Crime Pattern Analysis

Information is transferred on a regular basis from high availability operational applications into a common storage area described as an ACTIVITY DATABASE . CPA provides facilities to interrogate and analyse this data and act as a filter to transfer results into other packages such as Microsoft Excel or the desktop mapping product, MapInfo, for more detailed analysis or circulation of information.

These host systems may even be on a variety of hardware with software developed by different manufacturers, the above list only being an example of the different source applications. In this way trends may be readily monitored, combining important factors from data which may not otherwise be cross-matched.

An increase in petty vandalism recorded on Incident Logging or drunkenness identified through Custody Records may be an early indicator of an expected rise in more serious crime in an area. CPA allows a user to monitor these trends and to take preventative action.

Crime Pattern Analysis supports the step by step development of queries against one or more entities in the ACTIVITY DATABASE. Once prepared, a query may be saved, copied or re-submitted for updated results with the minimum of effort. Many systems often retrieve all data items stored on a record. Within CPA, the user can choose to retrieve only those fields relevant to their particular enquiry, thus providing a more concentrated effort on particular facts.

Where a trend in crime has been identified, queries may be stored for automatic overnight processing. A user can identify an expected level against a set of circumstances and, if this pre-set level is exceeded, they may be informed through the results of the query or by receipt of an e-mail message. This background processing of queries leaves the crime analyst free to monitor trends or determine the cause of an increase rather than spend an undue amount of time undertaking wasted research. These queries are totally flexible, allowing any items of data held in the ACTIVITY DATABASE to be monitored.

The analysis of data against the ACTIVITY DATABASE also ensures that the user is free to generate complex enquiries knowing that their actions are not going to affect the response times of the operational systems.

Search System

Information from different applications may be combined within the ACTIVITY DATABASE to enable cross searching of data in a way which may not be possible on the host systems:

Crime Recording

Custody Records

Incident Logging

Nominal Records

Location Details

Modus Operandi

Stolen Property

Motor Vehicles