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Enhancing traditional policing withintelligence-led technology

By Michelle Perin

Law Enforcement Technology April 2014 www.officer.com

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Much like the day public safetyhad to put down the pencils

and cards and move to the keyboard,emergency service faces major changesin the way things are done. Otherindustries jumped light-years aheadof law enforcement in their ability toutilize technology successfully. Todaypublic safety is coming up from behind.With a changing geographic permeatingthe force, and major companies workingtowards making hardware and softwarematch what law enforcement needs,we're seeing a change in the model ofpolice work moving from traditionalpolicing to information-based policingon small and large scales.

Connecting the dotsNot much has changed about policingsince the first officer walked the beattasked with maintaining the peace.Within this realm, the communityexpects its agency to assess, controland prevent crime. Through tradi-tional means, officers have rehed ona knowledge-base built from observa-tion and communication with otherofficers and experts in their field. Theimportance of this hasn't changed.What has is the advancement of tech-nology helping officers connect thedots faster.

"At Chandler (Ariz.) PoliceDepartment, they were doing thingsmanually," states Splunk Director ofState and Local Government JohnZarour referencing their software plat-form. "Historically, they had to print outdifferent reports and sift through them.

Today, all that data goes into Splunk inreal time and gives them the ability tolook at it which saves money." All thedata is automatically entered into thesoftware and officers see customizeddashboards which improve their opera-tional intelligence. "They will be ableto see trends and detect anomalies andother things," explains Zarour. ChandlerOfficer Nate Jacobs believes technologyis one part of good policing. "It givesan opportunity to use good, solid datato make the best decisions," he says."Before decisions were based purely onintuition." Utilizing the Splunk platform.Chandler developed and providedpatrol officers with resources to see

crime hot spots within their beat. Bydoing so, officers can address them intraditional ways. New generations ofofficers have come to expect this kind oftechnological support.

Technological generationYounger generations of officers aremore comfortable with technology andfinding more exciting ways to applyit states John Lingerfelt, Public SafetyLead, Smarter Cities, IBM. Lingerfeltspent 17 years with the Metropolitan

DC Police Department, including beingassigned the Chief Intelligence Officerbefore retiring and entering the com-mercial technological business. Thenew officer has the ability to imagineand adapt technology to whatever theywant it to do. "We'll put a tool out therefor A, B and C and very rapidly theywill extend its functionality to do E andF," he states. "That's exciting to watch."This generation grew up with theInternet and is more tech savvy.

"That's the new paradigm of howwork gets done—not just in policing,"explains Mark Cleverley, Director ofPublic Safety, IBM. "Access to hugecomputing power is normal. Thesepeople are more used to having thesesorts of tools at their fingertips. Overtime those skill sets will merge. Apolice officer will have all applicableanalyst skills and patrol skills. It'sfast moving and has quick potential."Like Splunk, IBM is assisting with themovement and potential of technologywithin public safety.

i2 Intelligent law enforcementIBM offers a variety of products insupport of law enforcement goals andduties. Platforms such as i2 IntelligentLaw Enforcement's CopLink andAnalyst's Notebook allow officers todevelop investigative leads and calculatedata very rapidly. It takes informationfrom police reports and witness state-ments and develops relationships, pat-terns and allows comparisons. "Beyondthose two products," states Cleverley,"We're looking at integration that looks

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Smarter Cities' recommendations had to be doable,not 'pie in the sky' ideas

at predictive analytics. There's a real-time role and a back-up role that sayslet's outline what the trends are and[find] the area where crime is mostlikely to occur. Then we are able todeploy resources more effectively.These are becoming more feasiblein ordinary police departments."Intelligent-led policing allows agen-cies to get a clearer idea of what public

safety needs are and moves law enforce-ment into more of a preventive box.Lingerfelt explains prevention is sup-ported by the ability to analyze andunderstand probabihties.

On the down-side of technology,Lingerfelt feels people often overes-timate what can be done. "There aresome big claims being made," he says."One of the things is to not overstate

what technology can do. This is in sup-port of people who have been in this jobfor years. It's not replacing what they do.It's not magic. It's just the natural pro-gression of the use of technology in thistype of job." Jacobs agrees, "Relying ondata might not give you the truth aboutwhat's happening in a neighborhood."Officers need to pair this technologywith traditional policing to get the best

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of both worlds. Nothing takes the placeof feet on the ground but technologycan assist and supplement this in trulyamazing ways. "It's most importantbenefit is that it enables the searchingand coordinating of huge amounts ofinformation rapidly," says Lingerfelt."That's why the investigator or the offi-cer responding to the event, given theproper data sets, can produce investiga-tive leads that would othervdse takedays. It takes only seconds."

Technology encouragespartnershipsAs law enforcement agencies try toaccess and finance advancing technology,they've found working together createsmore opportunities. Looking at publicsafety on a larger scale uncovered impor-tant relationships not only betweenbig and small agencies, but also other

departments such as transportation, pub-lic works and public health. Searching foranswers on how technology can expandand assist partnerships even more, IBMdeveloped the Smarter Cities Challenge.

