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Arizona crime data shared by police through network Network gives agencies fast access to records from 800 U.S. jurisdictions by D.S. Woodfill - Jul. 27, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic Computer software that allows law-enforcement agencies to share crime data is helping police departments to find suspects more quickly and to close cases sooner. The Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, a consortium of police officials, prosecutors and other law-enforcement stakeholders, say patrol officers, dispatchers and detectives from 48 jurisdictions in the state are plugged into a nationwide network called Coplink. The program allows officers to follow up on investigative leads by accessing each others' files on suspects and cases from their computer. Coplink, which in law-enforcement circles is often called the "Google for police," takes bits of information such as a nickname, prior convictions, a partial license-plate number or description of a person's tattoo and finds potential suspects for a crime. The information comes from internal police records from nearly 800 jurisdictions around the country, as well as a host of federal agencies, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Proponents say the network, which was developed through a 1996 pilot program between the Tucson Police Department and the University of Arizona, helps authorities catch more criminals and speeds up investigations. "This is something our detectives . . . have been saying for a long time that they need," said Tim Dorn, president of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police. "It just makes our job so much more efficient, so much easier." Bill Kalaf, chief information officer for the Criminal Justice Commission, spearheaded the effort to enlist 50 police departments in Coplink by the end of 2011. So far, he's convinced 48 of them. In the Valley, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department and nine police departments are involved: Phoenix, Glendale, Mesa, Scottsdale, Avondale, Chandler, Gilbert, Peoria and Tempe. The El Mirage and Surprise police departments are coming online. Officials say it will take about two months to install the software and train officers to use it. Kalaf said the ultimate goal was to expand the program to every jurisdiction throughout the state. "The idea is to give (officers) enough information that they can make a valid decision to either investigate further or take action," he said. Kalaf said the system was paid for using a cost-sharing arrangement between participating departments. Individual departments pay up to $140 per officer per year, which pays for software licensing and technical support. Coplink operates using a structure similar to a bicycle wheel. Police departments operate local databases that are the hub for information ranging from traffic citations to open criminal investigations. Patrol officers and individual departments comprise each of the spokes, transmitting data from field notes and departmental files to the hub. That information can then be distributed to patrol officers and departments from other jurisdictions by entering certain information into a computer such as a person's last name, an unusual scar or a vehicle description. Cmdr. Bob Rampy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said that for the purposes of Coplink, the state was split into four quadrants. The Mesa Police Department is the hub for East Valley agencies participating in the program, while the Phoenix Police Department is the hub for the central and western parts of the Valley. The Tucson Police Department is the hub for southern Arizona and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is the hub for northern Arizona. Rampy, who oversees the hub operated by the sheriff's office, said he had no data to illustrate the success of the program, but said it had had a direct impact on the number of cases police have solved. "It just makes you more productive," he said. "We're closing cases quicker, sooner." Chriss Knisley, assistant vice president of i2 Inc., which owns the software, said one of the system's early successes came from a pilot program in Tucson. Police there found a 5-year-old girl who had been kidnapped from a playground, he said. "Two guys had come up to the girls and said, 'Can you help me find my puppy?' " Knisley said. "One girl had walked off with them." Investigators were able to use bits and pieces of information, including a nickname they got from a handful of children who witnessed the abduction. Using the nickname and vehicle description, they found two potential matches dating to two traffic stops of two drivers who owned similar trucks and used the same nickname. Police alerted officers to be on the lookout, and found the girl within hours. "It just so happened that the guys were actually listening on a police scanner and heard that call go out and dropped the girl off on the side of the road," Knisley said. Such a quick turnaround likely would not have been possible without the network, Knisley said. Tracy Montgomery, an assistant chief for the Phoenix Police Department, oversaw implementation of Coplink in the early 1990s. She said the program was an invaluable asset. Before Coplink, police had scant access to information on suspects such as prior traffic tickets, felony warrants and misdemeanor warrants issued by the Phoenix Municipal Court. If there was a warrant from an out-of-state jurisdiction, her officers had no way of knowing, she said. Montgomery said improvements to the program would one day allow officers to access criminal information from their smartphones, scan fingerprints from their patrol cars and search for a suspect's information in public records ranging from business licenses to utility bills. |