Affordable Crime Mapping and Information Sharing Technology

• NCJ Number: 188873
• Date Published: 2001
• Author(s): R. J. Pennington
• Length: 5 pages
• Grant Number(s): 97-IJ-CX-K006
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description; Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This is the final report on the New Orleans Police Department's (NOPD) Crime Mapping and Information Sharing (CMIS) Technology grant, which gave the NOPD the opportunity to develop an innovative system built on proven technologies that provides community-oriented police officers and community residents with the ability to see and share information for the purpose of solving problems that cause crime.

Abstract

The projected outcomes for the use of the technology were to provide real-time-crime-analysis capability to identify crime "hot spots" at the community level and enhance an officer's ability to share information with the community concerning criminal activities and quality-of-life problems that contribute to criminal activities. The project also expected to provide a user friendly mechanism for community residents to use in sharing information with police officers that could be incorporated into a common information system as well as provide a comprehensive view of a community relative to criminal activity and those quality-of-life elements within a community that contribute to crime. An assembled team was composed of representatives of the New Orleans Police Department, the University of New Orleans (UNO), and the New Orleans Mayor's Office. The CMIS software was developed and functioned while installed on the UNO system. The software problems encountered by NOPD resulted from transferring the software from the lab and attempting to use it in the field. Certain software features remain inoperable and require follow-up support by UNO design teams to resolve remaining software technical issues.