Smarter Cities, St. LouisA city known for its brews, shoes andbeing the Gateway to the West, St.Louis is steeped in history and its policedepartment is not untouched. UntilSeptember 2013, the City of St. Louisdid not have control over its own policeforce. During the Civil War, Missouri'sSegregationist Governor ClaiborneJackson did not want the UnionistCity to have control over its arsenal.Instead of having the police under theauthority of the city mayor, the mayorwas assigned just one seat on a five-seat, state-appointed Board of PoliceCommissioners. After 152 years of state

control, the citizens finally decided itwas time to change, and the St. LouisMetropolitan Police Department nowhas a new boss.

Just a few years prior to this change,in 2011, St. Louis was one of 24 citiesto earn a grant from IBM as part of thecompany's effort to build a SmarterPlanet. "The Smarter Cities Challengewas set up to allow the philanthropicside of IBM to set up with the businessside," explains Cleverley. "Technologyhas a role to play in improving society.We sent teams to cities for intensive peri-ods of time to work on specific problemsso the city would benefit. But also wewould begin to understand what prob-lems they were really focused on. Bothsides benefit from that."

St. Louis, along with having anintriguing history, also had a very realpresent day problem. "St. Louis was very.

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very hurt by being labeled the U.S. MostDeadly City," says Lingerfelt. "This is anabsurd label, and this helped accelerateits already declining economies. Therewas a company that was going to locatethere and based on that one factor theywent to another city and took all their

jobs with them. It's a great city writh hardworking people, but they haven't beenable to invest in technology." In comesthe IBM team, including Lingerfelt, whospent six weeks interviewing hundreds ofcriminal justice professionals and doingride-alongs in St. Louis. "Very quickly.

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within days, some consistent problemsand messages identified themselves asbeing basic contributors to the largerproblem," says Lingerfelt. "We developed27 recommendations." One of the majorrecommendations was a partnershipwith the criminal justice graduate pro-gram at the University of Missouri—St.Louis. Other recommendations includedchanges in partnerships and technology."The key requirement to the recom-mendations is that every single recom-mendation had to be doable," Lingerfeltexplains. "Pie in the sky would not beuseful or offered. Every recommendationwas given with how to afford it and howto implement it."

...Chandler developed andprovided patrol officers withresources to see crime hotspots vuithin their heat. Bydoing so, officers can addressthem in traditionai wavs. Newgenerations of officers havecome to expect this kind oftechnologicai support.

Along with technology, the partner-ships developed by the challenge were abenefit. "The really interesting projectsin Smarter Cities are crossing tradi-tional boundaries," explains Cleverley."The technology part of the equationis not the difficult side. It's not simple,but the tricky part of the process is thegovernance and establishing the rightcoalitions and leadership lines to crossthose boundaries and work togetherregardless of the technology. To breakthe historical chains that have held usback from collaborating."

Eddie Roth, Deputy Chief of Staff toSt. Louis Mayor Francis Slay explainshow St. Louis Metropolitan PD tookthe recommendations. "None of thegeneral themes came as a surprise butsome of the subtleties and opportuni-

SMARTER POLIGINC

ties for improvement were exceedinglyhelpful," he explains. "The process ofsitting down and talking through anddescribing where there are gaps wasextremely helpful." Although the rec-ommendations were doable, that didn'tmean they were easy. "The scale ofthe recommendations was immense,"states Roth. "We had some major bar-riers with information sharing, startingwith independent offices with theirown technology and everyone is busy.You can sit around a table and talk atthe end of the day about where thereare opportunities to share informationbut the initial forces are tremendousand it's hard to get traction withouthaving a specific task at hand wherewe can actually see things happen in afocused way." Another recommendationbrought Roth on board as the ChiefPerformance Officer and brought ChiefSam Dodson to the top leadership role.A police captain with a reputation ofbeing a good cop and a superb admin-istrator, Dodson could view everythingthrough a lens of public safety.

"As a result of a year working with theUniversity of Missouri—St. Louis andSam Dodson, the department is poisedas it moves to a new headquarters toleap forward in its use of technology inintelligence matters, and examining whatother cities are doing in their intelligencecentered policing practices.

Public safety is at a point whereit's being forced to make fundamentalchanges. "Using technology will be anecessity," states Lingerfelt. "That's allthere is to it." As the recommendationsto St. Louis are moving across all thedivisions of the city and integratedtechnology implemented, the city isseeing improvements not only in sta-tistic, but also in reputation. "We'redoing better and better," concludesRoth. "St. Louis is steadily becominga safe city in all its neighborhoods andthis has really helped us." Hardwareand software platforms offered bycompanies like Splunk and IBM arehelping agencies big and small. "Wehave worked for many years aroundthe world to help with technology,"

explains Cleverley. "This is the nextcontinuum of the explosion of tech-nology. Let's look at how we can takeadvantage of this technology whenbudgets are being cut and the levels oftraditional policing are declining. Thisis information-based pohcing. It's not

replacing more typical methods—itenhances it." I

Michelle Perin has been a freelance writer since 2000.

in December 20W, she earned her Master's degree in

Criminoiogy and Criminai Justice from Indiana State University.

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