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Chicago Police Force Wins CIO Magazine Award
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."
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
so what do you propose, the poor cop sitting in his car waiting for the system to respond, while his colleague is trying to keep his eyes on 3 people at the same time, all of whom *might* draw a weapon, gun him down and take off in their car at any given time? One would think that in a job where a split second can mean the difference between a dead cop and a living cop only the best gear is good enough...and in the long run those dead cops cost a lot more than those notebooks did.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
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.
chicago tribune
"Chicago rates have dropped 16 percent in the last three years."
Yes. Now that they have such a great database, each year they run the
"crimetotals == crimetotals * 0.84"
algorithm. Brings crimes stats down real good!
Touchscreen is the only way to go. These are police officers, they don't have time to lean how to use whatever system you want to hack together. They want a picture menu on the screen that they can touch to get at what ever information they need.
Developers should never be conerned with what makes things easier for themselves, but what makes things easier for thier users.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
At least we (suposadly) report all of our crime. Unlike other cities.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
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
This situation doesn't occur in Chicago anymore. They banned handguns a while back, so the criminals don't carry them anymore. The police force found no need to carry weapons anymore because of the unarmed outlaws. There are no guns at all in Chicago.
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.
There are no guns at all in Chicago
I know. It's kind of interesting. The Chicago mafia actually has violins in their violin cases these days, ever since the government banned tommy guns. Gang battles resemble "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" now.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I hope they implement some sort of GIS/mapping solution (no not google image search) to make all that data more useful/presentable.
That's one thing that NYC did right in lowering their crime rate/"cleaning up the streets". They'd did very simple mappings of WHERE and WHEN crimes would occur (turns out there was a pattern... they'd show up to one complex every night just after dark with all sorts of calls)... and increase patrols in those areas during those times. Thereby using their available forces more efficiently by using the data they already had more effectively.
*shrug* It's not just about instant access to relevant information for the officers, it's what they do with it... (for good or bad) =)
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
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!
"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"
Beyond the obvious point that multiple factors affect a crime rate (from stricter policy to varying levels of people leaving the city) there is the fact that "all this information can" prevent crime and save lives but it neccessarily does not. Information CAN help but used inappropriately or not used at all could lead to nothing more than an incomplete system being updated for managerial reasons and being shunned by the users of the system. It's just like any other piece of software; it could be extremely beneficial but isn't unless used properly.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
"...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.
The way I look at it, they spent $45 mil fighting crime, which is mostly caused by citizens failing to make a decent living, sick of the system and just mad at everything. If they took most of that money and invested it into poverty prevension, you would see likely even better results.
Would you like a band-aid for that bleeding heart? It's an economic reality that some people will always be poor. The trick is in doing whatever you have to so that you're not one of them. Get a job. Work hard. And don't steal from people. It's not easy, but it isn't all that hard either.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Well, if we're going to put together massive government databases on citizens, this is the way to do it. If you're convicted of a crime, you give up certain rights. After reading so much about CAPPS and other super-spying databases that are geared towards law-abiding citizens, I'm glad someone saw the utility in applying it to people who actually commit crimes.
As for the "correlation does not equal causality" mantra being waved like a flag: no shit! I don't think the article even makes that jump, it just points out the correlation. It's left to the reader to draw his or her own inference. It's a data point, it's useful, and it should be reported. The fact that others (not so smart as yourselves) will seek to twist this one data point to their own benefit is a separate issue. I'm sure it will happen (or had happened). Doesn't mean a reporter should ignore it.
I just spent the past two years working on a project to link together Security Departments across the world, sharing information about criminals, victims, vehicles, etc. Basically, it would all the security departments to tap into a huge database, and retrieve information about Incident Compliant Reports (better known as ICRs).
Initially, we were an open source project. Naturally, we were swatted down by the Navy Marine Corp Intratnet (NMCI), because they wanted Microsoft-Only solutions (but they allowed us to choose from SQL Server and Oracle for our databases). Strike one up for the beaurocrats. Anyway, my point is this, it is not always possible to go with an open source solution due to political reasons (as opposed to technical). I will say, however, that Oracle is probably the right tool for the job, when comparing with other open source solutions (read Postgres and particularily MySQL).
