at:
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There is no doubt that technology continues to revolutionize the way we interact with the world around us and directly impacts each of our lives. Facebook and Twitter have been credited with pushing the world towards a more transparent future. This move towards transparency is very evident in the US law enforcement community. Attitudes toward public crime mapping have shifted dramatically over the course of the last two years. Sharing crime data with the public is not a new phenomenon but the scale and scope of what’s happening now is unparalleled.

CrimeMapping.com is an excellent example of this shift. In a little over two years the site has gone from serving a single agency posting crime data for the public to serving over 250 agencies throughout the US and Canada. CrimeMapping.com has received over 3 million unique visitors and currently has over 30,000 subscribers to its’ free Crime Alerts. The communities served also vary greatly in size from Grove City Police Department in Ohio to Los Angeles Police Department in California, which represents one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the world. The amount of activity also varies between communities as Grand Rapids, Michigan and DeKalb County, Georgia are some of the most heavily trafficked locations at CrimeMapping.com. The better the relationship a law enforcement agency has with their local media organizations the more active the area is at CrimeMapping.com.

Law enforcement agencies are more open to sharing information with the communities they serve because they are starting to see the first hand benefits of civic engagement. Allowing communities to map out and investigate crime activity around their home or place of business has been proven effective in reducing crime. Neighborhood Watch programs are major proponents of public crime mapping. One resident in Lincoln, Nebraska states that “Crimemapping.com has proven itself as a valuable tool to our new Neighborhood Watch program. Your “Crime Alerts” e-mails have allowed me to get detailed, timely crime data information out to all of our members. Our efforts are now focused and far more effective than they would have been without your program. Thanks!” A 2008 U.S. Department of Justice’s assessment concluded, “Across all eligible studies combined, Neighborhood Watch was associated with a reduction in crime.”

The current nationwide public budget crisis is also contributing to law enforcement’s willingness to share more information with the communities they serve. Police chiefs and sheriffs are coming to the realization that leveraging technology more heavily is going to help them weather the current wave of fiscal belt tightening that has gripped so many cities and counties in the US. Law enforcement organizations are going to have to do more with less and mapping technologies such as CrimeMapping.com allow them to extend their reach. Many agencies are also using these public mapping technologies internally. Several police departments now require their staff members to subscribe to daily Crime Alerts within their police beat or patrol area. Officers use these daily personal reports for tactical deployment practices and are able to focus on the areas that need the most attention. The police can’t be everywhere at once and mapping technologies such as these allow for a more focused and efficient use of resources.

A final factor contributing to the willingness to share crime data with the public is accountability. Local governments are under more scrutiny than ever before in the US and providing some perspective on where and what police deal with on a daily basis helps the public understand what their tax dollars are being devoted to. This move towards transparency also promotes trust as the public begins to understand that their local police or sheriff’s department has nothing to hide. Funding can also be positively influenced because city councilors and county commissioners are able to easily view the level of crime activity police deal with on a daily basis.

It should be noted that technology services such as CrimeMapping.com are only a part of the battle against crime and simply represent a means for promoting increased communications and awareness within a community. There is little doubt that public crime mapping is of great benefit to our society. However, it should be stressed that access to accurate and timely information is the only way the public benefits. Posting inaccurate data can be more dangerous than not posting crime information at all. Facebook and Twitter may have given the world a more open attitude towards information but these tools still require an understanding of what the overall goals are and a willingness to work towards achieving them. If the information being shared is not authoritative or lacks integrity there’s no point in sharing it.

Sources:
“Online Safety: Neighborhood Watch Programs WiFi”, Christopher Burgess, 2011 (http://www.burgessct.com/2011/03/online-safety-neighborhood-watch-programs-wifi/)
“Does Neighborhood Watch Reduce Crime”, Katy Holloway; Trevor Bennett ; David P. Farrington, 2008 (http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/RIC/Publications/e040825133-res-review3.pdf)

CrimeView® Dashboard automatically pulls data from multiple disparate sources and consolidates this information into intuitive and simple visualizations such as density maps, trend charts and temporal indices. The Omega Group has successfully integrated multiple data sets into Chesapeake’s Dashboard application including dispatch, warrants, arrests and involvements of persons or vehicles. One example of how this information is being utilized is the crime alerts threshold. A threshold has been set for crime types such as burglary, robbery and theft from vehicles. If this threshold is exceeded in any precinct, commanding officers are informed and steps are taken to improve performance. As Chief Wright explains, “Each precinct commander, sergeant and officer is now accountable for crime conditions in their respective areas.” These measurable results allow for the use of both tactical and strategic models such as Roll Call and COMPSTAT through a dashboard interface. The COMPSTAT or “Comparative Statistical” model is based on regularly comparing activity by time, type and location. According to Chief Wright, “Chesapeake will be launching their version of COMPSTAT and CrimeView will be the center point of the process.”

