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Chicago Police Force Wins CIO Magazine Award 366

Posted by timothy 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."
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Chicago Police Force Wins CIO Magazine Award More

Chicago Police Force Wins CIO Magazine Award

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  • with the help of Oracle

    I'm sure Oracle built this system for free and the system uses DB2..

  • Wrong hands (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:13PM (#8356034)
    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.

    • Re:Wrong hands (Score:5, Insightful)

      by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:58PM (#8356289)
      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.

  • This is always the case. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Osrin ( 599427 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:18PM (#8356056) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:This is always the case. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by barzok ( 26681 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:22PM (#8356085)
      "The wrong hands" already have these tools. There are bad cops in every force. You'd like to think they aren't out there, but they are. Fortunately, the good ones far outnumber them, but you still have to hope luck's on your side anytime you encounter an officer.
      • Of course there are - hence my not using 100%. The same goes for any organization, commercial, government or otherwise.

      • Re:This is always the case. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by agentZ ( 210674 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:40PM (#8356178)
        And so to quote the argument always made against the police, why not go after the bad cops and not the tools they use. In the same way that P2P is not, in and of itself, evil, it's the people who do illegal things with it. Similarly, it's not the technology that's bad, it's the cops that abuse it. So let's audit the police use of this technology and punish those cops who abuse it. Punish the guilty, not the technology.
        • Some people just have trouble with giving the state the capability to monitor its citizens so close.

          Gee, I wonder why?
    • They don't mean the wrong hands as in some guy getting ahold of the technology, they mean a member of the police force or the whole edifice abusing the power that has been entrusted to them. Eventually some unscrupulous administration will decide to use these tools for a corrupt purpose. There has to be some safeguards when that much power is put into the hands of a few.
    • Since you say 'the more we can do to help the police ' the better, do you think we should get rid of search warrents and other things that 'impead' the speed of justice?

    • Re:This is always the case. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by antiMStroll ( 664213 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:37PM (#8356168)
      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.

      True, there is an unfortunate history of that in America, starting with the Framers of your Constitution. Good thing you've outgrown such primitive attitudes.

    • I'd agree with your sentiments, to at least some extent, but I'm already turned off by your tone. Why would someone be a "nut" simply because they ask some tough questions about the possibilities we don't want to consider?

      A very real problem with computerizing data into databases has *always* been keeping it secure. The nice thing about traditional methods of filing data (file cabinets full of folders and so on) is it has a certain level of inherent security. (EG. If I waltz in to the police station an

  • so? chicago = murder capital. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grimani ( 215677 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:18PM (#8356059)
    chicago tribune [chicagotribune.com]

  • Dropping crime rates (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:20PM (#8356076)
    "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!
    • Hmm. That statement will always return -1:

      #include <stdio.h>
      void main(){
      int crimetotals=100;
      int temp;
      temp = (crimetotals == crimetotals * 0.84);
      printf("temp = %d\n",temp);
      }

      Running gives:
      temp = 0

      I guess that is a good way to decrease crimetotals, as you can't really beat 0.

  • Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by donutello ( 88309 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:23PM (#8356093) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wondafucka ( 621502 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:25PM (#8356455) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tiro ( 19535 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @03:59PM (#8357198) Journal
        I am in Politics of Local Justice class taught by a professor who also oversees police discipline as a civilian. The use of these databases comes from Bratton & Maple's Compstat method in NYC. Bratton came in as Guiliani's police chief, and they used computer to map and chart crime statistics in the hundreds of local precincts.

        Folks, if you want to worry about police abuse, these databases [the Chicago and NYC ones here] aren't the ones to worry about. They are used to enforce accountability on chiefs who spent all their time staying out of trouble by doing absolutely nothing but the bare minimum police work. Applying accountability and using these stats to test out new policing methods makes a huge difference in crime, like 10-20% annual drops sustained over several years in the New York and Chicago examples. These numbers cannot be explained by gentrification or nationwide crime drops.

        If you want to raise alarms, look to the Patriot Act and its variants, but not these efforts.

