COMPUTERIZED CRIME TRACKING INFORMATION SYSTEM
ABSTRACT
This project work intends to automate the existing criminal records of the Nigeria police using Enugu criminal investigating department. The essence was to produce durable criminal records and avoidable lost of criminal records. Structural database management system (DBMS) was used in its development in other to eliminate redundancy in the compilation, its friendliness in responding to the user exhibits and also its reliability and efficiency in tracking down criminals. Another important feature of this system was that it provides user with the facilities for having the hard copies or print out of any relevant document as well as the facilities to communication with the system.
Tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a model e.g. capable to serve for depicting the motion on a display capability. The traditional and age-old system of intelligence and criminal record maintenance has failed to live up to the requirements of the existing crime scenario. Manual processes neither provide accurate, reliable and comprehensive data round the clock nor does it help in trend prediction and decision support.
Computerized Crime Tracking Information System
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Man by nature is social, gregarious and cannot live in isolation. To maintain peace and harmony in the society, man has to fashion out conduct and some laws to govern the conduct of members of the society. When people appreciate these codes of conduct and laws, protection of lives and properties are guaranteed.
Generally tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a model e.g. capable to serve for depicting the motion on a display capability. The traditional and age-old system of intelligence and criminal record maintenance has failed to live up to the requirements of the existing crime scenario.
Manual processes neither provide accurate, reliable and comprehensive data round the clock nor does it help in trend prediction and decision support. It also results in lower productivity and ineffective utilization of manpower. The solution to this ever-increasing problem lies in the effective use of Information Technology. Crime Tracking Information System uses computer-generated records as an interface for integrating and accessing massive amounts of location-based information.
Crime tracking system allows police personnel to plan effectively for emergency response, determine mitigation priorities, analyses historical events, and predict future events. Crime tracking system helps identify potential suspects to increase investigators suspect base when no leads are evident. The ability to access and process information quickly while displaying it in a spatial and visual medium allows agencies to allocate resources quickly and more effectively.
In the mission-critical‘ nature of law enforcement, information about the location of a crime, incident, suspect, or victim is often crucial to determine the manner and size of the response. Crime tracking software helps co-ordinate vast amounts of location-based data from multiple sources. It enables the user to layer the data and view the data most critical to the particular issue or mission.
It is used world over by police departments, both large and small, to provide solutions for crime analysis, criminal tracking, traffic safety, community policing, Intranet/Internet mapping, and numerous other tasks.
Crime tracking system helps crime officers determine potential crime sites by examining complex seemingly unrelated criteria and displaying them all in an interface. It also helps them map inmate populations, fixtures, and equipment to provide for the safety of inmates by separating gang members, identifying high-risk or potentially violent inmates, and identifying hazardous locations in an area. It reduces the potential for internal violence by providing better command and control.
Traditionally, these activities have been supported by paper and pen. Police officers now have the ability to immediately generate crime report directly relevant to the situation at hand. Police agencies collect vast amounts of data from many sources including called-for-services, arrests, first information reports and daily report. The same information provides a powerful decision making tool for investigators, supervisors, and administrators.
Computerized Crime Tracking Information System
1.2 Statement of Problem
The Nigerian Police, which is used as a case study, has an existing criminal Tracking System, but this system is not automated. The documentation of criminal records is done on paper and pen. The storage of these criminal records is not something to write home about.
Case files are dumped in heaps while some are kept on shelves. With the moldy nature of the state such important documents quickly get dusty and because of lack of proper storage, some criminal documents are seriously damaged by rats that feed on them. With this kind of situation, it becomes highly difficult if not impossible to track down known criminal, access past criminal history of a suspect and know the status of some concluded cases.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The project intends to computerize the existing Criminal Tracking System at the Nigerian Police. Specifically, the project will accomplish the following:
1) Design and develop a central database system that would serve as statewide repository of criminal data. The smaller database system at the sub-police station will be networked to the central database to access criminal data on cases not handled at the local station. This database system will be updated by local police station within the state as well as the police headquarters. (acting as a criminal data collection centers)
2) The central database system will be resident on a server at the police headquarter and will be linked to both the local police station and the Central Criminal Registry via a client- server between station as well as Criminal Justice, the rendering of Criminal Justice.
3) The database system will capture detailed information about crime suspect right from the time the crime was reported at the police down to the point the suspect appears before the court for prosecution as thereafter.
4) The systems will posses features that will enable criminal data to
5) be purged from the system, updated and queried.
Computerized Crime Tracking Information System
1.4 Justification
Implementation of a crime information system by the Nigerian police will help the police and the masses to get useful information on individuals with crime records. The system developed will among other things:
- Maintain a database of all crime records
- Enable a quick search on the database to retrieve crime information
- Enable Nigerian police to track previous crimes committed by as suspect
- Make crime control easier for the police
Lawson Peter – Chief Editor in Projectvilla Nigeria. A writer and academic researcher.