February 21, 2008 - The City of Houston Police Department launched its new Crime Center and Law Enforcement Application to help predict crime activities and provide information to officers responding to calls.
Information Builders provided the technology behind the new application.
The Crime Center’s team uses WebFOCUS, Information Builders BI solution, integration technology from iWay Software and a dynamic geographic information system mapping tool from ESRI to enable predictive analysis of crime activity in the city.
The crime analysts drill down through the city's crime data to identify trends which allow the department to reassign officers to hotspot areas to reduce future crime activity. The data analyzed is anywhere from 30 seconds to six hours old.
The BI technology also allows the analysts to provide responding officers with details about the history of criminal activity at a particular address and surrounding areas and background information on the residents of the addresses to which they are called. The system also directs officers to people at the scene with first-hand knowledge about alleged crimes.
"Thanks to business intelligence technology from Information Builders, our officers now have much more knowledge about a particular crime or incident than they ever had before," said Houston police chief Harold Hurtt. "It is our hope that this technology will lead to quicker arrests and speed the time and improve the efficacy of criminal investigations."
Despite its roots in enterprise applications, Information Builders BI technology has also become an informational resource in the public arena, particularly as a crime fighting tool. The City of Richmond Police Department in Virginia is using a similar BI solution. And many state agencies like those in Oklahoma, Louisiana, California and Mississippi use BI to track and prevent fraud.
This piece is brought to you by the Information Management editorial staff.
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