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What is The Real-Time Crime Center?
The Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) is an advanced state-of-the-art centralized technology center that provides advanced technological tools for the police department to help address crime in real time. With the advance technology, detectives can quickly gather and disseminate information throughout the cities. This information can be of a benefit in helping law enforcement officers respond to crime quickly to make communities safer (St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s).
The Mission and Purpose of a Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC)
The mission of the RTCC is to provide law enforcement agencies with state-of-the-art technologies capable of providing information in real time to officers responding to high risk calls, letting officers know what to be aware of in the vicinity. These technological tools assist law enforcement agencies with efficient and effective policing, allotting officers quick response time to crimes in progress or recently occurred crimes (Albuquerque Police Department). The purpose of the RTCC is to provide field officers and detectives with prompt and comprehensive information to assist in identifying patterns in turn stopping crime in the embryonic stage (Albuquerque Police Department).
The Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), research and analyze criminal patterns, which raise situational awareness in real time to protect the community and prevent criminals from hurting others (St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s). RTCC utilize communication solutions to send urgent communications to law enforcement with a click of a mouse. In so doing, officers have a quicker response to an urgent situation, which enhance situational awareness and prepares officers to know what they are walking into. The RTCC maximize the chance that officers can effectively respond to crime occurring in real time
(St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s).
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The Real Time Crime Center was originally a hub of data analysis that identified emerging crime trends. In 2005, the first Real Time Crime Center open in New York utilizing the CompStat system. Subsequently, the RTCC was able to retrieve 5 years of data consisting of over 5 million criminal records, which provided valuable information to investigators concerning crime scenes and potential suspects (Gibson). The RTCC works on various analytical methods including investigative report analysis, social media platform analysis, graphic presentation of data, charting events and much more, therefore consolidating the data to build information to help law enforcement (Etters). Their responsibility is to research, assemble and present information in order to help provide leads to investigations and determine patterns that can be used as situational awareness in real time. The RTCC can identify patterns of crime and decide when they are most likely going to happen. They are also capable of sending out Amber Alerts, and due to the way technologies integrate with one another a police officer can respond to a shooting before receiving the 9-1-1 call (Etters). This allows the officers to be on standby in the area, causing the community to feel like law enforcement is there to protect them.
How Does the RTCC Work?
The RTCC technology uses a force multiplier, utilizing cameras that are in place to catch crimes in real time. Because of this technology officer can identify the suspect without being in the vicinity of the crime. The crime cameras feed into the Real Time Crime Center, which helps officers know when a criminal is moving into different areas in real time (Fox). The Real Time Crime Center not only helps police officers, but fire fighters, and EMS. The cameras capture real events, which help EMS better assist situations upon arrival to a scene, at the same time EMS can see foot traffic, which helps them figure out a quick way to get to an injured person (Fox). After a year in New Orleans, EMS and fire agencies are partnering up with RTCC to use Real Time footage to investigate fires and find the least trafficked routes to the hospitals (Shepard). This tool helps fire fighters apprehend arsonist by tapping into people’s home security footage.
How Could RTCC Implementation Impact Tallahassee?
Having this concept could help law enforcement officers be at the right place at the right time. It will allow officers to be able to respond to dangerous situations more quickly and efficiently. If RTCC could help law enforcement identify drug traffickers and minimize crime in Tallahassee, the community would feel safe.
According to Tallahassee report, Tallahassee crime and murder rate has been increasing since 2009. From 2002 to 2009 the murdering rate per 100,000 citizens in Tallahassee was 4.6. During this time period there were 63 murders at an average of 7.9 murders per year (Stewart). The rate of murders did not decrease they steadily increase over time. From 2010 to 2017 the murder rate went up 52 percent to 7.0 murders per 100,000 citizens (Stewart). During this time period there were 104 murders, at an average of 13 murders per year (Stewart). The rate of murders is still rapidly increasing from 2002 – 2017 the total amount of murders increased from 63 murders to 104 murders, which means from 2009 to 2017,41 more citizens died. Implementing the Real Time Crime Center could help officers see within the high crime areas, therefore, the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) could patrol areas of concern and keep the community safe. Allowing the RTCC, to work hand and hand with law enforcement could help TPD widen their search on drug trafficking or following up on previous video surveillance to help catch copycats. The Real Time Crime Center research’s over a million records that can help law enforcement stay ahead in Real Time.