Another thing....when working on this project, the people I worked with during the design phase had absolutely no concept of security (as in information security) or Need-to-Know basis. They thought that every person who used the system should be able to lookup anybody's information. Let me clarify, not only would military cops be using this system, but also the people who worked the Pass & ID offices (these are the people you have to go to get a pass to come onto the base). In other words, this would be like allowing the people at the DMV to view your police reports, (ie you were a suspect in a particular crime, but never charged). I proposed allowing the 'DMV' people to see that you weren't allowed to get a driver's license or base pass if you had been convicted of DWI/DUI (based on the DOD standards), but not be able to read the police reports. It's all a matter of Need-to-Know. They strongly disagreed.
To sum up, these types of systems will more than likely be used in ways they shouldn't. Not necessarily nefarious uses, but still violating one's privacy. This is a necessary tool, I think, but most likely not implemented properly (privacy-wise, in IMHO). The police need info fast, and privacy needs to be taken into account. It is a delicate balance to find.
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.
I am highly skeptical of this statement. Speeding tickets are misdemeanors. Most states don't even put them into their own state databases because police agencies will not extradite for a traffic ticket. I'm not familiar with Virginia, but many state police agencies will put a warrant on the drivers license if they have an unpaid ticket, perhaps that is how the information was available. All of the other information is available via MVD and Computerized Criminal History checks (expired registration and arrest info). The way the article introduction was written, it sounds like big brother is on the prowl. I would venture to guess the vast majority of this information was available to the officers before, but they had to go to a station computer to access it. Now they can just pull it up from the car.
You my friend are getting carried away in your quest for "open-source everywhere".
...
It's imperative you realise that more often than not (actually practically always) open-source has come to be for a particular solution as an option only after a proprietory solution for the same niche has already been in the offing for a while. Sometimes in function, sometimes in form.
Just some examples:
1. Unix begets Linux
2. MS_Office begets OpenOffice
3. Windows* begets multiple ergonomically inclinded GUIs based on X
4. Oracle DBs beget MySQL
5. Winamp begets XMMS
These are just instances that came to my mind (and probably the most obvious too). There may be examples to the contrary, but to the best of my knowledge there are no "large-scale" solutions that I know of which have "first" been implemented as open-source and then aped (or not) in some proprietory form.
I might ofcourse be wrong, but I would imagine (and more importantly in the context) that it would be very hard (impossible?) for a mission-critical solution such as that of a police force to be put into use w/o some form of:
1. Quality guarantee: which suits are "brandishers" of and which "a few guys hacking away" would find tough to "certify".
2. Support to fall-back on: ditto argument.
It is however entirely possible that now, once this one solution is on the ground and ticking, we might soon see some state department make an open-source implementation of the same.
Clearly, corporate money today has the financial muscle over open-source to market/sell solutions in new avenues. Nothing wrong with that, especially if those new avenues are then paved with more open solutions.
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/
The Chicago Citizen ICAM allows us to see crimes (as REPORTED - without any verification as to the actual occurance of a crime) in our own neighborhoods. It's a very nice little tool, and I hope it can survive a good slashdotting.
Jake: Hit it!
Elwood: I bet these cops got SCMODS.
Jake: SCMODS?
Elwood: State County Municipal Offender Data System.
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
However, credit when credit is due. In Germany, we are used of reading stories about multi-million government projects which, in the end, do not work. Several examples are police projects. This sickens me because we tax payers are ripped off and because good police officers waste their time and cannot protect us. So, again: congratulations to the Chicago police.
I live in Chicago, and wanted to respond to several comments I've seen in this discussion and to the article. I also live in one "ghetto" and work in another, which are famous hotspots for police activity.
First, their IT infrastructure claims to make policing more effective. As several have pointed out, correlation is not causation. As a further addendum to that, several other forces are at play which could be responsible for the drop in crime: gentrification, relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are going to the suburbs and beyond), and what seems to be a few more jobs at the low-wage end of the spectrum. Basically, you'd have to try to control for a) new, affluent residents of "crime-ridden" neighborhoods making more calls, b) how relocation of public housing residents (many of whom are involved in criminal activity that ranges from peddling to drug dealing and gangbanging) is tranforming crime (I'd guess, but I don't know, that drug arrests and such are down, because murders and rapes are most definitely going strong in Chicago), and how job creation for poor folks is also reducing some of the crime.
Secondly, lots of people have immediately argued that this IT infrastructure is a good thing and that Slashdot police-bashing is a Bad Thing.
In Chicago, police corruption and brutality is systematic at the highest levels, pervasive, and shocking.
Further, a good IT infrastructure cannot mitigate the effect of the completely shitty policies that keep good police from being effective in certain situations. Many of my friends on the police force lament the way that resources are deployed and policy works in handling drug-related crime, because the police necessarily tip their hand in busts, allowing the worst criminals to get away and leaving a couple of poor drug-addicted saps (not exactly the folks who marshall significant resources to get heroin and crack into the city and into the neighborhoods) for the police to nab.
