Compare and contrast the application of information technology (IT) to optimize police departments’ performance to reduce crime versus random patrols of the streets.
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Random police patrols take up a lot of man power, time, and money. Random patrols are exactly that, random. According to policechiefmagazine.org, “…individual officers determined their own random movement and random stationing throughout the campus when not assigned to a call.” While these patrols may work some of the time, information technology has taken the randomness out of police patrolling.
The Santa Cruz Police Department is using a computer program, developed by a group of researchers — including two mathematicians, George Mohler and Martin Short; an anthropologist,
Jeff Brantingham; and a criminologist, George Tita, to predict where and when a crime will be committed. “For the Santa Cruz trial, eight years of crime data were fed into the computer program, which breaks Santa Cruz into squares of approximately 500 feet by 500 feet. New data is added each day” (GOODE).
The computer program has helped the Santa Cruz Police Department with multiple cases by putting police officers in the most likely areas for criminal activity. For example, the program predicted criminal activity near a car garage. Police apprehended two women peering into cars.
One woman had outstanding warrants and the other has illegal drugs on her (GOODE).
Running head: Assignment 1: Predictive Policing
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Random police patrols will always have a place in law enforcement but computer programs are giving police departments a much needed edge over criminals. Instead of the officer picking the area to patrol, the program suggests the area that is most prone to criminal activity. This puts officers in the right place at the right time.
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Describe how COMPSTAT, as an information system (IS), implements the four (4) basic IS functions. "
Input
The projections are recalibrated daily, as new crimes occur and updated data is fed into the program (GOODE).
Process
The program analyzes criminal data and trends. It uses this information to then predict when and where another criminal activity will occur (GOODE).
Output
The system outputs the information on a map which highlights the areas that are historically trouble spots. “For the Santa Cruz trial, eight years of crime data were fed into the computer program, which breaks Santa Cruz into squares of approximately 500 feet by 500 feet” (GOODE).
Feedback
The system allows users to review daily activities. This allows users to make changes, making the system more effective and accurate (GOODE).
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Running head: Assignment 1: Predictive Policing
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Determine how information systems have allowed police departments that implement tools such as COMPSTAT to respond to crime faster.
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Information systems have been able to help police departments respond to crime faster by using historical data to find the most probable problem areas. Using the data collected, police departments deploy officers, that would be on random patrols, to a more structured patrol of problem areas. The University of Miami has been using a COMPSTAT like system since 2007
(Rivero). One of the major successes that the University of Miami has had with their system was when they were able to apprehend a serial vehicle burglar by using the information from previous car thefts to find out where and when the burglar would strike again (Rivero). The system broke down the data to find consistencies in the thefts which
