Data Sharing

crime stoppers

WEB-BASED MAPPING MAKES SAFER NEIGHBORHOODS

BY KEVIN SWITALA

For the first time, law-enforcement agencies within the U.S. Attorneys Office (USAO), Eastern District of Pennsylvania, are reaching across criminal justice boundaries to collect, archive and share data. The initiative's cornerstone is the Project Safe Neighborhoods Mapping and Analysis Program (PSN MAP), a Web-based tool that collects and archives firearm and homicide data for crimes committed in nine Eastern Pennsylvania counties.

The PSN MAP application evolved from the PSN program, launched by President George W. Bush in 2001, which established a network of law-enforcement and community initiatives designed to prevent gun violence. According to the FBI, an estimated 67 percent of the 16,503 murders in the United States in 2003 were committed with firearms.

Also that year, 42 percent of all robberies and 19 percent of all reported aggravated assaults were committed with a firearm. Altogether, incidents involving a firearm represented 7 percent of the 4.9 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault.

The Bush Administration committed $901 million to PSN. The funds have been dedicated to support various gun-violence reduction strategies such as hiring federal and state prosecutors and establishing community outreach initiatives.

In addition, a U.S. attorney in each of the 94 federal judicial districts across the United States was charged with implementing elements of PSN, including establishing partnerships with federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies; creating strategic plans to deter gun violence; conducting training; and facilitating outreach to combat gun-crime problems in their district.

The USAO and district attorneys representing Philadelphia, Delaware, Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, Berks, Lehigh, Northampton and Lancaster counties established PSN Task Forces in each county to develop and support gun-violence reduction strategies.

Problem Areas

Traditionally, firearm, illegal narcotics and violent crimes have been significant problems in areas that fall within the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which is one of the nation's most populous districts, with more than 5 million people residing in approximately 5,475 square miles. The area also has diverse cultures, geography and communities, containing large metropolitan cities and farmland, and is connected to other large metropolitan areas, such as New York City and Baltimore, Md., through an extensive network of major roadways.

Although the PSN Task Force partnerships enhanced the sharing of intelligence, there still wasn't an avenue for electronic information exchange. For example, the USAO, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, was only able to obtain court-related data from the county district attorney (DA) and had limited access to data mining tools. Other roadblocks to data sharing included a lack of the following:

• A distributed analysis tool set that could be used by USAO analysts and county DA staff to determine related offenses
• A standardized data warehouse used by all participants to store local offense data
• Geospatial analysis tools accessible to federal, county and local law-enforcement agents

Creating PSN MAP

To improve the ability of PSN Task Forces in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to successfully investigate and prosecute violent criminals that involved the use of firearms, GeoDecisions developed PSN MAP. The application enables PSN Task Forces and local police departments to collect and archive major crime data, including violent crimes, weapon-related crimes, drug crimes and vehicle-related crimes.

With the technology, users can access reporting, analysis and mapping tools by leveraging the regional crime data warehouse through a single, highly secure Web interface. PSN MAP is built with "state of the art" technology, including the .NET framework and ESRI ArcWeb Services.

The project's initial phase involved joint application development sessions with three PSN Task Forces. The sessions were designed to develop a "vision" of the system, detailed requirements documentation and development of the Web site's architecture. Subsequent project phases included developing the application, pilot testing and full implementation of the application to the nine counties within the USAO's Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Robert K. Reed, chief of the Firearms Section for the USAO in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is "optimistic that PSN MAP will prove to be an invaluable tool in providing information for law-enforcement agencies throughout the Eastern District, in addition to enhancing a criminal investigator's ability to attack violent crime, specifically firearms violence, in an unprecedented way."

Adding MAGLOCLEN

In addition to the criminal data the USAO's Eastern District of Pennsylvania maintains, PSN MAP leverages crime data collected and maintained by the Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network (MAGLOCLEN). Located in Newtown, Pa., MAGLOCLEN serves Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia as well as Canada and England.

Users can search for crime patterns via simple or more-complex interfaces.

MAGLOCLEN is one of six intelligence centers in the United States that are members of the nationwide Regional Information Sharing System (RISS) network. Local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies use RISS, the only secure, nationwide Web-based network, to communicate and exchange criminal intelligence.

Members of RISS have access to RISS.net, where criminal data are stored on a secure intranet. The foundation of PSN MAP comes directly from RISS.net's offense data repository, from which users can generate detailed charts, reports and maps to analyze crime patterns.

PSN MAP Features

PSN MAP's primary function is to facilitate regional crime analysis. A user defines a question (i.e., "where do I want to search for crimes?") and obtains results that can be displayed and visualized in a variety of ways, such as crime tables, charts or maps.

Crimes that fit a researched pattern are presented within a simple table of information with fields that can be sorted and summarized.

The primary interface of PSN MAP provides a multi-tabbed form, which allows users to enter search criteria. The search can determine general offense groups to search for crimes over a general time period, crimes within a jurisdiction, or crimes that may involve an individual or weapon type. In addition, advanced search pages allow users to narrow search parameters to a complex or unique question (i.e., patrol boundaries, dates, specific addresses, specific crimes or range of incidents, time of day, etc.).

Users can click on a crime location to see detailed information pertaining to that event.

A key component is its multi-jurisdictional approach. A search area can be defined across township, city, county or state boundaries. As a result, patterns of crime data along transportation corridors and among urban and suburban locations can become more visible. Crime-related information for an entire region can be displayed and analyzed, creating a new portal that supports innovative multi-jurisdictional analysis and policing methodologies.

PSN MAP Benefits

PSN MAP provides innovative ways to facilitate communication and cooperation among law-enforcement agencies. It reduces data redundancy while helping to foster relationships among local, state and federal officials. As a result, law-enforcement officials are able to make more-informed decisions to allocate resources and develop, coordinate, and provide a regional and federal solution to crime and law-enforcement problems.

"The USAO in the Eastern District has maintained its commitment to combat firearms violence, reach out and include each of the nine-county district attorneys in the program, support integration of intelligence gathering and distribution capabilities among law-enforcement agencies, work closely with community groups, and educate the public about firearm usage and victimization," says Reed.

Technology has made the PSN MAP system possible and affordable. Obtaining street files and other contextual mapping data for a multi-state area proved to be expensive. However, advances in technology and Web services, specifically ESRI ArcWeb Services, enabled PSN MAP to be developed and implemented at a substantially lower cost.

Also, PSN MAP is possible through geospatial technology, including the geocoding and base-mapping ArcWeb Service. The geocoding services leverage accurate nationwide street files to locate offense locations, and the base-mapping service provides rich and sophisticated cartographic background map layers on which offense locations can be displayed.

Providing law-enforcement agencies with the technology to view and analyze crime patterns and identify perpetrators who have committed violent or drug-trafficking crimes in multiple counties will allow investigators and prosecutors to better communicate, and it ultimately will result in more-effective prosecutions.

Future Applications

PSN MAP has the potential to incorporate data from police departments in adjacent areas, including New Jersey, Delaware and New York City. With newly proposed analysis tools and the continued support of MAGLOCLEN, PSN MAP will have the ability to identify criminal elements and offense patterns along the major transportation routes that extend from New York City to Trenton, N.J., Camden, N.J., Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.

"PSN MAP is already being used throughout the Eastern District," notes Reed. "The early reaction from federal, state and local investigators has been positive. As additional law-enforcement agencies continue to get involved, PSN MAP will be a tool used more frequently."