CHAPTER 7

Tools for Problem Solving: Using Information Technology

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Introduction
First Things First: IT Comes to Policing
Early Federal Stimulus
Chief Executives’ Views
IT for Problem-Oriented Policing: A Conceptual Framework
Rationale for IT
Systems for Acquiring Crime Information
Exploiting the Young Officer’s Flair for IT
Crime Analysis: Revisiting SARA
What It Is, and How It Works
What Crime Analysts Do
Acquiring the Ability to Analyze Crimes
Which IT Tools to Use? Look at Type of Police Function Involved
Crime Mapping
A Long-Standing Practice
Policing Looks at Crime and Place
Real-Time Crime Centers
Strategies and Tools for Crime Management
CompStat
Intelligence-Led Policing
Predictive Policing
Smart Policing: Combining the Above
Applying Social Media: Lessons from Boston’s Marathon Bombing
Civic Apps Used to Fight Crime
Dedicated Software for Problem-Solving Tasks
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

As a result of reading this chapter, the student will understand:

➢ How information technology came to policing, how it has evolved, and the role police
chief executives believe it plays
➢ The conceptual framework underlying use of IT for problem-oriented policing
➢ The role in, and contributions of, crime analysis to problem solving
➢ How to determine which IT tools to use for particular police operations
➢ The basics of crime mapping functions and real-time crime centers
➢ Four crime management strategies: CompStat, intelligence-led policing, predictive
policing, and smart policing
➢ How social media and civic apps are being applied to crime fighting

KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

● Civic hacking
 ● Command and control systems
● CompStat
● Computer-aided dispatch (CAD)
● Crime analysis/analyst
● Crime mapping
● Geographic information
● system (GIS)
● Information technology
● Intelligence-led policing
● Management information systems
● Mobile computing
● Operations information systems
● Predictive policing
● Real-time crime center
● Records management systems
● Smart policing initiatives (SPI)
● Social media

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has demonstrated why, as its title suggests, having and utilizing information
technologies is an essential prerequisite for problem-oriented policing. Since computers first
came
to the field in the 1970s, their use and potential for crime fighting has grown exponentially, and
it would seem that their future use is only limited by the budgets and creativity of police
managers.
Certainly just a few years ago, one could not have conceived of police software and practices
where crimes could be predicted (based on past trends) to the extent they are today.
And, as amounts of data and numbers of available databases continue to increase, the police will
only become more astute in addressing crime and disorder. Soon, the real-time crime centers,
discussed in this chapter, will be as commonplace as computers in patrol cars and officers with
smartphones. Certainly, IT—along with the ability of officers to use their creativity with the
SARA problem-solving process and other tools—makes this a most exciting time to be in the
field of law
enforcement.