Public Safety in the Digital Age by GovLoop

Smarter Cities: Public Safety in the Digital Age Industry Perspective

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Public Safety in the Digital Age

“Agencies simply cannot afford to put more officers on the street. They need to make improved decisions and allocate resources more effectively. Leveraging crime analytics is part of the solution in a time of tight budgets and resources.” Mike Reade, Public Safety Specialist, IBM® Smarter Cities Team

IBM Industry Perspective

Smarter Cities: Public Safety in the Digital Age

reventing crime is vital to developing vibrant and safe communities. As governments are faced with shrinking budgets and resources, public safety officials are tasked to deliver mission value in new ways.“Agencies simply cannot afford to put more officers on the street. They need to make improved decisions and allocate resources more effectively. Leveraging crime analytics is part of the solution in a time of tight budgets and resources,” states Mike Reade, Public Safety Specialist, IBM® Smarter Cities Team.

video analytics to detect suspicious activity as events unfold

The variety of crime analytics applications reflects how agencies are looking to align analytics to core mission functions. Existing use cases for crime analytics includes:

These examples provide only a snapshot of how analytics is being applied in law enforcement. One specific case study comes from the Miami-Dade County Police Department’s Blue PALMS initiative. Blue PALMS, or Predictive Analytics Lead Modeling Software, leverages crime analytics to break cold cases, and catch repeat offenders of crimes. When a crime is committed, an officer collects information that is captured in the Blue PALMS model. Blue PALMS uses advanced analytics to generate a list of potential suspects based on match probability. This list is then delivered to investigators to narrow their focus from thousands of known

COMBATING RECIDIVISM by understanding and focusing on serious and prolific offenders PREDICTING AND PREVENTING crime before it happens ENHANCING SITUATIONAL AWARENESS for officers through social media analytics or

Providing REAL-TIME INSIGHTS through GIS technology and geo-tagged crime data to deliver knowledge on surrounding locations and identify potential escape routes OPTIMIZING resource deployment and measuring outcomes of decisions and crime-fighting initiatives

Public Safety in the Digital Age

Blue PALMS, or Predictive Analytics Lead Modeling Software, initiative from the MiamiDade County Police Department provides stronger leads to investigators by leveraging historical crime patterns and offender modus operandi from huge volumes of data.

offenders to those with the highest probability of having committed the crime. Blue PALMS provides stronger leads to investigators by leveraging historical crime patterns and offender modus operandi from huge volumes of data.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS involves a variety of statistical techniques to model data and analyze historical crime, event, geographic, demographic and other data to predict the likelihood of crime before it happens.

Although the Blue PALMS program and related examples highlight common ways of using crime analytics applications, organizations define crime analytics in different ways to meet mission demands. David Edwards, Global Public Safety Offering Manager, IBM Smarter Cities, states, “I define crime analytics as the effort being taken by police departments to collect, synthesize and develop insights from all sources of public and private data that they can get access to.” Expanding upon Edwards’ definition, crime analytics serves as an umbrella term and includes various analytic applications. A few examples are highlighted below:

ENTITY ANALYTICS focuses on improving the accuracy and consistency of data across disparate data sets by resolving identity, event and location records. For instance, a criminal might go by several names and aliases within a records management system and across other datasets, and may be a witness to one crime while being the victim in another. Entity analytics will connect the dots between the data to form a complete profile of a criminal, address or object (such as a vehicle). Entity analytics solutions will also find the non-obvious relationships between persons, objects, locations and events that is only possible when the relationships between resolved identity packages are identified.

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS mine historical data to categorize, classify, and group information in order to reveal patterns, trends and performance.

IBM Industry Perspective

CONTENT ANALYTICS unlocks valuable data that is trapped in narratives, case files and oth-

er documents. Semantic and context analysis of unstructured text allows the volumes of information captured this way to be utilized as effectively as database information in order to identify new insights. SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS provides a constant stream of information. By leveraging this highly unstructured data in real time using streaming social media analytics, officers are able to identify and locate potential threats and evolving events, find evidence through photos, or track down witnesses. INTELLIGENT VIDEO ANALYTICS can help identify events and spot patterns of behavior in real time. In addition to providing alerts and improving situational awareness, video analytics provides event and pattern classification to dramatically improve forensic search from huge volumes of stored video. In a fast moving, data-driven world, the key is that agencies focus on specific mission needs and align technology to achieve mission goals. Even though agencies are operating in a time of restrictive budgets and dwindling resources, crime analytics is allowing agency personnel to be more responsive and efficient to combat crime. “Most agencies are interested in using analytics to better inform their personnel in a more efficient and effective way,” states Reade. With robust crime analytics, information can be delivered to officers in a more timely and accurate manner. Through this critical information sharing, officers are gaining advanced insights to improve situational awareness. “Analytics can deliver information to officers so they know what risks they might be encountering. Analytics can inform officers of known individuals in the area they should be on the lookout for, which can help the officer be better prepared,” states Reade.

Likewise, investigators are tracking stronger leads, and departments are witnessing new efficiencies by placing officers at the right spot, at the right time. Above all, crime analytics is creating new insights through data analysis. Organizations can spot trends and correlations by testing multiple variables against one another. Ultimately, by implementing a crime analytics solution, new workplace efficiencies are found. Reade states, “Analytics reduces the administrative burden on officers, investigators and analysts so they can spend more time doing what they do best.” This means more time working on leads, patrolling and participating in community based initiatives, and spending less time searching databases, requesting information and making sense of sometimes conflicting reports. Although the benefits are clear, new efficiencies can only be met if an agency aligns analytics to its core mission needs. Due to organizational size and ingrained operating procedures, this process is often challenging for agencies to adopt. “Organizations need to view crime analytics as a core part of their business,” states Edwards, he continues, “reorienting the organization around analytical insights is the hardest part.”