CrimeView® Dashboard is having an impact on every facet of policing at Chesapeake including patrol, command staff and crime analysis. Patrol officers in the field use Dashboard to gain an immediate perspective on their surroundings. Command staff is able to acquire an instant overview of overall activity and directly measure assigned patrols in holding their officers more accountable. Finally, given the high level of automation and integration available with CrimeView® Dashboard, crime analysts can focus on more in-depth investigations versus creating the same maps and reports on a weekly or daily basis. Bianca Conn, the lead Crime Analyst at Chesapeake, states, “The CrimeView Enterprise suite of solutions has revolutionized the day-to-day operations of the Chesapeake Police Department’s Crime Analysis Unit. The automated analysis and mapping tools allow the crime analysts to focus more time on analyzing trends and hot spots rather than performing monotonous data extractions or mapping processes.“

Recent economic conditions have had an impact on almost all county and municipal law enforcement budgets in the US and making the most of limited resources has never been more important. CrimeView® Dashboard is helping to improve efficiency by assisting command staff in placing resources where and when they are needed most. As Sergeant Ernest Jefferies explains, “CrimeView® Dashboard has proven to be a tremendous tool for asset distribution and increased efficiency for responding to crimes in progress. The ability to identify the trends and construct roll call training scenarios for targeted areas is a powerful swing in police operations. The same maps used to display the crimes and geographic area for the training, can also be accessed by the supervisor in the field for managing an event. This prior planning and training has allowed organized, synergistic responses and produced numerous arrests from crimes in progress.”

In providing a high level of service to the Chesapeake community the value of these results is immeasurable. CrimeView® Dashboard is changing the way policing is performed and will continue to be a driving force in assisting law enforcement agencies in reducing crime. Chesapeake Police Department is taking a progressive approach to law enforcement through the use of cutting edge technology.

If you would like more information about CrimeView® Dashboard please contact us at:
sales@theomegagroup.com or call us toll-free (800) 228-1059
www.theomegagroup.com

The Omega Group is extremely proud to announce the release of our CrimeMapping.com Mobile application for the iPhone platform. This FREE download represents the culmination of our efforts to bring the public a very high level of data integrity and accuracy in a very simple, intuitive format. Creating more self-reliance among community members is a great benefit to community oriented policing efforts everywhere and has been proven effective in combating crime. Our CrimeMapping.com Mobile application will empower the public through helping to promote transparency and trust between the police and the communities they serve.

CrimeMapping.com Mobile allows users to map out recent crimes near their current location, home address or place of business. Users can also select the specific type of crimes they wish to see as well as subscribe to receive FREE Crime Alerts. Simply go to the iTunes store and type out “CrimeMapping.com” in order to download the application. We are constantly working to add agencies to our service. If your area is not covered we urge you to let your local public information officer know about CrimeMapping.com and CrimeMapping.com Mobile.

If you would like more information about CrimeMapping.com please contact us:
sales@theomegagroup.com or call us toll-free (800) 228-1059
www.theomegagroup.com

Communities with significant numbers of residential rental units and other non-owner occupied multi-unit housing are familiar  with the fact that these locations are the source of frequent repeat calls to law enforcement to deal with a wide variety of  criminal disturbances. For the City of Duluth, its stock of approximately sixteen thousand rental dwelling units translates into  40,000 to 50,000 calls for police service annually. This volume of calls requires direct landlord involvement to mitigate the  inordinate demand for police response.

The Duluth Police implemented the Landlord Notification Program earlier this year in order to provide e-mail alerts to  landlords of reported crime incidents at their properties so that they could take steps to prevent recurrences. This automated  internal system is an adaptation of the Duluth Police’s CrimeView®, a crime analysis technology information service provided by The Omega Group.

