You are in:
GIS in the fight against crime and disorder
A web-based geographic information system (GIS) based on Cadcorp GeognoSIS.NET is bringing together information from multiple agencies to aid the fight against crime and disorder in a development project by the Bedfordshire Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in the UK.
Reducing crime – particularly low-level crime and anti-social behaviour in local communities – and the public’s fear of crime (which is typically greater than actual crime) have been high on the list of national priorities since the current UK government came to power in 1997.
Coupled with this, the application of information technology (IT) was recognised by the government as being fundamental to the ability of local and central government alike to deliver the improved levels of service that can help improve community life in general. If fact, a November 2002 document from the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now the Department for Communities and Local Government), entitled The National Strategy for Local e-Government, stated that a key objective of the government’s Public Service Agreement with local authorities was “assisting local government to achieve 100% capability in electronic delivery of priority services by 2005, in ways that customers will use”.
Among the priority services identified in the document are seven for which the responsibility for their electronic delivery is shared between central government and local authorities and other local public service agencies. One of these seven comes under the heading of Creating Safer and Stronger Communities. And one of the two ‘required e-government outcomes’ of this are that on-line facilities be available to “allow local authority and youth justice agencies to coordinate the secure sending, sharing of and access to information in support of crime reduction initiatives in partnership with the local community”.
In the county of Bedfordshire, in central England, the response to this aspect of electronic local government service delivery, or e-government, has been the setting up of the Bedfordshire Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). The CDRPs are a cooperative of statutory bodies, agencies and organisations that are developing strategies to help reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in Bedfordshire. These strategies include enabling map-based information sharing and analysis as part of a major initiative known as Sharing Community Related Information in Bedfordshire Electronically (SCRIBE).
In the words of Julia Beckett, deputy chief executive of CDRPs member Mid-Bedfordshire District Council and also the Local Authorities Association block leader on Safer and Stronger Communities; “The primary purpose of the Bedfordshire CDRPs is to reduce crime and the fear of crime in the area served by the consortium members. But”, she adds, “we can only succeed in this aim through full cooperation between all of those agencies and organisations responsible for delivering services that support the various aspects of community life and community safety.”
This is where GIS technology, in the form of Cadcorp GeognoSIS.NET™, is helping the CDRPs achieve their aim.
Data sharing.
The individual organisations that comprise the Bedfordshire CDRPs are currently Bedfordshire County Council, Mid-Bedfordshire District Council, South Bedfordshire District Council, Bedfordshire Community Safety Partnership, Bedfordshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team (B:DAT), Bedfordshire Police, Bedfordshire & Luton Fire and Rescue Service, Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Ambulance and Paramedic NHS Trust and Aragon Housing Association.
Amongst other things, the SCRIBE initiative provides the CDRPs with a central, map-based GIS to acquire and maintain information from the wide range of existing IT systems used within this diverse group of organisations. Through a web browser, the GIS enables these disparate datasets to be viewed and analysed in conjunction with each other, delivering both business and operational benefits to each organisation that are greater than the sum of the individual parts.
This web-based GIS has been developed on GeognoSIS.NET and uses the existing IT infrastructures of the CDRPs’ member organisations to provide each of them with local access to central server-hosted data and applications. Client-side map-based data viewing and analysis facilities are available to data users according to their needs, meaning there is no need for them to carry the overhead or inconvenience of facilities that they don’t need.
“We selected GeognoSIS.NET for this project for a number of reasons,” says Nick Adnitt, project manager, SCRIBE. “First was the software’s clear lead from a technical standpoint, especially its interoperable support for a wide range of data formats, as standard. Second was Cadcorp’s commitment to forming a strong business and professional relationship and their dedication to working with us towards a common objective. And third was the company’s ability to quickly understand and then to transform our requirements into a working solution.”
The system has been designed to contain all data necessary to enable statistical crime audit reporting by ward and sub-ward, for internal use as well as for central government returns. It also enables a filtered, anonymous version of the data to be made available for public display through the Bedfordshire Citizone portal in order to help citizens better understand the real level of crime within various localities in Bedfordshire.
Taking this further, the system has also been designed to enable citizens to locate incidents of anti-social behaviour, using an interactive map interface and to report these incidents directly onto the system, in real time, for the appropriate attention. However, the CDRPs stress that this facility is not a substitute for existing emergency reporting channels for the police, fire and ambulance services. These remain in place just as before.
Joined-up information.
With the basic system design agreed between all the partners in the project, Phase 1 of the project involved the development team, under Nick Adnitt, spending much of its time acquiring existing data from each of the CDRPs’ member organisations and elsewhere in order to build the Oracle 9i-based central database of the GIS.
This database, which is kept constantly up-to-date through jointly-agreed business processes, comprises both mapping and associated alphanumeric data. Mapping data includes Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 and 1:50,000 digital maps of the area covered by the CDRPs, together with aerial photography and boundary data such as local authority, ward, parish, police division, police beat and post code as well as partner-specific spatial data. Meanwhile, the associated data sets include reported and recorded crime, anti-social behaviour incidents, ambulance call-outs involving the police, fire incidents, street lights, CCTV, housing stock, schools, census and social services data, as well as other, commercial data.
Using the appropriate privileges, all of this data is able to be accessed, viewed, aggregated and analysed by each of the CDRPs member organisations using the ability of GoegnoSIS.NET, which it shares with other Cadcorp products, to read and/or write to over 150 native GIS, CAD, graphic and database formats on-the-fly, without recourse to translation or conversion.
At the end of the first phase of the project, in May this year, a purpose-built data analysis work bench was rolled out across the partnerships to users at all of the participating organisations. These users are now able to easily access, view, query and analyse a single source of map-based crime, fire, ambulance and anti-social behaviour incident data in order to identify hot-spots, patterns and trends.
Some of the analysis and viewing facilities provided by the system include recorded crime and/or incident data by police beat, statistics by school catchment area and/or by date and time, by postal code and by type of crime in specific types of area. It also enables crime pattern analysis and for trends to be tracked and visualised over time.
During Phase 2 of the project, which is currently live, partner feedback and requests for enhancements are driving the development of more advanced reporting and analysis tools. In addition, the public interface is undergoing trials, with workflows and business processes being refined to improve response to the web-based anti-social behaviour incident feed. All of this work will culminate in the full-scale public launch of the system towards the end of 2006.
The bottom line.
By sharing information and facilitating joined-up working between a group of disparate organisations, who nevertheless share a common goal of reducing crime and the fear of crime, the Bedfordshire CDRPs’ new GIS will help each of the participating organisations target their finite resources when and where they will be most effective.
Furthermore, the demographic analysis facilities provided by the system will provide information that will be extremely useful in the future in activities such as designing new public spaces, street lighting and housing schemes in order to reduce opportunities for crime and anti-social behaviour.
Finally, on-demand analysis of and reporting on information that is up-to-date and the ability to generate statistics in order to measure value and performance will be invaluable not only in the various organisations’ day-to-day operations but in future plans for building a safer and stronger community in Bedfordshire.