        Rick Pastore is spreading FUD. He has no evidence that the police know where cars are purchased in the database info, and frankly the usefulness in Comstat clone database systems has nothing to do with keeping that kind of personal information! The usefulness comes from being able to check for outstanding warrants and for mapping areas with lots of crime, not from features allowing on the fly police browsing of your credit history, which they can't do anyway!!

  • Why did THIS cause lower crime number? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DavidinAla ( 639952 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:28PM (#8356115)
    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.

    • "I got up early today and it didn't rain. So does that mean that rain is caused by me sleeping late?"

      Probably. I got up late today and it did rain

    • It has been shown that 75% percent of all statistics have been made up!!

    • Re:Why did THIS cause lower crime number? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tarwn ( 458323 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:51PM (#8356236) Homepage
      If the biggest tactics change was implementation of this system, then it is also the most probable reason for the drop in crime. Considering the size of that drop (16% is not small) it is a safe assumption that a large amount of thaty drop is in fact due to the implementation of this new system. Outreach programs didn't change much, the methods of answering a call (beyond the assistance of the computer) didn't change much, what does that leave? Did 16% of the population move to another city so that the crime rate percantage would stay the same while the numbers would seemingly drop?
      The article itself states things like the amount of time saved booking people, paperwork, etc. So we could also look at the extra time the officers can now spend on the street as a direct result of this system.
      Even if the system itself isn't providing the extra information necessary to arrest individuals that may have later added to the number of murders, it is still giving officers more time to go out and answer calls, etc.

      And there were direct correlations drawn between the system and other violent crimes, which lead me to believe that the same tactics that are being used against other violent crimes (with the use of this new system) are probably being used to get murderers and near-future murderers off the street. I doubt they have decided to only use the system in solving only one type of situation but not use it in a higher fatality one.

      Now I'm sure someone will pick apart my words and argue things like "near-future" murderers and try to say things like I am promoting a police state, but that is just their own ignorance. By near-future murderers I mean people that are arrested for another crime with no clue that they would have murdered someone a week from now. So a gang member gets arrested a week before he would have had a violent confrontation with a rival gang member, or shot someone as he was attempting to steal a car. If people who are breaking the law get arrested faster, or are found faster and arrested, then things like this will happen.

      The numbers are there, and while anyone can come up with statistics to say anything, this isn't an MS report to show better TCO, this is percentages based on raw numbers, ie, number of murders in a year.

      And while I like the idea of outreach programs and such, (from the article) saying that all of the money should have gone to the families of the deceased is just ignorant. I think outreach and police together are the solution, outreach is a slower solution and had it been implemented much earlier perhaps it could have kept the numbers down to the number that was achieved last year. And the system has basically paid for itself in labor cost savings and such, while giving away the money would have had only two affects; 1) made people feel a little better (unless they noticed the price the city placed on their family members life) and 2) made a politician look good.

      The system has paid for itself, and even if all it did was help with labor costs, it is worth it because it will keep cops on the street more, cutting down on time filling out paperwork. And those time savings are hard fact as well.

      • Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by DAldredge ( 2353 )
        It is more safe to assume that those in positions of power who authorized the spending of 40+ million of Tax Dollars wish to look like it was well spent.

      • Re:Why did THIS cause lower crime number? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DavidinAla ( 639952 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:23PM (#8356439)
        Without a LOT of serious work, you CANNOT draw the conclusion that this new system was the ONLY changed variable. The real world is messy. There are dozens of factors that might influence the crime statistics, some of them related to reality and some of them related to the politics of the statistics.

        As a newspaper reporter and later editor, I saw public officials spin such figures all the time. If ANY statistic showed something positive, it was THEIR actions which caused it. If a statistic showed something bad, it was their evil opponents who always were the fault. As a political consultant over the last 12 years or so, I've been a part of the same spin. Politicians will sit in meetings and acknowledge that they have no idea what causes most things (either for good or bad), but they are willing to take credit or assign blame in whatever way is good for them.

