Data-Driven Crime Fighting Goes Global: Interactive Session: Organizations

256 Part Two Information Technology Infrastructure
INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS

Data-Driven Crime Fighting Goes Global
Nowhere have declining crime rates been as dra- affiliation and type of crime. Police commanders
matic as in New York City. As reflected in the supply a list of each precinct’s 25 worst offenders,
reported rates of the most serious types of crime, the which is added to a searchable database that now
city in 2015 was as safe as it had been since statistics includes more than 9,000 chronic offenders. A large
have been kept. Crimes during the preceding few percentage are recidivists who have been repeatedly
years have also been historically low. convicted of grand larceny, active gang members,
Why is this happening? Experts point to a num- and other priority targets. These are the people
ber of factors, including demographic trends, the law enforcement wants to know about if they are
proliferation of surveillance cameras, and increased arrested.
incarceration rates. But New York City would also This database is used for an arrest alert system.
argue it is because of its proactive crime preven- When someone considered a priority defendant is
tion program along with district attorney and police picked up (even on a minor charge or parole viola-
force willingness to aggressively deploy information tion) or arrested in another borough of the city, any
technology. interested prosecutor, parole officer, or police intel-
There has been a revolution in the use of big data ligence officer is automatically sent a detailed e-mail.
for retailing and sports (think baseball and Money- The system can use the database to send arrest alerts
Ball) as well as for police work. New York City has for a particular defendant, a particular gang, or a
been at the forefront in intensively using data for particular neighborhood or housing project, and the
crime fighting, and its CompStat crime-mapping database can be sorted to highlight patterns of crime
program has been replicated by other cities. ranging from bicycle theft to homicide.
CompStat features a comprehensive, citywide The alert system helps assistant district attor-
database that records all reported crimes or com- neys ensure that charging decisions, bail applica-
plaints, arrests, and summonses in each of the city’s tions, and sentencing recommendations address
76 precincts, including their time and location. The that defendant’s impact on criminal activity in the
CompStat system analyzes the data and produces a community. The information gathered by CSU and
weekly report on crime complaint and arrest activity disseminated through the arrest alert system differ-
at the precinct, patrol borough, and citywide levels. entiates among those for whom incarceration is an
CompStat data can be displayed on maps showing imperative from a community-safety standpoint and
crime and arrest locations, crime hot spots, and other those defendants for whom alternatives to incarcera-
relevant information to help precinct commanders tion are appropriate and will not negatively affect
and NYPD’s senior leadership quickly identify pat- overall community safety. If someone leaves a gang,
terns and trends and develop a targeted strategy for goes to prison for a long time, moves out of the city
fighting crime, such as dispatching more foot patrols or New York state, or dies, the data in the arrest alert
to high-crime neighborhoods. system are edited accordingly.
Dealing with more than 105,000 cases per year Information developed by CSU helped the city’s
in Manhattan, New York’s district attorneys did not Violent Criminal Enterprises Unit break up the most
have enough information to make fine-grained deci- violent of Manhattan’s 30 gangs. Since 2011, 17 gangs
sions about charges, bail, pleas, or sentences. They have been dismantled.
couldn’t quickly separate minor delinquents from Using Big Data and analytics to predict not only
serious offenders. where crime will occur, but who will likely commit
In 2010 New York created a Crime Strategies Unit a crime, has spread to cities across the globe in the
(CSU) to identify and address crime issues and target UK, Germany, France, Singapore and elsewhere.
priority offenders for aggressive prosecution. Rather In the UK, Kent Police have been using “pre-crime”
than information being left on thousands of legal software beginning in 2015. The proprietary soft-
pads in the offices of hundreds of assistant district ware, called PredPol, analyzes a historical database
attorneys, CSU gathers and maps crime data for of crimes using date, place, time, and category of
Manhattan’s 22 precincts to visually depict criminal offense. PredPol then generates daily schedules for
activity based on multiple identifiers such as gang the deployment of police to the most crime-prone
Chapter 6 Foundations of Business Intelligence: Databases and Information Management 257
areas of the city. PredPol does not predict who will legalizes a global web and telecommunications sur-
likely commit a crime, but instead where the crimes veillance system, and a government database that
are likely to happen based on past data. Using stores the web history of every citizen. This data
decades worth of crime reports, the PredPol system and analysis could be used to identify people who
identified areas with high probabilities of various are most likely to commit a crime or plot a terrorist
types of crime, and creates maps of the city with attack. Civil liberties groups around the globe are
color coded boxes indicating the areas to focus on. concerned that these systems operate without judi-
It’s just a short step to predicting who is most cial or public oversight, and can easily be abused by
likely to commit a crime, or a terrorist act. Predict- authorities.
ing who will commit a crime requires even bigger
Big Data than criminal records and crime locations.
Law enforcement systems being developed now Sources: “The UK Now Wields Unprecedented Surveillance Powers-
parallel those used by large hotel chains who collect Here’s What it Means,” by James Vincent, The Verge.com, Novem-
ber 29, 2016; “Predictive Policing and the Automated Suppression
detailed data on their customers personal prefer- of Dissent,” by Lena Dencik, LSE Media Projects Blog, April 2016;
ences, and even their facial images. Using surveil- “Prosecution Gets Smart” and “Intelligence-Driven Prosecution/
lance cameras throughout a city, along with real time Crime Strategies Unit,” www.manhattanda.org, accessed March 4,
2016; Pervaiz Shallwani and Mark Morales, “NYC Officials Tout New
analytics, will allow police to identify where former,
Low in Crime, but Homicide, Rape, Robbery Rose,” Wall Street Jour-
or suspected, criminals are located and traveling. nal, January 4, 2016; “The New Surveillance Discretion: Automated
These tracking data will be combined with surveil- Suspicion, Big Data, and Policing,” by Elizabeth Joh, Harvard Law &
lance of social media interactions of the persons Policy Review, December 14, 2015; “British Police Roll Out New ‘Pre-
crime’ Software to Catch Would-Be Criminals,” 21st Century Wire,
involved. The idea is to allocate police to those areas March 13, 2015; and Chip Brown, “The Data D.A.”, New York Times
where “crime prone” people are located. In 2016 Magazine, December 7, 2014.
the UK adopted the Investigatory Powers Bill which
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What are the benefits of intelligence-driven prose- 3. What management, organization, and technology
cution for crime fighters and the general public? issues should be considered when setting up infor-
2. What problems does this approach to crime fight- mation systems for intelligence-driven
ing pose? prosecution?
company. The data originate in many core operational transaction systems,

such as systems for sales, customer accounts, and manufacturing, and may
include data from website transactions. The data warehouse extracts current
and historical data from multiple operational systems inside the organiza-
tion. These data are combined with data from external sources and trans-
formed by correcting inaccurate and incomplete data and restructuring the
data for management reporting and analysis before being loaded into the data
warehouse.
The data warehouse makes the data available for anyone to access as needed,
but the data cannot be altered. A data warehouse system also provides a range
of ad hoc and standardized query tools, analytical tools, and graphical reporting
facilities.
Companies often build enterprise-wide data warehouses, where a central
data warehouse serves the entire organization, or they create smaller, decentral-
ized warehouses called data marts. A data mart is a subset of a data warehouse
in which a summarized or highly focused portion of the organization’s data is

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256 Part Two Information Technology Infrastructure

INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

company. The data originate in many core operational transaction systems,

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