By: Maria Moynihan
Crime prevention and awareness techniques are changing and data, analytics and use of technology is making a difference. While law enforcement departments continue to face issues related to data – ranging from working with outdated information, inability to share data across departments, and difficulty in collapsing data for analysis – a new trend is emerging where agencies are leveraging outside data sources and analytic expertise to better report on crimes, collapse information, predict patterns of behavior and ultimately locate criminals.
One best practice being implemented by law enforcement agencies is to skip trace an individual much like a debt collector would. Techniques involve using historic address information and individual connections to better track to a person’s current location. See the full write up from CollectionsandCreditRisk.com to see how this works.
Another great example of effective use of data in investigations can be seen in this video, where one Experian client, Intellaegis of El Dorado Hills, CA, recently worked with local law enforcement to follow the digital data footprints of a particular suspect, finding her in in just five minutes of searching.
p> And, yet another representation of improved data gathering, handling and sharing of information for crime prevention and awareness can be found on a site I was just made aware of by one of my neighbors – www.crimemapping.com. Information is collapsed across departments for greater insight into the crimes that are happening within a neighborhood, offering a more comprehensive option for the general public to turn to on local area crime activity.
Clearly, data, analytics and technology are making a positive impact to law enforcement processes and investigations. What is your public safety organization doing to evolve and better protect and serve the public?