        I have no opinion about whether this system is a good thing or not in its present form. I don't even have any opinion about whether the money could have been better spent elsewhere. The only thing I'm pointing out is that there is no honest, hard evidence that this thing possibly could have reduced crime by 16 percent -- unless this system gives police the power to predict who's going to commit crimes and arrest them ahead of time.
        • Without a LOT of serious work, you CANNOT draw the conclusion that this new system was the ONLY changed variable

          I agree, which is why I never stated a belief that the new system was the ONLY changed variable, and in fact was only attributing part of that 16% to the new system. At no point are population changes factored in, or any of a milion other changes that could have caused part of that drop in crime rate, the task is to large. The only way to get even a decent estimate would to slip next door to a p
    • Indeed - in the UK's last round of crime statistics, crime figures actually went up; simply due to the police recording and cataloging more incidents than before. Previously, minor misdemeanors and street punch-ups etc wouldn't make it onto records anywhere.

      I would have thought in the Chicago case, there was a significant chance that with speedier database systems, more crimes could be recorded, not fewer...

  • If they'd combine that data with GIS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:30PM (#8356123) Homepage
    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.

  • Does this technology prevent crime? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jludwig ( 691215 ) * on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:31PM (#8356129) Homepage
    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!

    • Really? What city with similar demographics to Chicago that didn't implement this technology served as the control for this comparison?

      Unfortunately, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Online only goes up to 2000, so I can't give you their numbers. But according to LAPDonline [lapdonline.org], Los Angeles experienced an 8% increase in violent crimes from 2000-2002 (they changed reporting in 2003, so the numbers aren't comparable). As the article says, the nation as a whole experienced a 2% increase in crime during th
  • I haven't read the article (surprise!), but I'm glad to hear that the author expresses concerns about privacy and abuse of the system.

    Look at the summary - crime increased 2% from 2000 to 2001. What did it do in Chicago during that time? We got two different facts that are not comparable. I'd like to see the numbers for the country over the last three years (to compare to Chicago's decrease of so much).

  • Confusing Information with Statistics (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CaptCanuk ( 245649 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:32PM (#8356137) Journal
    "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.

  • If you're concerned you must be a criminal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:34PM (#8356149)
    "...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.

  • Consolidating information on criminals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fname ( 199759 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:39PM (#8356172) Journal
    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.
    • Yup. Don't you just *love* it when you see highly-rated posts with nothing but "correlation doesn't equal causation"? You said it best: no shit!

      The crime rate in Chicago has dropped 16%, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. I don't have the background necessary to make too many judgements on this particular statistic, but it's probably fair to say that they're doing something right. Isn't the most logical conclusion that it is this system that caused the drop? Doesn't it seem natural that fast access

      • Isn't the most logical conclusion that it is this system that caused the drop? Doesn't it seem natural that fast access to 200gigs of relevant information could help law enforcement a little bit, oh say, somewhere around 16%?

        Repeating something does not make it true. It's quite possible that the gentrification mentioned earlier, combined with demographic changes, is responsible for a lot of that 16% that you're so fond of.

        Correlation is the first thing you seek when finding the cause of something --

  • Crime Drop (Score:3, Funny)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:41PM (#8356185)
    Ok if the crime rate has dropped for Chicago, I am not so sure the database was the reason for it.

    It's great achievement yes. But to say Joe Smoe didn't commit a crime because he feared a 200GB oracle db, that's just silly.

  • I'm really surprised! (Score:3, Funny)

    by kompiluj ( 677438 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:48PM (#8356222)
    They didn't have such a base already? Damn, on every movie when police or FBI are tracking someone they use such a base, and you tell me it did not exist?

  • The DOD is doing this as well (Score:5, Informative)

    by instantkarma1 ( 234104 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:50PM (#8356232)
    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.

  • From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mellonhead ( 137423 ) <(slashdot) (at) (swbell.net)> on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:51PM (#8356234) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • A Warning from Germany (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:52PM (#8356247)
    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/

    • technology develops best in a free society. But we shouldn't forget that, once developed, technology is easily transferred to less free societies.

