Case Study

Life on the Streets: The West Haven Police Department fights crime the high-tech way

Originally published in IBM System Magazine by Jim Utsler

I’m a big fan of television cop shows, particularly “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “The Wire.” They’re both well written and acted, but I’ve noticed a difference between the two: “Homicide” is decidedly lower-tech than “The Wire.”

“Homicide” is feet on the pavement, with detectives canvassing neighborhoods and putting people into the box to sweat confessions out of them. “The Wire,” as its name implies, relies more on technology—specifically, wiretaps—to solve crimes. Sure, “The Wire” is fiction, but this dependency on technology is becoming increasingly common in the real-world protect-and-serve community.

West Haven Police Department modernized the way it captures and shares information - Photo by Gale Zucker

Thanks in large part to a longtime business partner, DCS Inc., some of its custom programs and several Web-savvy solutions developed using WebSmart from Business Computer Design (BCD) Int’l Inc., the department has taken the next step in law enforcement, infusing technology into nearly every facet of its operations. Because of this innovative use of software—and its reliance on the IBM i environment as its primary computing platform—the department’s law-enforcement duties are more streamlined and effective, letting the residents of West Haven rest better at night.

At All Cost

Adjoining New Haven, West Haven is a city of about 55,000 people living in about 10 to 12 square miles, Detective Joseph Vecellio says. The city is about 60 miles from New York City and some 80 miles from Boston. It’s a convenient location, Vecellio notes, “but we also get the problems of those two places.”

The WHPD receives 55,000 to 60,000 calls a year. Some are simple nuisance complaints, but others are more serious, including felony offenses. Given that the department has only about 120 sworn officers—including patrol offers, detectives, lieutenants, captains and chiefs—and a mere 20 or so civilian personnel in its ranks, it’s no wonder Vecellio says, “We stay pretty busy.”

As a result, the force requires a sound IT underpinning. In this case, that includes an IBM System i* 520, which runs most of the department’s mission-critical applications and acts as its primary database host. Notably, only Vecellio and his partner Sergeant Joseph Wynosky make up the force’s department of IT (or “Do It,” as Vecellio lightheartedly refers to it), and they’re also the only members of the computer-crimes department. “I live every kid’s dream. I carry a gun and work on computers all day,” Vecellio jokes.

Even more notable is that Vecellio is self-taught when it comes to IT, including the System i server. “I do hold a certificate in computer forensics, but other than that, I’ve learned everything on my own,” he says. “In fact, it started off as a hobby about eight or nine years ago. Now, I really enjoy it and immerse myself in it. I probably get 20 magazines a month, and I’m constantly reading, seeing what other people are doing, watching the trends—everything.”

That’s good, because the department is always looking for ways to improve how it polices its city. In the past, this wasn’t so easy. The department—like many commercial companies—relied heavily on PC servers running some flavor of the Microsoft* Windows* operating system. But this wasn’t the ideal situation the department was looking for; Vecellio cites concerns about crashing and insecure systems.

“I just don’t feel like you get the same stability as you do with the System i machine,” he says. “If we do a query of 500,000 to 700,000 records in a Windows machine, stuff happens. Usually, you get a crash. I can easily run that same query on the System i platform, and in 10 seconds, I get the information I need without having to worry about any crashes. Also, there’s some information that we have to give out under the Freedom of Information Act, but at the same time, we have information that we absolutely cannot release, and we have to protect that data at all cost. The System i server allows us to do that.”

“Everything’s on the System i platform, which is really the brain, heart and soul of the department.” —Detective Joseph Vecellio, West Haven Police Department

Brain, Heart and Soul

Although the WHPD has been using the System i platform for around 15 years, it wasn’t until recently that it decided to truly take advantage of everything the system has to offer. Prior to 2005, it was simply using it for computer-aided dispatch and record management. It decided to upgrade to the 520 in part because it would be putting more of its workload on the platform, especially as it began testing and deploying new crime-fighting technologies—something Vecellio and his partner decided the PC-server environment wasn’t stable or secure enough to handle.

So in 2005, they began using the System i platform in earnest, beginning with crime analysis and time studies. It soon developed—thanks to a script written by Mary Rooney, the president of DCS—into a system that lets incoming XML-based reports be funneled directly through a PC server to the System i server.

