Law enforcement technologyPolice warm to predictive analysis crime fighting tools
Memphis made an 863 percent return on its investment in Blue CRUSH — a predictive analysis crime fighting effort; the ROI was calculated using the percentage decline in crime and the number and cost of additional cops that would be needed to match the declining rate; Memphis has paid on average $395,249 a year on the Blue CRUSH initiative, including personnel costs, for a $7.2 million return; MPD operates on a $255.9 million annual budget
Police from as far away as Hong Kong are coming to the Memphis Police Department to see its much-touted Blue CRUSH predictive analytics-driven crime-fighting effort that officials say has reduced serious crime by 15 percent in four years.
The department is fielding calls and expecting visits from police in Boston, Richmond, Baltimore — even Estonia. Chattanooga police just spent two days looking at it. A Chilean diplomat has inquired.
“I’m not pumping this up,” said MPD crime analyst John F. Williams. “This actually works. It’s working and it can work anywhere across the country, and it can work for any agency across the nation. … We don’t have to promote this.”
Instead, SPSS, an IBM company, is promoting it, and its role in providing Memphis the software that lets precinct commanders target crime hot spots with added resources based on previously unseen patterns in incident report data. “The Memphis Police Department is changing the face of law enforcement,” a recent IBM press release says.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Bartholomew Sullivan writes that IBM is also circulating a June case study that says Memphis made an 863 percent return on its investment, calculated using the percentage decline in crime and the number and cost of additional cops that would be needed to match the declining rate.
The study by Nucleus Research said Memphis has paid on average $395,249 a year on the initiative, including personnel costs, for a $7.2 million return. MPD operates on a $255.9 million annual budget.
Since the IBM SPSS press release on 21 July, noting Memphis was using its predictive analytics software with stellar results, “the interest level has been unbelievable,” company spokesman Bob Rezcek says.
Memphis has paid IBM SPSS or the independent company SPSS Inc. (before IBM acquired it) $50,558 in the past four years, records show.
Williams, who works in the new Real Time Crime Center, explained how past criminal event statistics are used to create maps with crosstabs to create “focus areas” in which police resources — from organized crime and special ops units to the mounted patrol, K-9, traffic, and DUI enforcement — can be deployed.
Williams noted crime in twelve Blue CRUSH categories for the first eight months of the year, compared to the same period last year, has declined 13.3 percent. “That’s over 5,000 fewer victims of crime,” he said.
Is it, though? Sullivan notes that while the decline in the number of offenses reported is considered
