Real Time Crime Center Opens In New Jersey

Recently, a regional information sharing center was opened by New Jersey officials that will make the state and local law enforcement agencies able to access technology and information, with the main purpose of decreasing offenses and improving the quality of life in Newark and surrounding communities.

A blog from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Information Sharing Environment (ISE) showed that the Corr-Stat Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), launched in Newark in December 2014, “increases the response, analysis and support police officers need at crime scenes”.

The main purpose of RTCC is to develop a network that will collect, receive, analyze and distribute real-time tactical intelligence and support law enforcement agencies operating within the Corr-Stat Region, which represents more than 80 cities along Route 21 Corridor of Northeast New Jersey, from Jersey City to Paterson, in which Newark is also included.

RTCC was created at the Newark Police Department headquarters, to run as part of a broader information sharing initiative among the New Jersey Regional Operations Intelligence Center, the Newark Police Department and other law enforcement agencies.

Investigators will be able to access and analyze data from a range of agencies through a single portal with the help of RTCC. A fact sheet from the Division of Criminal Justice, New Jersey State Police, showed that with a unified data access point, users will “find connections between the all crimes suspicious activity reports, other data such as arrests, shooting, car jackings and incident information”.

According to the officials at the unveiling, RTCC’s technology was created from equipment which various local law enforcement agencies have.

ISE told that tools were used like GitHub-based Project Interoperability that is a start-up guide for information interoperability for government employees and the National Information Exchange Model which is a standards-based approach to exchanging information.

The fact sheet also showed that New Jersey chose Newark as RTCC’s base due to a disproportionate amount of offenses, including 20 percent of burglaries across the entire state that happen in the Corr-Stat Region.

Individuals were made aware by a media announcement of the launch that RTCC technology is part of a broader information sharing initiative among the New Jersey Regional Operations Intelligence Center, the Newark Police Department and other law enforcement agencies.

“RTCC will save money, allow for enhanced use of technology and equipment (both at the state and local levels) and support the regional partnership of state, county and local law enforcement agencies”.

Before RTCC, there was no automated or formalized method to capture, analyze and share criminal activities or suspicious behavior happening all over New Jersey due to which the investigator’s access to data and ability to identify patterns and trends in criminal activity is limited.

Newark Police Chief, Anthony Campos, told NJ.com, “Bad guys aren’t hindered by jurisdictional boundaries. They’re not hindered by information silos. They don’t hoard information. Actually quite the opposite, they love to brag about what they do. So why were we always? You know what? We no longer are”.

Col. Rick Fuentes of the State Police told NJ.com, “This is going to be the first time in this country that we’re looking at crime as a region”. He also said that officials are discussing to expand the collaboration initiative to New York.

Funds are given to 30 law enforcement agencies to assist them with their technology initiatives by the Smart Policing Initiative, a Bureau of Justice Assistance-sponsored initiative supporting law enforcement agencies in building evidence-based and data-driven law enforcement methods.

News Source: www.GCN.com