As Vecellio explains, “A patrolman may be in a car writing up an accident report. He electronically submits that to the commanding officer, who then approves it. Once it’s been approved, a Windows technology-based report-writing tool creates a PDF and an XML file of the report. The script then strips the information from the XML file and automatically puts the report into the System i server. As a result, there’s no Windows record-management system. Everything’s on the System i platform, which is really the brain, heart and soul of the department.”

Indeed, the System i platform holds all of the department’s operational data, including booking information, booking photos, case numbers and court information. And all of this data is connected, letting police personnel run historical reports on individuals to see, for example, if they’ve ever been arrested and for what.

The department also uses two WebSmart-integrated programs: Nexus Portal, which provides a portal for deploying WebSmart and non-WebSmart applications, and Clover Query, which lets users quickly create Web-based System i queries and reports. These programs let booking officers print out booking sheets for the appropriate courts based on the data contained on the System i platform.

“We used to have a Windows booking program, but we were less than happy with it,” Vecellio recalls. “So I told Mary at DCS that I wanted everything on the System i server, because I didn’t want to have to run to 50 different severs or workstations to gather the information we needed. I wanted it all in one spot—and the System i platform seemed to be the logical place to put everything. Using WebSmart, she developed a program that runs through a Web browser that allows us to look up any pertinent information from a central location.”

The old booking system was much more cumbersome. It involved officers filling out forms with all of their arrestees’ information and handing the forms to the booking officers when arrestees were booked. The booking officers would then enter that information into a Windows system, take photos of the arrestees and print three copies of everything—one for records, one for the front desk and one for the courts. The records employee would then enter that information into the records-management system and the front-desk worker would enter it into the arrest log.

“We were keying things three or four times,” Vecellio says. “Now, it’s once. The booking officer enters it into the System i platform, and we’re done. A System i program automatically creates the arrest log, and all the records person has to do now is verify the booking information. And when records personnel get dispositions from the court, they simply add that information to the case file on the System i platform. As a result, we’re not rekeying the same information over and over and over again.”

Another key feature of this new program is that it allows booking officers to take photos of arrestees and automatically populate them to the System i platform so they’re available immediately to officers in their cars, who are running a stripped-down version of that same program. The integration of these two programs allows for near-real-time sharing of data.

Routine Days

But the booking and in-car systems are only part of what the WHPD has been working on. It also has a live-tracking program in development. Using GPS, the department’s dispatchers can see where patrol cars are and send the closest units to incoming-call locations.

“There are a few bugs we have to work out, but I think it will be a great benefit once it’s completed,” Vecellio says. “It’ll be integrated with our dispatch system on the System i platform. We’ll be able to see if the closest car is already on another call and then dispatch another. That’s the beauty of having all your information in one spot.”

Of course, there are other benefits to having all of that data on a centralized server. For example, the department can quickly create composite photo lineups to show to crime victims. In the past, someone would have to walk to another floor, log onto the old booking system, find and print individual photos, and create a photo board.

Now, people can sit at their desks, hit a link in the Web-based system, enter specific criteria (e.g., white males between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-8 weighing 120 to 130 pounds) and be presented with photos of everyone who fits those requirements. Users can then choose the photos they want to add to the composite, print it or leave it on-screen for crime victims to examine.

The department can now use that centralized data to run historical reports and do some predictive analysis to help determine when and where crimes are likely to happen. Although seasoned officers can do this based on experience, these reports are more detailed and can be presented as graphical representations of times and locations, giving the department the information it needs to, say, put more patrol cars in certain neighborhoods during specified times of the year.

Also on the drawing board is a Web-based program that will let West Haven citizens enter complaints without calling the department or 911. This could dramatically reduce the number of calls the department receives every year. Although not yet operational because of workflow issues, this system would ideally work for all types of violations, but the WHPD may limit it to non-emergency ones.

The Reality

As reflected on TV, technology is dramatically changing the way crime is fought. And as the WHPD has demonstrated, Windows technology isn’t required just to have a user-friendly interface.

In fact, it might be better to move to a more centralized environment, giving users one source for the information they need. Additionally, Web-based applications can give users the simple, Web-like interface they expect.

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