Real-time help in solving crimes

The New York City Police Department is using enterprise data integration software from Informatica to help power its Real Time Crime Center, which is said to have assisted detectives in solving 74 percent of the city's homicides in 2005. The Center provides real-time information on emerging crime patterns, suspects and police resources citywide.

"[The technology] has helped place unprecedented crime-fighting capabilities into the hands of the NYPD—capabilities that were unthinkable just two years ago," says Deputy Commissioner V. James Onalfo, CIO, NYPD. "Before the creation of the Real Time Crime Center, it would take hours or days to access the wealth of information now available to detectives within minutes. As the data integration backbone of the Center, Informatica PowerCenter helps turn immense amounts of raw data from disparate sources into a cohesive and understandable 'big picture' that can be leveraged immediately by detectives in the field."

Launched in 2005 and expanded this year, the Center gives investigators crime-solving information even before they arrive at the crime scene. Starting with 911 calls, the data integration platform melds information in real time across both internal and external data sources. It then powers a real-time dashboard accessed by 115 detective squads and eight investigative response vans working on homicides, shootings and other serious crimes.

"Previously, when consolidating data across diverse systems, the NYPD relied on custom-coded, COBOL-based data integration programs, which are costly and time-consuming to write and difficult to change," says Onalfo. "We now have an enterprise data integration platform capable of sustaining our full range of integration projects in a high-quality, plug-and-play fashion."

Informatica currently integrates more than 10 systems and databases in real time, with more being added each month. One is a massive data warehouse containing more than 120 million New York City criminal complaints and 911 call records dating back to 1995, more than 5 million New York state criminal records, more than 31 million national crime records and 35 billion public records, according to a press release from Informatica.