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Chicago Police Force Wins CIO Magazine Award

Posted by timothy on from the you're-not-heavy-you're-a-citizen dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the sole winner of the 2004 Grand CIO Enterprise Value Award for its data warehouse and application suite. In Taking IT to the Street, the magazine writes that Chicago police officers have an immediate access to more than to 200 GB of data and nearly 8.5 million records of arrests and other incidents. It took $45 million and 3 years to the CPD to build this database with the help of Oracle, but the return on investment is huge, with labor savings of $88 million from 2001 through 2003. And while the national crime rate rose 2 percent from 2000 to 2001, Chicago rates have dropped 16 percent in the last three years. So all this information can and does prevent crime and save lives, but in Police Power Coming Up Behind You, the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands. This overview contains selected excerpts and comments about this long article."

9 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong hands by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands

    Given how paranoid the US, its administration and its various police forces are these days, I think the problem is that the database is already in hands that can potentially go disturbingly wrong.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Wrong hands by frdmfghtr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands

      ANYTHING, in the wrong hands, can pose a hazard to anybody. Guns, information, paper clips, the little umbrellas that get put in tropical drinks--all these can be dangerous if they get in the wrong hands.

      The phrase "into the wrong hands" is simply a way of spreading FUD without being specific. There is no such thing as something that has no "bad" associated with its "good." Technology provides many comforts and conveniences for decent people; but it also brings these comfots and conveniences to people who will use them to do unlawful things.

      --
      Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
  2. This is always the case. by Osrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whenever the Police get new tools or new powers some nut always comes along and worries about what would happen if the tools fell into the wrong hands. Without much thought, the argument can be liberally applied to computer systems, guns, patrol cars, uniforms and whatever else the police might have access to. They always dismiss a number of crucial facts. a) The Police are regulated and monitored, their tools and training are studied, monitored and controlled. b) The Police are not 16 year old kids who might accidentally leave their new gadget on the bus. Let the Police get on with their job, 99.99999% of the time their doing great things, taking substantial risk on our behalf. The more we can do to make that job easier and reduce that risk the better.

  3. Correlation is not causation by donutello · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And while the national crime rate rose 2 percent from 2000 to 2001, Chicago rates have dropped 16 percent in the last three years. So all this information can and does prevent crime and save lives

    Repeat after me:
    Correlation is not causation.
    Correlation is not causation.
    Correlation is not causation.

    --
    Mmmm.. Donuts
    1. Re:Correlation is not causation by wondafucka · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm a Chicagoan through and through. IMHO, the drops in crime were most likely from Gentrification rather than increased technology.

      As much as I hate the implications however, the crime in this city still centers around the public housing. The CPD has installed cameras on the west side, and this has made a difference in the crime in the area (Before anyone starts freaking out, the cameras are highly visible with blue flashing lights on them. You cannot miss them).

      While the technology is scary in the wrong hands, this can potentially be a very good thing. CPD are harsh when necessary, but realistic. They are not the typical chest-beating, ego-fragile, farces that I have run into in other sections of the Chicago-land. If they have a tool that tells them instantly that I am not a suspected drug dealer or convicted child molester, then they can give me my ticket and let me go. At least there could be some sort of "hard criteria" rather than some judgemental cop pulling me over and hassling me based on how I look (And oh boy, has that happend before)

      In the wrong hands the technology is obviously a potential risk. I can just imagine a coupla dirty pigs (not the sane kind) scanning liscense plates and running them constantly.

      --
      postmodernsideshow.com
  4. Why did THIS cause lower crime number? by DavidinAla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This post assumes that the 16 percent drop in crime in Chicago is a result of the new system. Why? Where is the evidence for that? I slept late yesterday and it rained. I got up early today and it didn't rain. So does that mean that rain is caused by me sleeping late? Absurd. Correlation does not necessarily equal casusation.

    I don't know if real crime in Chicago was down or not. Such "official statistics" are very easily manipulated, either by design as the data are being gathered or afterwards as they're being interpreted. Unless there is MUCH better evidence of a link between the statistical drop in crime and this new computer system, the poster's conclusion is completely unwarranted. It's POSSIBLE that the system does indeed reduce crime, but the assumption isn't supported at this point.

  5. Does this technology prevent crime? by jludwig · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Chicago rates have dropped 16 percent in the last three years. So all this information can and does prevent crime and save lives

    Really? What city with similar demographics to Chicago that didn't implement this technology served as the control for this comparison? Sounds like "Eating ice cream causes drowning". It just happens more people eat ice cream during summer, which also happens to be when most people swim. Be very careful of drawing correlations like this!

    Another problem with this is a fundemental issue of economics... for sure spending money on this system may reduce crime, but is there a more effective use of this money? For example, after school programs, education, free drug rehab, etc. Giving more money to law enforcement treats the symptoms not the caues!

  6. If you're concerned you must be a criminal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "...the author reports he is somewhat worried that all these tools could fall into wrong hands."

    Is he?

    I'm worried that all this information has fallen into the right hands. 'The law abiding people have nothing to fear' they always say. But it takes only a little twist, like Prohibition, to make a _lot_ of people nuovo-criminals; and all their information is then fair game.

    I'm all for law enforcement and the protection of the truly innocent, but the time is coming when there will be only two kinds of people: Those being watched and the watchers. And there are supremely efficient and brutal criminals on both sides of that divide.

  7. A Warning from Germany by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    While I'm happy to see the crime rate go down in Chicago and the police freed from clumsy bureaucratic work, we shouldn't forget that technology is always two-sided. These same databases could be used for other purposes.

    I believe it was Gerhard Ritter, the great German historian, who gave three reasons why he was able to remain a vocal anti-Nazi in Hitler's police state.

    1. Before the Nazis took power, he already had an international reputation. If the Gestapo were to arrest him, the world press outcry would do the Germany of the 1930s (very concerned about exports) more harm than good. Despite movie stereotyping, the Nazis were neither stupid nor insane.

    2. All his colleagues in the history department at his university shared his sentiments. That meant he could get support and encouragement from them without fear of an anonymous denouncement.

    3. Despite what some thought, the Gestapo, forced to used card files and paper folders, wasn't that well organized. One department would issue an order that "under no circumstances was Dr. Ritter to be allowed to leave Germany to speak at a conference," while another department would issue him a permit to speak at a conference in Switzerland, where he would make anti-Nazi remarks.

    It's in this third area that the danger lies, not so much in the U.S. where the traditions of freedom and democracy run deep, but in the still-existing police states and half democracies of the world from Iran and Syria to Russia. This all too effective databases could be used to squelch the process of dissent and demonstration that can lead to freedom.

    Those wanting a parallel should read IBM and the Holocaust, paying particular attention to how the Nazi were able to use punch card census data correlating ethnic/religious data to name and address to round up Dutch Jews and send them to death camps.

    As Reagan and Schultz would point out to the Soviet leaders, technology develops best in a free society. But we shouldn't forget that, once developed, technology is easily transferred to less free societies.

    Finally, we should not forget that in history good is always in a desperate race with evil. There are technologies loose in the world (and not just databases) that are dangerous in the hands of repressive governments. Democratizing the Middle East is in the interest of us all, as well as the peoples of the region. It's not a project we can put off until it becomes convenient and risk free.

    --Mike Perry

    Editor: Dachau Liberated

    Editor: Eugenics and Other Evils

    Author: Untangling Tolkien

    http://www.InklingBooks.com/