L.A. to deploy crime-analysis software

by Dibya Sarkar
04/28/06

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials are planning to use sophisticated commercial crime-analysis software to help them piece together intelligence across millions of records and multiple databases.

The department will deploy COPLINK technology, developed by Knowledge Computing, based in Tucson, Ariz., through several phases. It will initially integrate more than 50 million records across four systems.

Bob Griffin, the company's president and chief executive officer, said the contract is valued at $1.3 million for the first phase of the project. "We are kicking it off next week and the plan is to have it deployed by fall," he wrote in an e-mail message.

The systems are the Los Angeles Regional Crime Information System, which stores crime reports and arrest records for nearly half the county’s cities, including Los Angeles; the Regional Allocation of Police Services, which houses computer-aided dispatch information; the Historical Automated Justice Information and Jail Booking Systems; and the Crossroads Traffic System, which documents all county citations and traffic accidents.

“COPLINK will increase our effectiveness in preventing and responding to illegal activity and terrorism threats, as well as collaborating with local, state and federal jurisdictions by instantly putting intelligence at the fingertips of our personnel,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said in a prepared statement.

Officials plan on linking other information systems in Orange and San Diego counties, both of which use COPLINK technology.

The sheriff’s department, which includes 8,100 officers and 6,000 professional staff members, is the largest such department in the world and serves 88 cities.

COPLINK has been deployed in more than 150 jurisdictions nationwide.