The implementation of the Real Time Crime Center impact Tallahassee by giving a high-tech boost to law enforcement. The RTCC is located at the Leon County Sheriff’s office where two intelligence analysts sit in front of 18 screens every day (Etters). The analyst can pull up a photo of a certain vehicle or use facial recognition to help identify criminal suspects. The analyst can also build a profile of victims or wanted criminals to share with deputies in the field (Etters).
The Next Level of progression for the RTCC envisions space to include members of the Tallahassee Police Department, Florida State Police Department, Florida A & M Police Department, as well as state and federal partners all in the same center, working side by side to solve crime (Rabon). This will show the community that all departments are united and working together to help decrease crime in Tallahassee. Now, the RTCC system is connected to cameras at Leon County schools, inside the Leon County Detention Center, the Leon County Court House and all the city of Tallahassee’s traffic cameras (Stewart). The RTCC helps Law Enforcement by providing information that can lead to a successful arrest without the loss of lives.
Since the RTCC come to Tallahassee, it has help apprehend burglaries and a series of bomb threats that has put the lives of others at risk. If the RTCC could expand, it would allow more investigators to have back-end support as the number of calls increase daily. This will allow the officers to have extra support and knowledge of every crime that they are in pursuit to. The RTCC can focus on doing deep data dives which give deputies a feeling of safety. When a deputy feels safe, he can do his job to the best of his ability, consequently, this tool allows law enforcement to be two steps ahead of situations in making a quick arrest.
The RTCC have important research and stats which help officers find patterns that criminals leave behind. By allowing the RTCC analyst to integrate with current records and databases to identify trends allow for more proactive responses, thereby, reducing time spent on investigations, increase conviction rates, increase closure rates and ultimately create safer outcomes for our community. The RTCC can help officers apprehend a person breaking the law in Real Time through information provided by the RTCC. This information helps narrow down their search when looking for suspects seen on a traffic camera, or a home security camera. The RTCC can also push out information within the first 2 to 3 minutes while the officer is still responding to the scene (Burgos), therefore, the officers are able to get more information before arriving to a scene. This Real Time assistance that the RTCC gives our officers helps law enforcement assist the situation in a timely manner.
The Tampa Police Department stated that the Real Time Crime Center helps their officers with the intelligence to help keep officers safe, by providing leads, researching, and giving the officers information on suspects much quicker than before (Burgos). The RTCC provides the police officers who work late in the afternoon or overnight, in-depth information within minutes of a 9-1-1 call, during hours when detectives or investigators are off duty. Sgt. Paulk stated that “before the RTCC was implemented in Tampa it could take almost an hour before a detective would get the kind of intel that the RTCC is now pushing out to officers” (Burgos). By having the RTCC in different counties, officers are up to date on information that is passed along from county to county about a suspect. The RTCC also provides new technologies to help connect disparate systems to improve situational awareness (Fox). If someone is robbing a liquor store, it could be alerted by the RTCC which will alert an officer to be in pursuit. This system gives live feed in real time, which allows the analyst to give a description of the suspect so he could be apprehended quickly. The RTCC is a necessary unit that is needed nationwide.
As the RTCC group is emerging and growing, the team can identify crime trends before they spiked. Therefore, law enforcement can act quickly and apprehend the criminal. A recent Federal Report states that Florida is one of the fastest growing states. The U.S. Census Bureau states Florida’s population increased 1.5 percent from July 2017 to July 2018 (WTXL). Adapting a Real Time Crime Center in Tallahassee would help TPD because Tallahassee is rapidly growing with most college students, which means an increase in crime. With the help of Real Time Crime Center, officers can stake out in high crime areas, thereby causing a decrease of crime in the area due to police presence. Implementing the RTCC in Tallahassee will make college students feel safe and protected by law enforcement. It will assure the community that police officers are here to protect and serve.
Conclusion
The Real Time Crime Center not only has access to millions of regional and national criminal records, they have a gunfire detection system, video-surveillance cameras and license-plate recognition technology (Rabon). All analyst in the RTCC is armed with information such as partial license plate numbers for cars seen in the area from home security cameras, or information captured in a police report. Tallahassee could benefit from having this tool because it would help if a stolen car with matching plates could easily be identified and returned to the rightful owner. Information is gathered and plugged into various law enforcement databases, which allows our deputies to quickly narrow down suspects as well as their patterns and associations (Burgos). The Real Time Crime Center is very effective and TPD could have a reliable team protecting our communities.
