Beyond Street Smarts: Data Driven Crime Fighting

Presented by:Mehak AhujaYogesh Goel

A short story Mark Rasch, who is a lawyer and cybersecurity

consultant Mark took his son to his base ball game at park in

Georgetown Georgetown is an area that has zone parking with

a 2 hours limit He was forced to park his car in a parking slot that

was a bit of a hike from park but later he eyed an opening closer to the park and moved his car there assuming that by moving his car he would be able to park more than 2 hours.

When the game ended, he noticed Parking Enforcement officer writing tickets.

Continued….

He asked officer about the problem and then he get to know that officer not only knew that he had moved his car but when and how long he’d been parked his car within the zone.

By knowing this his blood run cold and realized that how much information law enforcement is generating.

There was a time when enforcement agencies suffered from information deficit but now more than 1800 agencies across US collecting crime related data in digital form.

What made police agencies to use data driven approach in policing

The era began in 1990s in New York City when the police chief, William Bratton sought to impress mayor Rudolph Giuliani with a radical approach to police that came to be known as CompSat

Compsat put an emphasis on leveraging data to optimize police work

Secondly, police departments were motivated to implement or upgrade IT systems by Y2K frenzy.

Problems related to current system Non- timely system as files had to be open

to investigate for thing Many criminals were able to find loopholes

in the system like Mark Rasch was trying to escape the system by moving his car

Based on past records there was no scope of predicting the future

All the decisions related to positioning of policemen and catching criminals were based on intuition and experience.

Issues related to upgrading to Data Driven approach Data quality Accessibility Developing and enforcing standards for

interpretability Exploiting the resources in most effective

way to make it cost efficient Accurate and detailed information Timely data

TECHNIQUES TO INTEGRATE DATA WITH POLICE RESOURCES

1. Time based use of data “Small group of criminals are responsible

for disproportionate amount of crime” – 80:20 rule

Police refers to that group as PPO’sIMPLEMENTATION IN POLICE DEPARTMENT

Police Department went through data on homicide cases and noticed an interesting data point: Of abut 20 arrests for homicide, 18 were of those people who had prior arrests for possession of firearms. So, they started detailed review of gun arrests”

2. Geography based use of data It is known as HOTSPOT ANALYSIS OR

ELECTRONIC CRIME MAPPING

IMPLEMENTATION IN POLICE DEPARTMENT

Police Department in Alberta bought data analysis technology from Cognos. In their projects they concentrate on using reporting tool along with geographic based resource deployment model. They use business analytics reports to help them deploy police officials in the city.

3. Time and Geography based use of data Now the agency is using the data to plot

criminal activity according to both geographic area and comparative history

This type of analytics is known as predictive policingIMPLEMENTATION IN POLICE DEPARTMENT

Chicago Police Department operates what Jonathan Lewin, commander of it services , refer to as “the largest transaction database in US”.

CLEAR: Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting system

It process “all arrests for all the departments –about 120- in real time

Cost: $35 millionIt is going to use all the data in the CLEAR system

including arrests, incidents, call for service, street gang activity, as well as community concerns to attempt to model future patterns of criminal activity.

Question that arises: CAN software really PREDICT crime? It is not a binary yes or no It is assessment of risk : “How probable

something is”

How private sector is using data to predict crime?

CargoNet, a joint project by insurance data provider ISO and National Insurance Crime Bureau(NICB), is the first ever national database of truck theft information

Collects 257 fields of data Refreshed several times a day Tracks more than 10,000 events per yearIMPLEMENTATION Truck thefts manly happens on weekends and mostly around Lo Angeles basin, Miami, Dallas, Tennessee. Trucks and trailers mainly slip away in dark of night from truck stops and distribution centres. The goods most often hot are consumer electronics, food, clothing and other items easily sold on street.These historical patterns along with up-to-the-minute information helps carriers and manufactures to gauge risk and change the time of deliveries and avoid specific routes.

Thank You!