1. Pennsylvania State Police chooses ABM’s Prophecy
Successful implementation in just 60 days
Overview
The Pennsylvanian State Police operates from 81 stations and 9 Pennsylvania
Turnpike stations. The 90 stations are organised into 16 troops and 5 Area
Commands ranging over 45,000 square miles. The Agency employs 4,545 sworn
officers and 1,600 civilians.
The need to improve efficiencies
In 1997, the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) began a comprehensive program to
improve efficiency and enhance capability, the result of which was the Criminal
Investigative Traffic Safety Incident Management System (IMMS) project.
IMMS encompasses the application of technology to all policing activities related to
the collection and processing of information and evidence as well as the investigative
activities required to solve a crime or prevent further crimes from being committed.
The ABM Solution
PSP selected ABM’s Prophecy, an incident mapping and predictive analysis tool as
part of a combined Records Management System solution (RMS), following a
competitive pitch against Versaterm, Printrak, Vision Air, Viking and Indico back in
2001. The strengths of Prophecy including ease of use and its quick import and
export capability were key factors that were taken into account when deciding which
solution to purchase, as well as its ability to make the criminal analysts’ jobs easier
on a day-to-day basis.
“The implementation of Prophecy began in May 2003, with the initial rollout being
accomplished in just 60 days. This was pretty fast considering that Prophecy had to
be integrated with the Automated Incident Memo System (AIIMS), PSP’s incident
tracking system.
Installation packages were provided to local installers, 500 desktops in 120
locations,” comments Anthony Durante, Planning and Analysis, Bureau oOf
Research and Development. “It was Prophecy’s ability to map and analyse incidents
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2. allowing our patrol troops to study activity levels based on temporal, geographic and
incident-based data that made it the obvious choice.” Durante says.
Significant results through increased intelligence
During the first eight months of Prophecy’s installation, the number of crash-related
fatalities on Pennsylvania’s highways decreased by 7.4 percent. In addition to this,
the number of criminal offences decreased by 1.3 percent during the same period.
Prophecy has given PSP the ability to view their data in a multitude of ways, in
greater details with more accuracy than in the past, thereby allowing the agency to
target their resources more efficiently.
“We use the analytical tools to look at activity levels based on temporal, geographic,
and incident-based data (incident type, factors such as gang involvement, gun
involvement, etc.). We can identify and react to trends more quickly, and can
measure our results more easily,” Durante continues.
Prophecy successes include the identification of alcohol-related traffic problems in
southwestern Lancaster County. As a result of the enforcement activities and
increased undercover investigations, the issue was resolved with the prosecution of
the owner of a liquor establishment that was serving alcoholic beverages to visibly
intoxicated patrons. The alcohol-related traffic problems decreased significantly,
down to a single arrest, compared to 11 arrests in approximately 12 weeks prior to
the increase in enforcement measure for patrons of liquor stores.
Training that suited the needs of the end user
“The support that was received exceeded all expectations, and as the product was
new to the United States, ABM made themselves available for technical support, on a
daily basis. They were also on hand to help develop the hardware solution for
installation and implement features that were deemed necessary to the use of the
product. My experience of the training was that it was professional and well-
organised, with the instructor understanding not only the product but also the user
perspective, “concludes Durante.
ABM continues to work directly with PSP in support of Prophecy. The Pennsylvanian
State Police are currently working towards implementing a web-based version of the
application to be used in conjunction with their current AIIM system. The eventual
goal is to integrate Prophecy with a fully-functional RMS to allow more detailed
incident analysis.
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