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Memphis police leverage analytics to fight crime

July 21, 2010 @ Jeffery SmithView Comments

In 2005, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) piloted a program to combat serious and violent street crime using statistical data and a defined methodology. By compiling incident reports and other law enforcement data for the last several years, officials say their technology enables them to forecast criminal “hot spots” more accurately and respond more effectively to the shifting criminal landscape.

The MPD stood up Operation Blue CRUSH (which stands for Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) in conjunction with the University of Memphis’ Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, using predictive analytics by IBM. Since 2006 MPD has seen a 31 percent reduction in serious crime, including a 15.4 drop in violent crime around the city. Much of this drop has been credited to Blue CRUSH and its statistics, or analytics-based approach to law enforcement.

According to department officials, IBM software compiles volumes of crime records, including data from patrols in the field, in mere seconds. With the use of such tools, MPD “now has the invaluable insight all of our staff can use — from the commanders to the patrolling officers — to specifically focus investigative and patrol resources with the goal of preventing crime and making our neighborhoods safer,” Colonel James Harvey, Commander at MPD’s Ridgeway Station, said in a statement.

Over the last year, IBM has announced a healthy portfolio of government clients using business intelligence and analytics products – a business line which has been buoyed by 18 acquisitions and $11 billion in the last four years.

Other police departments using IBM’s SPSS predictive analytics include Richmond PD, but the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice and the police department in Edmonton, Canada have installed similar solutions.

In Memphis, IBM software being used by Blue CRUSH will also incorporate information and data gathered by the police department’s $3 million Real Time Crime Center (RTCC). The RTCC is designed to be a resource-sharing initiative that will facilitate cooperation between city, state, county and federal law enforcement within a 75-mile radius of the city to proactively combat crime.

By using predictive analytics, the project has also garnered an award for improving operations, enabling MPD to reduce crime without a proportional increase in staff while expanding the department’s reach into the community.

According to the report, published by Nucleus Research, the project’s average annual total cost of ownership is $395,249. Meanwhile, the average annual benefit of the system (both direct and indirect) is over $7 million. The report calculated the indirect benefits by estimating the amount of additional officers that would have been needed to reduce crime by 31 percent (the drop since 2006 and the program start).

“IBM’s comprehensive set of capabilities for data access, data preparation, analysis and reporting allow us to get the most value from our analytical resources, empowering every officer on the force to take a proactive role in the city’s ongoing commitment to crime prevention and public safety,” Colonel Harvey added.

View Comments → “Memphis police leverage analytics to fight crime”

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  10. 11AntsAnalytics

    2 weeks ago

    If there are any law enforcement agencies interested in experimenting with this type of project with their own data – please get in touch with us. If you can provide the data in Excel form, in a format as specified on our website (see http://www.11AntsAnalytics.com ) we will be happy to attempt to build the predictive model(s) required, or alternatively,if releasing the data is not straightforward, we will be happy to give you an evaluation license to 11Ants Model Builder, which will enable you to do this yourself. If you a) have the data and b) can use Excel – you should certainly be able to replicate this. This is very interesting to us. Thanks.

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  12. Nobody Knows

    2 weeks ago

    Nice. Maybe the Police can get together with the NSA which is currently reviewing all communications by American citizens and others all the time (Mark Klein vs NSA for reference – since FISA there is no accounting for the splitters set up illegally at ATTs SF hub and other locations) and start monitoring our thoughts, actions and communications even more thoroughly. Thus we can continue to enforce laws when they involve the poor and ignore them when they involve corporations and the rich… Its all about the definition of crime. When dissent becomes a crime as it nearly was under Bush and co, then we will have lost the last bit of control we have over our country and “Law and Order” aka “Fascism” in the truest sense of the word will prevail.

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