A series of rooftop burglaries in Alexandria hit a number of businesses on King Street recently, taking advantage of historic buildings that were easily accessed from the Old Town skyline. As detectives were trying to catch the culprit, they turned to a new software program that allows them to incorporate crime-mapping systems with database collection software. After entering a few pieces of information into the system, detectives were looking at an interactive map showing the location of all recent burglaries. Although they have yet to make an arrest in the case, police officials say that modern technology is in the midst of creating a radical transformation in Alexandria policing.
"In the past, detectives would have had to request a map of burglaries and then wait until we had enough manpower to produce one," said Mary Garrand, crime analyst for the Alexandria Police Department. "Now they can get dynamic crime maps almost instantly on their desktop computers."
When David Baker was named as the city’s police chief last year, one of his first priorities was implementing a new approach to the use of data-driven decision making. After City Manager Jim Hartmann formally introduced his selection of chief at a City Hall ceremony, Baker referenced the new system by name and explained how he hoped it would transform public safety in the city. Now — almost a year after becoming chief — Baker is poised to fully implement the system next month by chairing a series of high-tech meetings that merge modern data collection and old-school gumshoe policing.
"SRS is another instance in which the police department recognizes that budgeted resources must be utilized in an efficient and effective manner," Baker wrote in a memorandum outlining the new system. "Open dialogue at SRS meetings will help to quickly and effectively identify, address and resolve these issues through effective strategies, tactics and coordinated police resources."
<b>A ROLL CALL ROOM</b> in the department’s Eisenhower Avenue headquarters will be the scene of Strategic Response System meetings, which will happen every two weeks. Tables and chairs will be arranged in a horseshoe position to allow Baker and his deputies to personally run the meetings. Detectives will sit in the back of the room, with their laptop computers connected to servers that allow for instant access to dynamic crime maps — employing global-positioning technology with crime statistics in an effort to analyze trends. The software being used in the system will allow police officials to isolate crimes that happen near an address or even addresses of people who have been interviewed by detectives.
"Under our previous organization, officers were given assignments based on when they were working so they rarely worked the same areas of the town," said Lt. Jamie Bartlett, a spokesman for the department. "But under the new system, we will have more geographic accountability."
The strategic response system divides the city into three sectors: Old Town/Parker Gray, Del Ray/Arlandria and the West End. Officers will be assigned certain beats within those sectors, so officers will have much more familiarity with their assigned neighborhoods — a phenomenon that has cast a shadow over the city’s existing community police officers. After the murder of a homeless man near the Carpenter’s Shelter last month, Deputy Police Chief Earl Cook said that an implementation of the Strategic Response System has prompted an internal evaluation of how assignments are made and whether vacant community police officers positions even need to be filled.
<b>AS THE SEPTEMBER</b> full-scale rollout of the Strategic Response System nears, information-technology specialists are working to create a sort of brain trust in the Eisenhower roll-call room that will act as the focal point for the system. In the past few years, funding for the crime analysis unit, under the Administrative Services Bureau, has increased significantly from $288,000 in 2005 to $411,000 in 2007, and the trend will probably increase as more resources are invested into a technical analysis of crime trends. Yet one critic of programs modeled on New York City’s CompStat program says that the organizational framework has its own problems.
"The CompStat program that made NYPD commanders accountable for controlling crime has degenerated into a situation where the police leadership presses subordinates to keep numbers low by any means," wrote Robert Zink, recording secretary for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, in a 2004 critique of the system. "The department’s middle managers will do anything to avoid being dragged onto the carpet at the weekly CompStat meetings. They are, by nature, ambitious people who lust for promotions, and rising crime rates won’t help anybody’s career."
Alexandria Capt. Hassan Aden said that Alexandria’s Strategic Response System will differ in several key ways, including how crime data winds up in the dynamic maps. Aden said that Alexandria will be one of the few jurisdictions in the United States in which police reports will be submitted wirelessly first to supervisors, then to the records department and finally to the database — a seamless transfer of data from the scene of the street crime to screens of police captains. The almost instantaneous nature of the reporting data reduces the ability to fudge data, and Aden said it will also allow police officials to respond to emerging trends as they are still emerging.
"Once a crime is reported, it will show up on the map almost instantly," said Aden. "So the new system will have a much greater emphasis on problem solving."
<b>SOLVING PROBLEMS IS</b> at the heart of the new command structure. Under the old system, captains were responsible for the whole city for a limited amount of time. Yet the new system holds them accountable for a limited area of the city — with three distinct new "sectors" — all of the time. So commanding officers who once were uninformed about what happened on the midnight shift now have a responsibility to know everything about their neighborhood — and be held accountable for the data during the bi-weekly meetings.
"If someone made a false 911 report under the old system, we would simply send an officer out to see what happened," said Bartlett. "But under the new system, we want to solve the problem. So we might look at the telephone system in the area. Are others making false 911 calls unintentionally? Maybe it’s a matter of pressing the 7 key to get an outside line instead of pressing a 9 key."
During budget negotiations earlier this year, Baker was successful in acquiring $92,000 for a new crime analyst for the police department. The new analysts will work with the two existing analysts to bolster the statistics available in the database, bolstering the effectiveness of a program that Baker has made a centerpiece for his new administration. Aden said he was already working with Baker on a proposal for the program before he was named chief. Now that the program is ready to make its debut next month, he said that the information available to public-safety officials will revolutionize policing in Alexandria.
"Our old meetings were more informational — what happened, when and where. There was no real problem solving," said Aden. "When we start our Strategic Response System meetings in August, the whole thing will be designed to identify and solve problems."