CrimeView® tracks crime incidents geographically by directly linking to crime incident data from the department’s records system and presenting the incidents visually as icons on a map of the city to be viewed on a personal computer or portable communication device. CrimeView® sends e-mail alerts to property owners displaying the location and summary description of crime incidents at their properties when calls for service exceed the police department’s designated minimum threshold. Since the system identifies the exact address of the location, the department has taken careful steps to limit the release of this information only to landlords.

Property owners and managers are able to exclusively enroll in the Landlord Notification Program by providing property identification information from their business rental license to the police which is cross checked and verified with the city’s Building and Licensing Department to make sure they are the actual owners. Thereafter, the landlords receive a CrimeView® generated e-mail alert informing them of any crime incidents at their specific properties usually within 24 hours of occurrence. The landlords can then inquire with the tenants as to the circumstances of the incident and remind them that their lease agreement specifically includes a tenant obligation to reside crime free and drug free.The landlords are very appreciative of this early warning system because it helps to avoid the fines and penalties that they are subject to when police are repeatedly called to respond to disturbances at their properties. As Chief of Police Gordon Ramsay explains, “The landlords want to be cooperative and to deal with any problem tenants. However, in the past, they complained that they were not made aware of the problems until the late stages only after receiving notice that the city was imposing fees or suspending their rental license. Unfortunately, this situation could not be avoided due to limited police officer resources and the high volume of disturbance calls at rental units. Now the landlords can know right away when there is a problem.”

This improvement in the notification process has also enhanced the communication between landlords and police. In particular, the landlords are seeking out the advice of the community and neighborhood beat officers who are very experienced in managing problem rental dwellings for tips about how to deal with disruptive tenants. As Chief Ramsay explains, “The Landlord Notification Program is leading to very constructive dialog between officers and property owners which is one of the best benefits of the system.”

The Duluth Police is now looking to build on the early success of the Landlord Notification Program by extending its application to other areas that necessitate early notification to stakeholders. Within the City of Duluth, there are a substantial number of supervised group homes for adults with mental and emotional disabilities. Private contractors manage these homes with oversight from the state’s public social services agency. By including the addresses of these group homes into the Landlord Notification Program, the agency will be immediately notified of disturbances occurring there and more closely monitor the adequacy of the on-site facility management.

Chief Ramsay believes that the Landlord Notification Program enacted with CrimeView® is an excellent community-oriented approach to reducing chronic crime at residential rentals. Rather than just telling property owners that they need to be vigilant about monitoring their properties, the Landlord Notification Program gives them an easy way of doing it. The main task going forward for Duluth Police is simply to make sure that all property owners and landlords are aware of the program. As Chief Ramsay enthusiastically proclaims, “Among the landlords, there hasn’t been a single one that has not shown any interest once aware of it and can’t believe how quickly we can begin delivering information to them once enrolled.”

If you would like more information about our solutions please contact us at:
sales@theomegagroup.com or call us toll-free (800) 228-1059
www.theomegagroup.com

By Chief Bence Hoyle

Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian military officer in the 1800s, coined the term “fog of war”, which described the state of confusion, unknowing or otherwise general lack of information about the enemy, his whereabouts and other factors influencing a successful outcome during battle. In law enforcement a similar environment exists relating to crime, the criminals that commit them and the information-led policing strategies designed to achieve measurable outcomes in key mission areas such as crime response, reduction and prevention. The ability to draw a direct ‘line-of-sight’ between strategic objectives and tactical action is often ‘lost in the fog!’

The introduction of advanced law enforcement communications and information systems over the past fifty years, while intending to improve police operations, has had the unintended consequence of creating “information overload.” The information generated across the myriad of disparate policing systems that support strategic planning, tactical operations, decision support, performance management and administrative functions within the modern police department is disjointed. Interpreting this information and making it actionable across all levels of the agency is a daunting task.

The Law Enforcement Dashboard Emerges

Information dashboards are not new phenomena. They have been available in the form of business intelligence solutions for Fortune 500 corporations for many decades. What is new is the recent emergence of a distinct class of Law Enforcement Information Dashboards (LEIDs) that enable police departments to see through or lift the ‘fog of crime.’ These LEIDs specifically address the unique requirements that the business of crime fighting demands.

The goal of these dashboard solutions is to provide law enforcement personnel with a consolidated, single screen, visual display of critical information required to make timely and effective decisions. Each of these LEID’s are customizable for the specific needs of first-line patrol operations, supervisory and command level interests, as well as task force operations where a particular type of information may be needed.

