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SCHENECTADY
Police cars eyed for crime data software
Program lets officers quickly spot trends
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    Police officers on patrol may soon have crime trend data at their fingertips in their cars, allowing them to see where yesterday’s crimes happened and thus predict where the criminals may strike next.
    The City Council is considering buying new software with $10,000 in funds seized from convicted criminals. For now, the Crime Atlas program wouldn’t work as quickly as it could — the data would be updated only once a day, software salesman Arthur Iannuzzi said at Monday’s council committees meeting.
    He said the state allows the city to send out its crime data only once a day. But as soon as Crime Atlas gets it, the information is digitized into maps and graphs in 22 minutes, he said.
    Police Chief Mark Chaires urged the council to buy the software so that officers don’t have to make special requests for crime trend data and then wait for the city’s crime analysts to get back to them.
    “It’s a little cumbersome. We have to print out maps. We have to do it on request,” he said.
    With the new software, offi cers could simply use their laptops in their patrol cars.
    “They’ll have it right in their cars and right at their beck and call,” Chaires said.
    Iannuzzi added that the system would help each neighborhood’s officers notice trends quickly.
    “Especially with people coming on and off shifts, rather than looking through papers or looking at a bulletin board, they can actually see these patterns emerging,” he said. “It allows people to evaluate data in a more timely manner, allowing a proactive response.”
    He pulled up one of Schenectady’s maps to show that three larcenies recently occurred near each other on one block of State Street. If those larcenies occurred on separate days, with different offi cers on duty each time, it might take some time before the offi cers realized the trend.
    “Now they can see this immediately,” he said. “Not tomorrow, not next week.” ........................>>>>.............................>>>>.......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00904&AppName=1

I thought the City was buying tasers with the confiscated criminal's money? Where did another $10K come from? Also, how much money is in this confiscated pot-o-gold we've recently been hearing about???  

Wonder where THAT figure can be found.

I commend the attempt (I guess ) at trying to get a handle on the ever increasing crime in the city.
But I don't see where a $10K software package is going to fix or even remotely help the problem.
I happen to know for a FACT....where cops have told city folks in 'certain neighborhoods' not to worry cause their area is not crime prone!
THEY ALREADY KNOW and obviously make a point of staying away from those 'dark holes'.

after all the effort into the polic force how about the JUDGES?

and how about the redlining....all this equipement is like being used in Escape from NY considering the redline districts.......