With the community policing application, Troy police officers can quickly and easily perform searches based on various criteria, such as police zone, date range and type of police incident or city code complaint. This data is then used to generate several types of maps and reports to help the officers analyze what types of crimes and violations are happening in certain neighborhoods, or even at specific street addresses, in near-real time. Armed with this information, officers are able to more effectively respond to situations and take immediate steps to reduce crime.
One of the benefits of the community policing system, said Paul Bouchard, captain of the Troy Police Department, is that it allows the department to spot trends that adversely affect the quality of life in Troy and then get to the root of what was causing the crime and lower quality of life in the community. For example, when officers saw that convenience stores were having problems with individuals committing crimes and criminal mischief in their vicinity, they were able to go the city council and get an ordinance put in place that closed the convenience stores during certain hours. As a result, drug traffickers left town unable to withdraw money from convenience-store ATMs with which to conduct business.
The tool also improves collaboration across departments and helps officials deal with degradation that can occur and foster criminal activity in the city, Bouchard said. For example, a broken window in a building, if left unattended can lead to further degradation of the building. Then a person can occupy the building illegally and use it to commit further crimes. However, with the city's tool, officers can spot degrading trends and inform code enforcement officials who then can deal with the building and clean up the surrounding area.
