A TECHNICAL SEMINAR REPORT ON

COMPUTERIZED CRIME TRACKING SYSTEM

Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirement for the award of the

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY

In

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Submitted by

POOJA AILANI - 16BD1A05A6

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

KESHAV MEMORIAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Narayanaguda, Hyderabad, Telangana-29

2019-20

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 KESHAV MEMORIAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

(Approved by AICTE, Affiliated to JNTUH)

Narayanaguda, Hyderabad.

CERTIFICATE
This is to certified that seminar work entitled “Computerized Crime Tracking System” is
a bonafide work carried out in the seventh semester by “POOJA AILANI - 16BD1A05A6” in
partial fulfilment for the award of Bachelor of Technology in “COMPUTER SCIENCE &
ENGINEERING” from JNTU Hyderabad during the academic year 2019- 2020 who carried out the
seminar work and no part of this work has been submitted earlier for the award of any degree.

SIGNATURE OF CSE-HOD

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 INDEX

Table of Contents Page No.

1. Abstract 5

2. Introduction 6

3. Purpose of Study 8

4. Crime Mapping System 10

5. Tracking System 12

6. Case Tracking System in Enugu 15

7. Summary 20

8. Conclusion 21

9. Reference 22

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List of Figures Page.no.

1. Architecture 15

2. CCTNS 16

3. Data Flow Diagram 17

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 ABSTRACT
This project work identifies the challenges facing police departments that seek to
implement computerized crime tracking information systems. The project highlights the
importance of police departments identifying crime records and then designing systems
that accomplish the tasks specific to the needs of their end-users. Data transfer, data
integration, system customization, and confidentiality issues are discussed. One of the
most significant shortcomings in the delivery of justice is the delay that is encountered
by court users which increases the cost of litigation in both time and money, and results
in pro-longed criminal trials and over-crowded prisons. Hence the new system designed
will aid police in tracking crime records and thereby facilitate timely delivery of
judgment by the court. The software was implemented using Visual basic 6.0 and Access
database

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 INTRODUCTION

The traditional and age-old system of intelligence and criminal record maintenance has

failed to live up to the requirements of the existing crime scenario. Manual processes neither

provide accurate, reliable and comprehensive data round the clock nor does it help in trend

prediction and decision support. It also results in lower productivity and ineffective utilisation of

manpower. The solution to this ever-increasing problem lies in the effective use of Information

Technology. Crime Tracking Information System uses computer-generated records as an

interface for integrating and accessing massive amounts of location-based information.

Crime tracking system allows police personnel to plan effectively for emergency

response, determine mitigation priorities, analyse historical events, and predict future events.

Crime tracking system helps identify potential suspects to increase investigators suspect base

when no leads are evident. The ability to access and process information quickly while

displaying it in a spatial and visual medium allows agencies to allocate resources quickly and

more effectively. In the ‘mission-critical’ nature of law enforcement, information about the

location of a crime, incident, suspect, or victim is often crucial to determine the manner and size

of the response. Crime tracking software helps co-ordinate vast amounts of location-based data

from multiple sources. It enables the user to layer the data and view the data most critical to the

particular issue or mission.

It is used world over by police departments, both large and small, to provide solutions for

crime analysis, criminal tracking, traffic safety, community policing, Intranet/Internet mapping,

and numerous other tasks.

Crime tracking system helps crime officers determine potential crime sites by examining

complex seemingly unrelated criteria and displaying them all in an interface. It also helps them

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map inmate populations, fixtures, and equipment to provide for the safety of inmates by

separating gang members, identifying high-risk or potentially violent inmates, and identifying

hazardous locations in an area. It reduces the potential for internal violence by providing better

command and control. Traditionally, these activities have been supported by paper and pen.

Police officers now have the ability to immediately generate crime report directly relevant to the

situation at hand. Police agencies collect vast amounts of data from many sources including

called-for-services, arrests, first information reports and daily report. The same information

provides a powerful decision making tool for investigators, supervisors, and administrators.

The lack of reliable central case recording systems for Nigerian police meant that cases

were in effect impossible to trace without considerable resources, effort and a lot of luck. For

criminal cases the impact of this has been felt in the practice of ‘hold charged with capital

offences in order to ensure their continued detention, whilst there is little or no evidence of their

involvement. This issue has contributed significantly to the visible inefficiency of the Criminal

Justice System, particularly the congestion of the prisons and the courts.

To improve the flow of cases and achieve speedier administration of justice, the

introduction and deployment of information technology (IT) based case management and

tracking systems is needed.

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 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this project is to design and implement a database for storing crime

records. This will aid the police in crime tracking and control.

The main objective of the project was to Speed up criminal trials and reduces the length

of time Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs) stay in prison by setting up a criminal case tracking

system that improves coordination between justice institutions. The system would ensure a better

case flow and efficient data management that would inform better management decisions.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

Implementation of a crime tracking information system by the Nigerian police will help

the police and the masses to get useful information on individuals with crime records. The

system developed will among other things:

1. Maintain a database of all crime records

2. Enable a quick search on the database to retrieve crime information

3. Enables Enugu police and the Nigerian police to track previous crimes committed by a

suspect.