Finally, and this is absolutely significant to this award, the Chicago police have often argued that their job is NOT crime deterrance or prevention, but crime reponse. Therefore, in several cases of police brutality and misconduct, the police claimed that they knew that crime was likely to occur in the places they raided or severely beat (killed in one instance, raped in another) innocent people, but that they couldn't just show up in order to deter the crime, because then the crime wouldn't happen. If the police are serious about deterring crime in Chicago, then the CLEAR system needs to be used in conjunction with pre-emptive prevention policies. These are things like simply stationing officers in cars in places they know (probably know even better with this new system, though it doesn't take a genius) lots of drug dealing happens, a stunningly effective and rarely used technique compared to the-chase-folks-around-yelling-"nigger"-and-then beating-them-up-without-an-arrest-but-pocketing-th eir-cash technique.
I'm not trolling. I believe in strong, effective policing. But that's so far from what I see in Chicago that congratulating them for an IT infrastructure that reduces costs and makes the police more "effective" is laughable compared to their abhorable behavior on a daily basis.
Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
I worked in IT for criminal justice a few years back. We ran a system that intigrated data from various agencies to provide this type of data to officers on the street, lawyers, etc. It was not what it appeared to be. Result sets often were very different depending on when you ran them, as various legacy systems would time out, etc. To be short, it would most often provide incomplete data. And we had a major DB vendor (not Oracle or MS, but MAJOR) taking credit for our awesome system.
The simple fact is that criminal justice IT is not up to date AT ALL becuase you have so many different agencies running REALLY OLD technology, and none of them really want to work together. Who funds the project when you are not only working with various agencies, but different branches of government?!
I don't buy the propoganda.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Some coverage: Chicago Police case, Google News on the recent Iowa/Drake U thing
According to this document, there were a grand total of 237,706 crimes in Chicago in 2002.
Of those, 172,812 (~73%) were 'non indexed' crimes. Of that total, nearly 60,000 (nearly 35%) were either narcotics violations, or prostitution.
Want to reduce non indexed crime by 35%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
Want to reduce overall crime by over 25%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
This doesn't even take into account the intangible reductions in "drug-related" crimes (i.e. gang bang murders over sales territories, deals gone bad, etc). Not only that, but it doesn't require a $45 million database, or three years to build. Just take two laws off the books. (yes, I know about all the attendant time and effort required to do such a thing...and I am blatantly ignoring it)
Just an alternate viewpoint. Flame away.
RANT >
Case law has shown us many times that the Police have NO responsibility to protect YOU. In fact, if a Policeman makes a mistake, and KILLS YOU, often he will face no censure. [ Pick a hot-button-Cops-Kill-Innocent case to support argument here ]
Since that's the case, the Police have no DUTY to protect you, and you can't compell them to in any way, this "Contract" you speak of does not pass the FIRST test of contractual validity, namely, an exchange of benefits and responsibilities between the parties, which can be enforced.
You may believe you have exchanged the right to exact punishment for the protection of the State, but the policeman doesn't think that way. You're background noise.
Then you suggest that if I don't subscribe to your (Obviously Flawed) "Social Contract" theory I should consider moving.
Well, buddy, I was BORN HERE in New York. You got a problem with NEW YORK's Constitiution? IT doesn't seem to mention any of this crap you're talking about. In fact it exhorts us to EXPEL CIVIL TYRRANY
[Art. XXXVIII. And whereas we are required, by the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to expel civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition of weak and wicked priests and princes have scourged mankind,...]
We Citizens limit what our governments may do, because we know that they are filled with people JUST LIKE US, and as such, should not be trusted.
Oh yeah, and WTF does your close mean?
"Have fun, and please let the constitution hit you on the way out!"
I think that those who believe the "America: Love it or Leave it!" thing, aren't ready to admit to themselves that it's more like "America: Fucked by BOTH Political Parties AND Every Corporation with Enough Scratch To Attend The Rally"
Let me close this rant by saying: "If your Party is MORE IMPORTANT than YOUR NATION, You MIGHT be involved in a Conspiracy to Commit Treason..."
/ rant >
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
That's nice for cops to have--but every citizen should have online access to that information--it's all public record, after all. Why shouldn't I be able to check out the houses in the neighborhood I'm considering buying in for crime statistics? Or to check my prospective babysitter for priors (again, convictions are a matter of public record).