The city of San Francisco will join IBM on Wednesday to unveil CrimeMaps, a new application designed to simplify how local police officers track crime patterns to help alert the public of potential threats in the area.
One year in the making and built upon IBMs DB2 technology, CrimeMaps is available to only specially trained officers and analysts at the San Francisco Police Department. The application, which partly stands for “mapping analysis for public safety,” is funded through a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The software allows officers to use a Web browser or desktop PC to search for a certain type of crime, committed at a specific time, and also change variables based upon their needs, said Erich Seamon, GIS manager for the city of San Francisco.
Seamon said CrimeMaps will allow police officers to map crime through cluster analysis and hot spot analysis, and set threshold alerts so a responsible officer can be immediately notified when a certain number of robberies, auto thefts or missing persons reports occur in a neighborhood or area.
In fact, the new application will be automatically updated when 911 calls are received or within 24 hours after a police officer enters information into the system to be stored in the database.
CrimeMaps resides in a Microsoft Active Directory environment using clustered Windows 2000 boxes, an EMC storage area network, ESRIs spatial data engine (SDE) and ArcIMS (Internet Map Server), as well as Citrix to push out the desktop clients.
(Editors Note: This story has been updated since its original posting to include new information submitted by IBM.)