Memphis Police Dept

Notes de l'éditeur

1. Client : Memphis Police Department Business need: Like many cities, the crime rate in Memphis was increasing—2.5 percent from 2004 to 2005 alone. To address the issue and quell residents’ concerns, the department needed to add another 500 patrol officers. However, that goal would take nearly six years to achieve. Worse, like most US cities, the department faced shrinking or fixed budgets and resources. A solution was needed sooner rather than later. The department’s current method of solving and preventing crimes involved searching through an array of spreadsheets and paper files. The process was not only time-consuming, but also kept officers from being on patrol where they were most needed. The Memphis Police department recognized that—to address the spike in crime and make the best use of limited resources—it needed a more innovative approach to policing. It also needed a faster, more efficient way to predict, track, and respond to crimes. Solution implementation: The Memphis Police department IBM Business Partner ESRI as well as the Center for Community Criminology and Research at the University of Memphis to implement a pilot program based on IBM SPSS Statistics software. The program, called Blue CRUSH (Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History), combines analytics plus predictive modeling capabilities track and identify crime patterns. The solution integrates crime data from sources that range from the department’s records management system to video cameras monitoring events on the street. A geographic information system that enables officers to analyze and visualize data in the form of charts, geographical maps and reports. Using the department’s crime data, an analytical framework was developed and used as the basis for a pilot program. The results of the pilot would help the department understand which analytical and operational approaches did and did not work. Blue CRUSH was deployed in August 2005 within select precincts before going citywide. Benefits: Since implementing its predictive crime solution, the Memphis Police department has realized significant benefits: Reduced serious crime by 30 percent, including a 36.8 percent reduction in crime in one targeted area Reduced violent crime by 15 percent Increased the number of cases solved in the Felony Assault Unit by fourfold, from 16 percent to nearly 70 percent Improved ability to allocate police resource in a budget-constrained fiscal environment The solution proved it value right from the start. In a three-day test operation, the department identified a number of crime hot spots, resulting in 70 arrests in two hours—a number made on a typical weekend—and 1,200 in total. Crimes ranged from drugs to weapons charges to prostitution and other “quality-of-life” offenses. The system provides officers insight into crime trends and patterns at a granular level, enabling them to react more swiftly and with more agility to events. Using multilayer maps, commanders can identify crime hot spots, seeing not only current activity levels, but also any changes in activities since policing the area. Commanders can also see and understand how some factors, such as abandoned housing, can affect crime trends. For example, the solution may indicate that burglaries are down in one are, but car theft is up in another. With little notice, police can be dispatched to the area and make arrests that would have been impossible before. Additional Smarter Planet information: Intelligent: The solution identifies crime hot spots, enabling the department to focus police resources at these locations and prevent crime before it happens. Instrumented: Data is fed directly from department crime records, management systems, reports and video cameras to the system where it is consolidated and analyzed. Interconnected: The solution integrates robust statistical modeling and analysis with geographical information systems, providing the department with more visibility as well as actionable information.