An international crime mapping expert has declared that Australia’s law enforcement agencies must ‘know their place’ – if they are to successfully build a complete understanding of the nation’s criminal activity.
Scott Burton, who is the Public Safety Systems Manager for the largest accreditation law enforcement agency in the United States, led an award-winning project in Florida’s Broward County that used intelligent mapping software to create a digital dashboard of crime-related activities across the area.
The project – which used Esri Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to map data from the county’s police, emergency call-out and domestic homeland security agencies – received international acclaim for arming detectives with a unique way to view crimes.
Mr Burton is in Australia to meet with many of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies in partnership with Esri Australia – the market-leader in Australia’s $2.1 billion GIS industry – to discuss how local police could enhance their operations by taking a geographic view of information.
Mr Burton said many of Australia’s police forces’ were already starting to leverage crime mapping – with Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian crime analysts particularly interested in the tool.
“Whether it’s addressing a domestic dispute, trying to crack a missing person’s case or even just tracking down repeat traffic infringers – law enforcers need access to as much information as possible about a situation,” Mr Burton said.
“Accessing this information using traditional methods can involve spending hours contacting various departments, waiting for requests to be met or trawling through databases – which isn’t ideal in situations when every second counts.
“In Broward, the answer was to use GIS technology because it’s the only way we can integrate data from multiple sources and visualise it in a geographic context.
“By mapping various sources of information, we can quickly identify patterns and correlations in the data and draw conclusions on how to act or respond.
“For example, when investigating a burglary, we can view the location of criminal activity in an area; add pawn shop locations and transactions; as well as the locations of individuals under home detention; and information from federal career-criminal databases.
“With each layer of information we add to the map, we are honing and refining our investigation and painting a detailed, accurate picture of the situation that ultimately helps us crack cases.
“The challenges facing our law enforcers in the States are essentially the same as those being faced by forces here in Australia – which is why I passionately believe GIS technology is a solution Australia would benefit from greatly.”
Mr Burton said GIS technology had applications and benefits beyond crime solving, including generating faster emergency response times and enhancing safety for police and emergency personnel.
“More than 80 per cent of law enforcement data has a geographic component, so GIS technology can be applied right across an organisation,” Mr Burton said.
“For example, the technology has helped us increase police safety by providing our officers with a greater understanding of the situation ahead of them as they work in the field.
“If officers are attending a call-out, we can provide them with a map containing imagery of the house – letting them know where the doors and windows are or if it has a basement – and overlay this with possible street exits and escape routes.
“In the future we expect to deploy mobile GIS technology in police vehicles to push relevant information to units on patrol – so if they drive past a location, they automatically receive warrant information, past crimes committed in the area, or gang locations.”
Mr Burton is also in Australia to deliver the keynote address for Esri Australia at the Melbourne Crime Mapping and Analysis Conference – an event that has attracted the nation’s top criminal analysts.
Esri Australia Business Manager for Victoria Jean-Noel Jarnet said Mr Burton brought a wealth of experience for Australian law enforcers to draw on.
“While GIS technology is already employed by many of the world’s leading law enforcement agencies, it is still relatively new in Australia,” Mr Jarnet said.
“Having access to the man behind one of the best applications of the technology in the law enforcement field has been a rare opportunity for our own agencies to see first-hand how a similar approach to the technology could be applied here.”