In a world of complex and diverse real-time streaming data, how does an agency efficiently extract the specific data that is helpful in making decisions that truly effect operational outcomes? Through various reporting requirements, both mandatory and voluntary, law enforcement agencies have become experts at data collection. However, they are desperate for tools that can translate this data into instant, at-a-glance, operational intelligence that can lead to responsive and focused strategic deployment of assets and tactical strategies. Information dashboards have the potential to meet this challenge!

This whitepaper explores eight key LEID requirements and outlines a recommended set of dashboard functionality that best addresses the needs of the modern police enterprise.

LEID Solution Requirements

Requirement 1: Quality Crime Data

Data quality is critical to effective decision making, and must address the key questions asked by every law enforcement agency: Who? What? When? Where? How? Quality data will:

• Clearly identify crime trends geographically, by crime type, or by crime specific details such as Modus Operandi (MO) and offender profiles.
• Allow analysis of a specific problem by geographical region, such as residential and commercial areas. This granular focus allows for responses to each that may be very different to achieve effective outcomes for the same type of problem.
• Allow deployment strategies to focus on temporal indicators that put crime fighters where crime problems are most likely to occur at any given time.

Modern law enforcement deals directly with the public and must address the most difficult of situations which may occur in our society. Often these situations are life-threatening and must be handled with the highest degree of accuracy, urgency and sensitivity. There is little margin for error when lives are at stake and the potential impact of misinformation can be catastrophic. LEID’s allow law enforcement agencies to make more effective decisions, and data accuracy and timeliness are mission-critical imperatives. Programs like COMSTAT that are institutionalized throughout an organization face severe handicaps if their data is not fine-tuned for accuracy. When choosing a dashboard application, you should carefully evaluate its data importing capabilities related to producing accurate and timely spatial crime data.

Requirement 2: Geospatial Focus

Geography plays an important role in the modern law enforcement enterprise, and policing is inherently geospatially-centric. Most crimes cannot be separated from the geographic place on the map in which they occur, and the importance of geographic information in the identification, analysis and tactical utilization of crime pattern data demands that geographic information technology be ‘baked’ into the DNA of the LEIDS. It cannot be ‘bolted on’ to a traditional business intelligence system with the necessary robustness to address the dynamic and time-sensitive problems that law enforcement has to deal with.

This geospatial focus can be effectively applied to an entire “crime triangle” or other crime prevention processes. In addition to the crime specific locations related characteristics (victims), an analysis of geographical offender data such as repeat offender addresses (criminal), as well as temporal factors such as business hours or vacation rental seasons (opportunities), you can effectively utilize a LEAD system to look at big picture related to crime causation. This type of comprehensive view can be even more effective when crime analysis extends beyond the local jurisdiction to a regional perspective, were disparate data systems prevent linkages in crime causation that may, in fact, be clearly visible when viewed in a geospatially focused application.

LEID systems must also be able to put this geospatial analysis where it is most effectively utilized. Specifically, in the hands of line-personnel that do not generally have special training or expertise in crime analysis, but know how turn that information into enforcement actions that make a difference. While law enforcement has been collecting data for decades, an effective LEID system will provide operational intelligence to line personnel specific to their areas of assignment or responsibility, and will do so dynamically to allow for rapid responses to problems.

At a minimum, a LEID must provide the following geospatial functionalities:

• Investigate incidents within any boundary or near an address or landmark.
• Switch between high-resolution satellite imagery and terrain base maps.
• View all geographic layers with advanced symbols and labeling.
• Create summary maps for any defined boundaries based on the count of incidents or true density (per square mile).
• Produce repeat locations that depict where multiple incidents occurred at the same location.
• Provide full COMPSTAT support with multiple levels of ‘compare and contrast’ by geographic area over time.

Requirement 3: Performance Snapshots

LEID systems should be more focused on ‘at-a-glance’ presentation of thematic snapshots of data relevant to user roles and needs and less on interacting with the data itself. Line, command and executive personnel must each be able to quickly ascertain those elements critical to proper planning and execution of the daily tactical action plans from their own perspectives. LEID systems must be able to convey the rich veins of data that form the foundation of law enforcement operations such as calls for service, case management, arrests, field interviews as well as gang activity and trends in narcotics related offenses.