      It all depends on who your government is... and, in the US, we technically still have power over that.

      Take a look at everyone's favorite incident, 9/11. The CIA knew that at least two of the guys who flew those planes were linked to Al Qaeda, and were tracing them. At the same time, the INS didn't know this, and renewed their student visas. The FBI didn't kn

  • Some of the data is available to citizens as well (Score:4, Informative)

    by frinkster ( 149158 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @12:58PM (#8356283)
    The Chicago Citizen ICAM [12.17.79.6] 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.

  • Open source (Score:2, Insightful)

    by eth00 ( 612841 )
    I am all for open source and I would love to see mysql used for this but sometimes products like Oracle would work better. It can be scaled alot easier and better, especially when you are talking about such a huge database. On top of that its also alot easier to have somebody to point a finger at when it breaks, sure mysql you can talk with some developer or admin but thats it. I am all for open source but sometimes the government just wants to spend more of our hard earned money. If linux can get into the

  • Blues Brothers are in trouble now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by NLG ( 636251 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:11PM (#8356358)
    Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
    Jake: Hit it!

    ...Blues-Mobile gets pulled over...

    Elwood: I bet these cops got SCMODS.
    Jake: SCMODS?
    Elwood: State County Municipal Offender Data System.

  • Congratulations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nniillss ( 577580 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:16PM (#8356398)
    9 out of 10 times when I read something about recent US government or politics, it gets me started on a rant (anti-US government). In particular, I won't bring my family to the US as long as you have the Guantanamo-Problem.

    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.

  • Before we start applauding Chicago's police (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheViewFromTheGround ( 607422 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:39PM (#8356527) Homepage

    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 [viewfromtheground.com] at the highest levels [viewfromtheground.com], pervasive [viewfromtheground.com], and shocking [viewfromtheground.com].

    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.

    • For the most part I agree with what you are saying, but I feel the need to respond to one portion of your comment. I should also preface this by saying that I also live in Chicago and live in very close proximity to a housing project that is being 'redistributed'.

      I disagree when you say that placing police in cars in problematic areas works. I live on a street where police come regularly. They sit in their cars, sometimes two or three at a time for several hours on end. It's a one way, off-the-main-dra

  • Impresive - but is it all true (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @01:40PM (#8356530)
    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.

  • In other CPD news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ian Bicking ( 980 ) <ianb@nOspam.colorstudy.com> on Sunday February 22, 2004 @02:21PM (#8356724) Homepage
    It's also just been revealed that the Chicago Police have been spying on several local peace activist groups, starting in 2002. Previous to 2002, there was a consent decree from a case against the CPD, for their efforts in the 70s and 80s to suppress dissent or the exercize of free speach. The consent decree was recently largely invalidated by a appeals judge, and it was only months before police informants were infiltrating groups. The FBI, which of course has its own similar history (COINTELPRO) also appears to be back in the political-suppression game.

    Some coverage: Chicago Police case [indymedia.org], Google News on the recent Iowa/Drake U thing [google.com]

  • No award should be given to a police force that directs its tallest members into what the police themselves refer to as a "goon squad [underreported.com]" to break up demonstrations.
  • Chicago rates have dropped 16 percent in the last three years. Correction: reported crimes have dropped 16 percent. Just like reported crimes in Atlanta went down in the years before the Olympics there. Funny how now we find out the cops were just fudging the reports... remember, when you report a rape of mugging, it's not really a rape or mugging until the investigator agrees with you that it's a rape or mugging.

  • A better way to reduce crime... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frennzy ( 730093 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @03:42PM (#8357129) Homepage
    According to this [cityofchicago.org] 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.

  • I'll bet they've got S.C.M.O.D.S. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Qrlx ( 258924 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @04:16PM (#8357275) Homepage Journal
    Jake: 'Scmods?' What is that some new kind of VD?
    Elwood: State County Municipal Offender Data System.

  • The real question: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by user no. 590291 ( 590291 ) on Sunday February 22, 2004 @06:19PM (#8357928)
    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).

    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).

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