Page 54 - Security Today, May/June 2019

Support Centers
Strategic Decisions
AHow to increase public safety and responsiveness to community needs
n SDSC is a crime-fighting nerve center that facilitates incidents in real-time. The software also makes it possible for district decision making through increased intelligence and bet- leadership and trained analysts to work with the data they are col- ter understanding. Built using dedicated hardware and lecting and proactively develop targeted crime reduction strategies. software solutions, they are housed in local police de- Since rolling out its Citigraf-based SDSCs over a year ago, police
partments of big and small cities. They help law enforcement groups response times have been reduced by as much as 39 percent in two of
develop proactive strategies to meet the challenges of their specific neighborhoods.
In the city of Chicago, for example, local authorities have devel- oped a series of SDSCs to help make neighborhoods safer. With a focus on crime prevention and providing officers with greater situ- ational awareness, they wanted to improve their ability to respond to the specific needs of their communities. The city’s main objective was to give police commanders the necessary insight to use their person- nel and resources more effectively.
Operating on a tight budget and focusing on the needs of specific districts, the Chicago Police Department deployed an SDSC with the help of Genetec solutions that aggregate and analyze data from mul- tiple systems, including shot detection and VMS. The software then outputs the resulting information in targeted and meaningful ways. This can be shared with dispatchers and first responders, resulting in comprehensive response coordination and the ability to manage
Chicago’s most violent districts. Additionally, the latest reports show that Chicago’s overall violent crime is down by 24 percent, shootings down by 70 percent, and murders down by 43 percent. Police directly attribute these improvements to the crime management capability enabled by the city’s growing number of SDSCs.
How SDSCs Work
Implementing an SDSC allows police departments to consolidate and analyze data from multiple sources, including real time computer aided dispatch, sensors, and offender criminal history databases. With this information, you can create a unified dynamic operating picture of incidents in real-time that can be shared with dispatch- ers, responders, and other departments, including traffic and public transportation.
Whether assisting in crime prediction or providing officers with better awareness, SDSCs are rapidly becoming an important part of
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GOVERNMENT SECURITY MAY/JUNE 2019
By Giovanni Gaccione
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com