To identify trends as quickly as possible to allow for a tactical response to problems, timely data is critical. While long-term historical analysis may be effective in developing organization policy or structure changes, it has little value as a tool for developing immediate intervention strategies for a crime spree that is occurring over a few days or even hours. A dashboard should provide targeted, granular views of data that allow for line personnel or task force supervisors to deploy resources not just to reduce statistical numbers, but to catch criminals.

LEID system snapshots should also consider the vast spectrum of potential users, from front-line patrol personnel to administrative budget planners. The dashboard must present critical crime data in a format that is easily comprehensible to end users in such a way that decisions can be made quickly without complex interpretation of data. There should be no need for a crime analyst to interpret data being presented. The LEID system display should provide actionable intelligence by simply looking at it.

At a minimum, a LEID should provide performance snapshots with the following data filtering functionalities:

• Categorical search criteria such as crime type, MO, officer, location type or case number.
• Layered datasets to show visual relationships between data as well as between external data sources that may have relevance in identifying crime causation or intervention opportunities.
• Granular presentation of temporal data using flexible filtering of between dates, time of day, and blocks of time such as shift patterns, commercial business hours, or sunlight.

Requirement 4: Gateway to Drill-Down

Once the user has identified a set of desired information from a thematic view of the data, they should have the ability to drill-down to extract more specific information related to MO’s, suspects, or other from predefined data sets. For example, in any particular group of incidents users should be able drill down the specifics of each incident, and should also be able to view to related arrests, field contacts, or any other related data set defined in the setup of the LEID system.

In essence, the LEID can become a major ‘force-multiplier’ providing individual officers, task forces, directed patrols/tactical interventions with their own virtual crime analyst available to officers and command staff twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Instead of making special requests to the crime analysis unit for follow up details for information shown on the dashboard, the LEID user should be able to transition into point-and-click analysis of data and make more timely decisions to affect operational outcomes. This capability will free up time for crime analysts to spend on the more demanding and long-term analytical needs of the department.

A LEID must contain the following components to offer real drill down analysis:

• Full integration with the RMS/CAD and other available sources in order to offer the multiple variables of data required by departments.
• Complete geographic information system that automatically and continuously maps crime incident data in near real time.

Requirement 5: Strategic and Tactical

For some dashboard users a strategic view of data, such as offered in weekly COMPSTAT meetings, may be focused on trends and assessment of directed patrols. For others a more tactical view of calls for service in the last 6 hours can provide a picture of current patrol area activity and associated resource allocation needs.

The strategies and tactics of policing are multifaceted, of course, and may range from community-oriented programs emphasizing collaboration with citizens at the neighborhood level to problem-oriented approaches that focus on specific pervasive kinds of crime affecting an entire jurisdiction. Hybrids of these two types emphasizing the joint engagement of community leaders and focusing on high impact offenders will offer further strategic crime reducing options. The tactics to bring these strategies together will also vary to include such operations as directed patrols, increased community programs and more focused investigative efforts.

The LEID must be able to analyze the effectiveness of both strategies and tactics, and should be granular enough to focus on specific work units. For instance, if pursuing a community oriented program, the LEID must be able to show variations in levels of effort by personnel as well as the resulting impact on crime.

A LEID that only provides an overly simplistic survey of crime occurring within the jurisdiction will yield little benefit in the way of indicating what adjustments to strategies and tactics are needed. A law enforcement agency has to have valuable feedback on whether strategies work, not simply crime numbers associated with areas where strategies are employed. Any data relevant to the problem should be viewable and easily accessible.

At a minimum, a LEID should provide the following strategic and tactical functionalities:

• Provide a link between suspects, their crime patterns, and geographic boundaries.
• Target of high impact repeat offenders using buffer analysis.
• Provide feedback that considers rapidly changing crime patterns and focuses on deployment of resources as well as operational guidelines.
• Provide predictive incident based analysis that result in intervention, not just reporting.
• Define probabilities specific to crime types, geographic zones, or temporal data.
• Proactively provide data on repetitive events such as incidents, arrests, or calls for service.

Requirement 6: Personalization

To create true usability, a dashboard has to be personalized to the user group for their specific requirements. There should be granular control over layout, content, and default settings that is specific to the user group, and focused on their particular needs. For example, one work unit should be able to monitor residential burglaries in a particular reporting area for a specific time frame, while another work unit may need another view related to traffic patterns and accident analysis. These views should default to the user or work group so they don’t have to sort through irrelevant data to find what is useful to the unit.

