NYPD maximizes the use of intelligence with ABM America’s Prochart
ABM America, a global supplier of Homeland Security and Law Enforcement solutions, today announced that its visualization technology, Prochart, is being used operationally at the New York City Police Department (NYPD) Real Time Crime Center.
The new, hi-tech crime center is designed to improve crime-fighting effectiveness for serious crimes by taking advantage of latest technologies to mine the vast amount of data collected by the department, unlocking the patterns and trends within. Using Prochart, police analysts are able to view hidden and indirect relationships between incidents and offenders across all New York boroughs, increasing the overall intelligence picture and enabling NYPD to share and act upon the information.
Within seconds, Prochart identifies and graphically displays crime and criminal networks supplying police with critical information not evident in individual events or reports. By establishing relationships between targets of enquiry, Prochart provides greater results earlier in the investigative process.
In February of this year Commissioner Ray Kelly announced: “We want to use every advantage technology has to offer in suppressing crime. With the Real Time Crime Center, our detectives have a new partner in crime fighting.”
NYPD CIO V. James Onalfo commented: “The expansion of the Real Time Crime Center also includes new visualization technology for graphical reporting of criminal incidents including linking of descriptive details associated with the suspect and incident location.”
Prochart is the new tool powering this visualization technology for the Real Time Crime Center.
“The mission of the Real Time Crime Center is to provide rapid analysis of homicides and other serious crimes,” comments Dawn DeGrange, Vice President of ABM America. “The inclusion of Prochart is therefore invaluable in providing real time access to critical information to improve decision-making and shorten response times.”
Viewing links through standard tables of information is difficult to understand and time consuming; however with Prochart information from multiple live databases is simultaneously represented in one chart reducing the time spent searching for information.
Prochart is able to integrate all types of media including pictures and video clips. Images of a specific house, car or person, including CCTV footage of suspects, can be incorporated into charts to ensure maximum results when the visuals are disseminated to detectives.
DeGrange concludes: “Using systems such as Prochart, NYPD is exploiting technology to maximize the effective use of intelligence, in order to catch criminals, reduce crime, and enhance officer safety. ”
ABM America is a subcontractor of Motorola Inc. and is providing Prochart software to NYPD. Motorola selected ABM America’s software solution because of the capabilities of Prochart to query and rapidly analyze NYPD’s substantial criminal information databases, such as arrest records and crime reports. Motorola will also provide first-line customer support to NYPD as part of a service agreement enabling the department to contact Motorola’s 24/7 help desk to resolve any initial service inquiries regarding Prochart.
About ABM America Inc.
ABM America Inc. was formed in 2000 from ABM UK Ltd. ABM is a global supplier of software and services to the Law Enforcement and Commercial Markets. ABM has 18 years experience providing information management solutions to law enforcement agencies including NYPD, Northern Virginia Gang Task Force and Pennsylvania State Police. ABM also developed the technology for the Scottish Intelligence Database, the national intelligence system across Scotland in the UK. For more information on ABM’s products and services visit www.abmamerica.com.
