At last fall’s International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference, IBM previewed its new i2 Intelligent Law Enforcement offering. Billed as “the convenor of the ecosystem for public safety,” this new software solution promised to help law enforcement organizations bring down silos with Big Data capabilities that combined tactical lead generation, predictive policing and intelligence analysis.
Fast forward to today. IBM has announced a Smarter Cities initiative in partnership with Miami-Dade County that links the public safety with the city’s entire ecosystem of operations. With a focus on cutting across organizational boundaries to provide better services to residents, IBM is helping Miami-Dade County modernize and improve the predictive management capabilities of systems tied to law enforcement, transportation and water.
According to Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, “Making Miami-Dade County more efficient and cutting the red tape that slows economic progress are priorities, and this initiative with IBM is a great way to accomplish both of those goals. We look forward to making vital data more accessible to our municipal partners and to serving our residents even better.”
In the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), access to advanced analytics technology helps officers fight crime and ensure public safety. As one of the first law enforcement agencies in the nation to use an advanced crime data warehouse, MDPD has expanded its use of IBM technology to help officers and investigators make better decisions faster with a new ability to look for links among disparate crimes or situations and provide officers with a more complete view of a given situation. The system can link directly into park systems and other department operations for cross-agency collaboration and lead generation.
Using IBM SPSS predictive analytics, MDPD can bring together data in new ways to identify unique relationships and spot new and unknown patterns that have significant operational value for officers. The system can use information such as property stolen, time of day, weapon used, and victim details to model what kind of suspect typically commits a particular crime and then generate and filter a suspect list to help solve cases faster. This type of analysis can also be used to help predict, anticipate and prevent future events.
The IBM i2 Intelligent Law Enforcement solution builds on the MDPD’s existing technology investments and will provide MDPD with a holistic view across policing and justice partner agencies – removing barriers to information sharing and enabling agencies to focus solely on their mission of predicting, preventing and defeating criminals. It works by bringing together disparate data sets and allowing the entire department access to data they need, using officers’ time more effectively when they are looking for information. It will also incorporate MDPD’s existing use of predictive analytics for suspect lead detection.