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Richmond (Va.) Police Department Tackles Crime With Predictive Analytics From SPSS
Source: www.spss.com
Copyright SPSS, Inc. 2004

This is a dated announcement. The material in this announcement could be superceded by more current announcements.

SPSS’ data mining workbench enables Richmond Police Department to deploy patrol resources more effectively—with significant results for New Year’s Eve 2003—while solving high-profile crimes

CHICAGO, 01/08/04 —

SPSS Inc. (NASDAQ: SPSS), the leading provider of predictive analytics technology and services, and the Richmond (Va.) Police Department (PD) today announced that SPSS’ data mining workbench, Clementine, is enabling Richmond PD’s Criminal Analysis Unit (CAU) to solve serious crimes throughout Virginia’s capital city. With Clementine®, the Richmond PD accelerates the criminal investigation process, is able to deploy officers where they are most needed, and identifies minor crimes likely to escalate into violence.

More recently, the department used Clementine’s data mining in its preparations for New Year’s Eve 2003. By deploying officers at potential “hot spots,” the Richmond PD was able to increase public safety, as measured by citizen complaints of reported gunshots, which were reduced 49 percent over New Year’s Eve 2002. On an ongoing basis, Clementine will enable the Richmond PD to more adequately position officers to keep the city’s population of 200,000 safe.

"As all public safety organizations attempt to address the challenges associated with staggering increases in available information, new tools and different approaches to analysis are required," said Colleen McCue, PhD, program manager, crime analysis unit, Richmond Police Department. "Data mining technology, in the form of products like Clementine, has become increasingly accessible to the law enforcement community, and is fast, powerful and relatively easy to use."

Stretching Resources to Keep the Public Safe

The law enforcement community is increasingly inundated with information, while simultaneously facing reduced budgets and manpower. Waging war on terrorism has created the additional burdens
of requiring compilation, analysis and integration of even more information. Critical to crime fighting is the recognition of patterns, based on the intelligent and timely analysis of the thousands of incident reports, crime tips, calls for service and other data resources that police departments receive every day. Within this deluge of data lies the key to increasing the safety of the public.

At the Richmond PD, no analyst or team of analysts could swiftly and accurately sift manually through all the data available to them in order to uncover patterns that might indicate, for example, how to best deploy forces to prevent crime or determine whether or not a threat is
real. Like many police departments, the Richmond PD needed a solution that could identify these trends and patterns both expediently and inexpensively.

The Richmond PD turned to Clementine, analytical software that enables analysts to identify actionable patterns and make effective decisions by fully exploiting huge data sets. Clementine does not require specialized personnel or advanced statistical training. As a result, both analysts and officers now use Clementine to make better analytical, operational and policy decisions.

Clementine: The Virtual Criminal Investigator

Clementine provides the Richmond PD with results in the following areas:

Criminal investigation process - Crimes must be solved quickly or risk never being cleared. In addition, costs increase as a case is prolonged. Clementine increases investigative efficacy by allowing the CAU to quickly sift through large data sets to generate investigative lead information. For example, drug-related homicides are typically hardest to solve. Witnesses are reluctant to come forward, and there is frequently no relationship between the victim and the offender. Rapid development of a motive using Clementine can help facilitate suspect identification and apprehension before a case grows cold. In one high-profile instance, Richmond PD used Clementine to help solve a triple homicide.

Officer deployment - By investigating police dispatch data, the CAU uses Clementine to explore a vast array of factors, such as complaint time of day, day of week, priority and geography, to create models that pinpoint areas of interest. As a result, they can place their tactical units
where they are needed most, increasing community public safety while also conserving the department’s budget. This New Year’s Eve, the Richmond PD was able to identify areas that required greater coverage, based on both historical and recent trends, and deploy its resources
accordingly.

Identifying minor crimes likely to escalate into violence - Using Clementine to analyze Virginia’s criminal offender databases, the CAU identified a strong correlation between certain types of property crimes and escalation into sexual assault.

To enable multiple users within the department to access Clementine models and score data on an ad hoc basis, Richmond PD uses SPSS’ Cleo, a Web-based data mining deployment tool. The police department’s criminal analysis group uses the visual and highly intuitive aspects of Clementine to find the patterns and relationships in the raw crime data and develop predictive models. These models are then deployed through Cleo over the Department’s intranet to operational personnel, such as police detectives.

The detectives are then able to enter information through a Web interface, which includes simple prompts and pull down menus, and receive immediate output, regardless of whether the crime analysts are on duty.

“Law enforcement and public safety are 24/7 endeavors, and crime frequently occurs when analytical units are not on duty,” says Colonel Andre' Parker, Richmond PD’s Chief of Police. “Web-based analytics, like Cleo, enable law enforcement organizations to fully exploit their
analytical capacity when and where it is needed, while keeping operational personnel on the streets and fighting crime.”

Using Clementine and Cleo, the Richmond PD is able to gain greater insight from its raw data. It is also able to correlate information, such as crimes with similar characteristics and modus operandi,known offenders and unsolved crimes, and how economic activity influences criminal
behavior.

“Criminal actions follow the same predictable patterns of most human behavior,” said McCue. “Some criminals have geographic comfort zones or may commit crimes only at certain times of the day. These tendencies can be easily uncovered using Clementine, which enables law enforcement agencies to analyze their raw data in order to predict, prevent and solve crime, and keep their communities safer. It’s as close to a crystal ball as we are ever going to get.”

About SPSS

SPSS Inc. [NASDAQ: SPSS] is the world's leading provider of predictive analytics software and solutions. The company's predictive analytics technology connects data to effective action by drawing reliable conclusions about current conditions and future events. More than 250,000 commercial, academic, and public sector customers rely on SPSS technology to help increase revenue, reduce cost, improve processes, and detect and prevent fraud. Founded in 1968, SPSS is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. For additional information, please visit www.spss.com.