“ANALYTICS CAN DELIVER INFORMATION TO OFFICERS SO THEY KNOW WHAT RISKS THEY MIGHT BE ENCOUNTERING. ANALYTICS CAN INFORM OFFICERS OF KNOWN INDIVIDUALS IN THE AREA THEY SHOULD BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR, WHICH CAN HELP THE OFFICER BE BETTER PREPARED.” Mike Reade, Public Safety Specialist, IBM® Smarter Cities Team

Public Safety in the Digital Age

Edwards is alluding to the cultural challenges of leveraging crime analytics for public safety agencies. Analytics requires organizations create new organizational policies and infrastructures around analytics to meet mission goals. In addition to overcoming culture challenges, analytic solutions depend on accurate and high quality data. As police officers are often entering information from a variety of devices and inputs, and sometimes into multiple databases, data quality has become an issue for public safety administrators. As Reade states, “Data governance starts with establishing policy and enforcing policy in regards to capturing information. For instance, an officer could enter information for ‘208 Maine Avenue’ and mistakenly enter ‘208 Main Street.’” Combine this with the criminals’ deliberate attempts to obfuscate their identities, and multiply these errors over an entire force and many years, and data

In addition to showing the operational value of analytics to officers, public safety organizations must also assess the return on investment (ROI) of crime analytics, as they did in Lancaster, CA.

IBM Industry Perspective

quality will suffer. With inaccurate data, even the most complex algorithms simply will not provide insights that can be trusted. Data quality tools and entity analytics solutions can help to overcome these challenges, but the real goal is to train officers on the importance of data quality and governance. “Part of solving better data governance in law enforcement comes back to the person in the field understanding the impact of data accuracy and how it will come back to benefit them in the future,” states Reade. In addition to showing the operational value of analytics to officers, public safety organizations must also assess the return on investment (ROI) of crime analytics. One example of how to measure the ROI of crime analytics comes from the City of Lancaster, California. In 2008, Lancaster hired James Kobolt as the first Senior Criminal Justice Analyst, tasked with leveraging data in new ways to combat crime through data. Kobolt used IBM® SPSS® and Esri’s ArcGIS to explore how to fight crime through smarter, more innovative approaches. Lancaster public safety officers estimated that roughly 35 percent of their time was spent on reducing Part I crimes, which is defined as murder and non-negligent homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, vehicle theft, larceny and arson. By 2010, Kobolt had created predictive data models that accurately showed crime patterns. Esri maps showed heat maps and color codes to show crime throughout the city. These maps have provided the City of Lancaster with new insights and improved decisions how to allocate resources. The results were staggering, as Lancaster witnessed a 37 percent decrease in crime from their benchmark set in 2007. Working with Nucleus Re-

search Inc., IBM set out to understand the ROI for the City of Lancaster, the findings include:

With inaccurate data, even the most complex algorithms simply will not provide insights that can be trusted.

Lancaster saw a 35 percent reduction in Part I crimes in 2010 and a 42 percent reduction in 2011 compared to the 2007 benchmark rate Over $800,000 savings in the partial year of 2010 when predictive analytics was implemented By using predictive and geographic analytics, Lancaster was able to gain over a million dollars in productivity on a year-over-year basis The City of Lancaster attained a ROI of 1301 percent in a payback period of 1.5 months after implementing a SPSS and ArcGIS solution to fight crime Although the City of Lancaster witnessed reductions in Part I crimes, the ROI of an analytics solution extends far beyond just general crime statistics. “I see ROI at three levels, number one is the crime rate, second is personnel productivity and finally the economic development impact from crime reduction,” states Jim Lingerfelt, Senior Consultant, IBM. Lingerfelt continues, “We are doing some deeper thinking about a community and the way it is affected by crime. Crime is inextricably linked to economic development, so that fact alone demands a broader approach that includes social services agencies, schools, community groups and even getting involved in permitting and zoning.” For public sector organizations to truly transform into modern institutions, agencies will be forced to adopt analytics as a core business function. Currently, IBM is in the process of developing a police resource optimization engine that will give man-

agement the ability to see what the impact is by putting incremental resources in different parts of their police force. This means that an administrator could add a detective to the robbery squad and see the impact on clearance rates for robberies. Alternatively, the administrator could add the resource to the patrol division and see the impact on response time. This is a way for police chiefs to make better incremental decisions that are based upon expected outcomes, rather than existing workloads. Now, like never before, agencies must explore new and innovative ways to protect citizens. In order to do so, utilizing analytics is the way forward for agencies to combat crime with diminishing budgets and resources.

Public Safety in the Digital Age

ABOUT IBM The world isn’t just getting smaller and flatter, it is also becoming more instrumented, inter- connected and intelligent. As we move toward a globally integrated economy, all types of governments are also getting smarter. IBM provides a broad range of citizen centered solutions to help governments at all levels become more responsive to constituents, improve operational efficiencies, transform processes, manage costs and collaborate with internal and external partners in a safe and secure environment. Governments can leverage the unparalleled resources of IBM through IBM Research, the Center for the Business of Government, the Institute for Electronic Government and a far-reaching ecosystem of strategic relationships. To learn more, visit ibm.com/smarterplanet/safety

ABOUT GOVLOOP GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire public sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 65,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington D.C with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government. For more information about this report, please reach out to Pat Fiorenza, Senior Research Analyst, GovLoop, at pat@govloop.com, or follow him on twitter: @pjfiorenza. GovLoop  734 15th St NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: (202) 407-7421 Fax: (202) 407-7501 Twitter: @GovLoop