"Police Power Coming Up Behind You" is the title of the "From the Editor" section of the Feb. 15, 2004 issue of CIO Magazine. Some quotes:
THE GUY IN THE SUV in front of us, stuck in Chicago traffic with about a million other cars, lives in Virginia, has not been arrested in the past several years, has one outstanding ticket for speeding (in Virginia), and is six months delinquent in renewing his registration.CIO is published "to meet the needs of CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and other information executives." It has awarded the CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system, the Chicago Police Department's unique enterprisewide relational database, the first the Grand CIO Enterprise Value Award. Here are some quotes from the award story:I know this because I'm in a cop car, right on his tail. We've just entered his plate number into the MicroSlate notebook mounted on the center console of our unmarked cruiser. A few more clicks, and we probably could have found out when he bought the SUV and what he paid for it. * * *
Chicago patrol officers and desk-based detectives now have at their fingertips access to 200GB and nearly 8.5 million records of arrests and other incidents. Type in an address—say, the Krispy Kreme on the corner or your neighbor's house—and up will pop a list of all reported incidents for that location. Access a known offender, and you'll get a list of his addresses and aliases, and high-res images of his mug shots and tattoos (tattoos are the criminal equivalent of bar codes and are put to the same use by the cops).
This sort of intelligence-driven police work is a strategic objective for most metropolitan PDs, since 9/11 launched a new era of crime-fighting, but the Chicago Police Department (CPD) is leading the way. And it's something of a miracle that it's happening here, in the country's second largest police force after New York City's.Here is a 2/17/04 Chicago Tribune story; a 2/10/04 Yahoo entry/press release; and here is yesterday's Slashdot entry. Posted by Marcia Oddi at February 23, 2004 07:48 AMChicago's pursuit of IT value has been methodical and tenacious. Obtaining and maintaining funding, overcoming user resistance and laboring through drawn-out training sessions have been a continuous struggle. With nothing available to buy that met its vision, Chicago needed to partner with database giant Oracle. Three years and $40 million later, 50 percent of the original vision and applications have been implemented. But even at the half-way point, the CPD has proven to the city, county, state and beyond that IT can work in big city policing and does reduce crime.
For those reasons, the Chicago Police Department is this year's sole recipient of CIO's top enterprise value distinction—the Grand CIO Enterprise Value Award. "Enterprise value in its highest form is the opportunity for IT to transform a business, to bring a whole new model into existence," says Rebecca R. Rhoads, CIO of Raytheon and an Enterprise Value Awards judge. * * *
The CLEAR database, deployed in April 2000 and now topping 200GB, is the foundation for a growing set of integrated CLEAR applications used by all of the department's 13,600 officers and most of its 3,000 civilians, plus an exponentially expanding base of users outside the city limits. In fact, the state of Illinois' crime data system will be replaced by CLEAR, which will serve as the State Police's data repository. * * *
Further afield, Indiana has expressed interest in the source code, and the CPD has demonstrated CLEAR to the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., police departments. * * *
Federal interest is growing too. The FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Drug Enforcement Administration are all tapping into CLEAR. Oracle, which has worked with Chicago to demonstrate the system nationally, is seeing momentum building around a national model.