A LEID system must also be goal oriented based on the needs of the user. For example, a Police Chief or Sheriff may need the dashboard to default to information for long-term strategic planning or resource allocation, white a field supervisor is concerned about the previous 24 hours in a given area or for a given crime category. Regardless of the type of user or work group, they should be able to determine how the layout of the dashboard will look, what information it provides, and they should be able to save and recall specifically that information as needed without having to recreate it each time.

A LEID must have the following personalization and customization capabilities:

• User groups can design the dashboard to display information that is important to them, including the ability to set parameters such as attribute, temporal and spatial filters.
• User groups can personalize their dashboard with the streaming (near real-time) data.
• Organizational dimensions should include at a minimum:

1. Field Operations views (Patrol and Investigative)
2. Supervisory views
3. Executive views
4. Task Force views
5. Ad-hoc and temporary views such as special events

Requirement 7: Extensibility

In addition to specific user level customization, a dashboard should be flexible enough to support various user roles based on levels of authority and responsibility. An executive level dashboard should look different than that of the watch commander or the patrol officer. The chief’s dashboard role may look at the overall health of the department, including recent trends by crime type, specific hot button issues of the day and perhaps a stream of currently open calls for service. The watch commander role may also want the calls for service stream, but may be more focused on current resources, such as an AVL feed or jail intake statuses. The patrol view may focus on the current problem-oriented policing (POP) project as well as recent field interviews or outstanding warrant repositories.

Extensibility, in short, is a quality of the modern law enforcement dashboard that goes hand-in-hand with the need for personalized data views. Extensibility for the LEID must encompass multiple levels of dashboard organization, and at a minimum should include:

• Multiple layers of mapping, operational and searchable data focused on user roles.
• Ability to create different themes focused on specific parameters or measurements of data.
• A library of themes that can be easily accessed to become part of the dashboard display.

Requirement 8: Informed Decision Making

Access to timely, personalized and actionable data is the cornerstone of a good dashboard system. If any of those elements are missing, it’s just another reporting system. Calls for service streams, recent and focused crime trends and patterns from RMS, drill-down and hyperlink capabilities, threshold alerts, resource allocation, and temporal and geographic analytics are all needed for an agency to have true actionable intelligence.

It is not uncommon for dashboards in other industries to be used for making simple lists of tasks to be completed, issues to be discussed, people to be contacted, and meetings to prepare for and attend. However, while these kinds of reminders are important, the real benefit of a LEID is one that can alert the viewer to critical information that can immediately enhance the decision-making and action-taking process. It is the basic difference between informative, interesting reading and actionable, real-time intelligence information. The differences are substantial.

A LEID must provide the following ways of influencing the decision making:

• Identify and disseminate information about criminal activity to facilitate rapid intervention.
• Identify and disseminate information about crime to assist in long and short term strategic solutions.
• Research the key incident data patterns such as MO, repeat offender locations, or other related information such as traffic stops near the scene so suspects can quickly be identified.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of specific tactics, in near real-time through focused views.
• Analyzing workload distribution by shift and geographic area.
Summary

Deploying a law enforcement information dashboard system has the potential to provide some significant benefits. By providing near real-time information to executives, commanders, and field personnel that is customizable for their particular needs, the possibilities are endless as to how that information can be effectively utilized. LEID deployment should focus on the system’s ability to import clean, multi-dimensional data and present that data with a specific geospatial orientation in a format that is easy to use and understand. It should also be monitored by all agency personnel with a need for actionable intelligence. Such systems must be comprehensive enough to make intelligent decisions on behalf of the user based on their specific needs, but simple enough make it usable and scalable as those needs and personnel assignments change over time.

Focused, timely and accurate data packaged in an easy to understand and consume dashboard environment is the key to lifting the fog of situational awareness on crime patterns. While human intelligence is equally valuable, the ability to quickly recognize details collected from electronic data is essential in achieving tactical success and focusing on law enforcement performance management objectives. A law enforcement dashboard that can meet the demands of each of these core requirements will allow agencies to effectively engage problems by utilizing the tremendous amount of data that is already collected, available, and waiting to be utilized.

About the Author

Bence Hoyle is the Chief of Police in Cornelius, North Carolina and holds a Masters Degree from Methodist University. He has extensive experience in database and mobile application development specific to strategic and tactical law enforcement applications, and has served on statewide regional data sharing initiatives.

For more information about Law Enforcement Intelligence Dashboards please visit:

www.theomegagroup.com