New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas shows off new crime-analysis software

New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas unveiled new crime-analysis softwareThursday that he says will allow cops to take a smarter, more focused approach to tackling crime.

View full sizeThe CrimeView computer software enables NOPD officers to do up-to-the minute analysis, looking at charts of trends and clusters of crime.

The computer software enables NOPDofficers to do up-to-the minute analysis, looking at charts of trends and clusters of crime. For example, an officer can quickly look at how many guns were stolen this year during auto burglaries, or what days of the week, or time of day, most of these thefts occurred.

Gone are the days of a cop crunching data with spreadsheets and calculators, Serpas said at a news conference Thursday afternoon at police headquarters.

The analysis tool, called CrimeView, is being used by analysts in each of the Police Department's eight districts as well as headquarters.

The software's cost, about $255,000, was split by the city and the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports the city's criminal justice system. The nonprofit picked up about $170,000 of the tab, and the NOPD covered the rest, Serpas said.

The program was created by the San Diego-based Omega Group and is used by more than 500 law enforcement agencies across the country, from big cities such as Los Angeles and Miami to much smaller towns, according to company president Milan Mueller.

"It allows them to look at strategies and results," Mueller said in a telephone interview.

The data for the NOPD's new tool is culled from the department's electronic police reports and is automatically uploaded each morning.

The NOPD had been using an outdated program installed in 1990. Serpas, whose management style has been described as stat-centric, was gleeful at the news conference.

"I'm a geek for this stuff," he said. "I absolutely love it."

View full sizeScreen grab from Crimemapping.comThis screen grab shows a sampling of crimes reported between May 18 and May 24, 2011.

The new tool dovetails with the public crime map the NOPD debuted last week. The incidents plotted on the crime map, also using an Omega Group program, are drawn from the same pool of data. The crime map can be found on the department's website:www.nola.gov/government/nopd.

Mueller said the data, which is considered public information, is compiled in myriad ways by his company's programs. He emphasized that citizens can sign up for crime alerts that notify them when crimes occur near their home.

Serpas noted Thursday that his agency is also in the final stages of signing a contract for an additional analysis program that looks at the deployment of officers. The "optimization program" should enable the NOPD to better allocate resources and designate officers to areas throughout the city, Serpas said.