Real-time public safety technology has been on the market for years, but up until recently, it’s mostly been implemented in large cities - places like New York and San Francisco, for example.
From gunshot detection technology, to real-time video feeds, to facial recognition technology, much of what’s available seems almost futuristic. When it comes to crimes, police are coming ever closer to being able to respond almost instantly, and with a wealth of important situational information that they simply didn’t have just 10 years ago.
Cities that employ these new tools often house them in high-tech “crime centers.” These are essentially information- and data-gathering stations, where staff members can access and monitor surveillance cameras, access crime and private databases to gather information on suspects, and send information straight to police officers’ cell phones.
According to an article in Police Chief magazine, the first Real Time Crime Center was opened in New York City in 2005. Taking three years to establish and costing $11 million, the crime center was the vision of the NYPD police commissioner at the time, Raymond Kelly.
Kelly worked closely with a team of information technology and public safety officials to design and create the center, which allows officers and staff to access a massive volume of data. The system is able to access more than 120 million records of arrests, criminal complaints, and 911 calls that go back 10 years. This gives officers the crucial data they need when trying to uncover connections between seemingly unrelated crimes or revisit unsolved cases.
Of course, all the data in the world does little good unless it can be clearly sorted and analyzed. The New York center does this as well, employing tools like 911 call mapping, an event-notification system that relays information to officers’ emails, and mapping technology that can display layers of information on top of each other.
A recent addition has made it possible for staff at the crime center to send photographs of suspects to officers’ mobile devices. This technology will soon be available for police car laptops, as well.
Due to the massive investment of resources that a Real Time Crime Center represents for a municipality, it’s not surprising that for many years, it was only large cities that could afford to implement them.
After New York’s opened, places like Houston, Tex., Miami, Fla., and Seattle, Wash. followed suit with their own crime centers, employing tools like gunshot detection technology, among others.
These are sensors that are placed in high-crime areas that can detect the sound of gunshots - they can even differentiate them from similar sounds like cars or motorcycles backfiring - and send that information as well as location information directly to police stations.
Now, however, these high-tech public safety centers are spreading to smaller municipalities. This February, Hartford, Conn. opened its Real-Time Crime and Data Intelligence Center, a major investment in the city’s police department.
The center feeds police officers real-time information that, according to the center’s leader Sgt. Johnmichael O’Hare, has assisted officers in hundreds of cases that led to arrests.
Hartford isn’t the only city making this kind of investment in its crime-fighting capabilities. Wilmington, Del. and Springfield, Mass. have both opened similar centers in the past year, while Modesto, Calif., Bridgeport, Conn., and Wilmington, N.C. are all working on opening their own real time crime centers in the months and years to come.
It’s a true testament to the power that technology has to make not just our cities safer, but our police officers’ jobs safer, too. Armed with video feeds, photographs, and a stream of real-time information, officers can head into dangerous scenes more confidently, with much greater situational awareness.
Public safety technology isn’t just for organizations with real-time crime centers, however. Public safety answering points, airports, police stations, and private companies can all benefit from the increased knowledge and analysis that technology has to offer.
KOVA has worked with countless organizations to help them select and implement high-quality technology that serves their public safety needs.
To learn more about what’s available, check out our Public Safety Software Solutions section.
