Design And Implementation Of A Computerized Crime Tracking Information System

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.

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 project

The project intends to computerize the existing Criminal Tracking System at the Nigerian Police. Specifically, the project will accomplish the following:

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)

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.

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.

The systems will posses features that will enable criminal data to

Be purged from the system, updated and queried.

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 a suspect

Make crime control easier for the police

1.5 Scope of the Project

Basically any Criminal Tracking System as an integral part of the Criminal Justice Information System consists of three major sections, that is:

The Criminal Identification Division

The Magistrate Segment, and

The prisons.

However, because of lack of time, funding and the scope of the system, the project was limited to the development and implementation of software – base criminal tracking information system that will automate the processes involved in tracking down criminals by the Nigerian Police.

1.6 Limitation of the Project

Due to time and financial constraint, I was unable to visit few of the police stations in Nigeria to gather information on the existing crime information system. Few police stations were visited and the information gathered from the officers in charge forms the basis for the design of the new system.

The project did not cover the Prison and the Magistrate Segment, which could also be automated.

1.7 Project Report Organization

The project is organized as follows;-

Chapter one introduces the project; the background of the project is also discussed. The objectives of the project, its significance, scope, and constraints are pointed out.

A brief history of the Nigerian police and review of literature on Criminal Tracking System are subject matter of Chapter two.

Chapter three discusses system Analysis and design. It deals with detailed investigation and analysis of the existing system and problem identification.

Chapter four covers the system implementation, testing and integration

Chapter five was the summary of findings, limitations of the project, recommendations, bill of engineering measurement and evaluation conclusion, bibliography, appendix A and Appendix B of the project.

1.8 Definition of Terms

Crime:

A normative definition views crime as deviant behavior that violates prevailing norms – cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally

Criminalization:

One can view criminalization as a procedure deployed by society as a pre-emptive, harm-reduction device, using the threat of punishment as a deterrent to anyone proposing to engage in the behavior causing harm.

FIIB:

Federal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau

IGP:

Inspector General of Police

DIG:

Deputy Inspector General

FCID:

Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) is the highest investigation arm of the Nigeria Police NPF.