4. Improved operational efficiency through the use of a standardized system, searchable

digital repository of relevant documents, automated workload distributed and virtual

boarding of cases.

5. With Case Tracking System (CTS), it is possible to access contact details of the Nigeria

police Force (NPF) and the judiciary at a glance and it facilitates quicker and more

effective communication between the police and judiciary. With Case Tracking

Information System attorney’s would spend less time to utilize the information in a

manner that is most beneficial to them.

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LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
Due to time and financial constraint, I was unable to visit most of the police stations in Enugu to

gather information on the existing crime tracking information system. Few police stations were

visited and the information gathered from the officers in charge forms the basis for the design of

the new system.

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 CRIME MAPPING SYSTEM

Computerized crime maps provide crime analysts and departmental planners with a

means to spatially relate crime conditions, patterns, and trends. For example, an analyst can

search for places where high levels of crime correlate with relatively low levels of patrol

assignments. Patterns can be explored within a mapping system by searching places with

elevated levels of crime against patrol deployment patterns across temporal dimensions. Trends

can be uncovered by using past patterns to predict the locations of emerging hot spots of crime.

Graphic presentations of search findings provide a powerful medium to communicate conditions,

patterns, and trends, often creating an avenue for analysts to bring about significant policy

changes. In Jersey City, for example, computerized crime mapping capabilities have been used

by departmental planners to develop beat boundaries and to help match community service

officers with particular ethnic and racial neighborhoods. In another project, the Jersey City

Police Department crime mapping system was used to merge crime data with neighborhood

characteristics. Boundaries were created to match Census data with police data aggregated to the

beat level of analysis. In this project, workload data were merged with indicators of crime (such

as emergency calls and arrests) and then mapped along with Census data showing population

densities, proportions of youths by district, and other community-level factors that correlated

with high or low workloads. Using these maps, the police department embarked upon a

restructuring project that precipitated widespread changes to the organizational structure and

function of the department. While police department planners and crime analysts are typically

interested in using computerized crime mapping systems to answer broad-based policy questions,

street-level problem-solvers use crime mapping to answer different types of questions. Street

officers still require mapping tools to examine conditions, patterns and trends in crime problems,

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but the units of inquiry and their data needs are often quite different from crime analysts'

demands. For example, street-level officers tend to explore crime maps to identify the

environmental features that are consistent with different types of problems. Bars are often found

to be focal points for open-air drug sales (Eck, 1994; Roncek and Maier, 1991; Weisburd and

Green, 1994); assault and robbery problems tend to occur along main throughways and, in

particular, near bus stops; and prostitution problems are often found along main throughways.

Knowing the unique distributions of crime problems for specific categories of crime is critical

for street-level problem-solving officers. While crime mapping systems can be used by both

street-level officers and citywide crime analysts, many police departments customize their

inquiry system to meet the specific demands of one group over another. For example, crime

analysts will typically demand a mapping system that can routinize the creation of thematic maps

describing the changing patterns of crime across the city over the last six months. By contrast,

beat officers will typically demand that their mapping system help them to pinpoint crime

patterns for specific categories of crime. For example, the Jersey City Violent Crimes Unit used

their mapping system to identify robbery incident patterns over a two-week period when they

suspected that one particular group was involved in a spate of crimes.

A mapping system designed to routinize thematic maps using six monthly or yearly

blocks of data will frustrate a beat officer asking very different questions and needing more

specific time-frame data. Therefore, we suggest that police departments need to identify the

primary end-user from the outset, and then prioritize the customization of crime mapping

systems accordingly.

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 TRACKING SYSTEM

Generally tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a

timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a model e.g. capable to serve for depicting

the motion on a display capability.

Tracking in virtual space

In virtual space technology, a tracking system is generally a system capable of rendering

virtual space to a human observer while tracking the observer's body coordinates. For instance,

in dynamic virtual auditory space simulations, a real-time head tracker provides feedback to the

central processor, allowing for selection of appropriate head-related transfer functions at the

estimated current position of the observer relative to the environment.

Within the real world, there are a variety of technologies employed within asset tracking systems.

Some are 'lag time' indicators, that is, the data is collected after an item has passed a point for

example a bar code or choke point or gate. Others are 'real-time' or 'near real-time' like Global

Positioning Systems depending on how often the data is refreshed. There are bar-code systems

which require a person to scan items and automatic identification. For the most part, the tracking

worlds are composed of discrete hardware and software systems for different applications. That

is, bar-code systems are separate from Electronic Product Code (EPC) systems, Global

Positioning Service (GPS) systems are separate from active real time locating systems for

example, a passive system would be used in a warehouse to scan the boxes as they are loaded on

a truck - then the truck itself is tracked on a different system using Global Positioning Service

with its own features and software.

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 INFORMATION SYSTEM

An information system is any combination of information technology and people's

activities that support operations, management and decision making. In a very broad sense, the

term information system is frequently

used to refer to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. In this sense, the

term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) that an

organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of

business processes, Kroenke, (2008).

Some make a clear distinction between information systems, computer systems, and

business processes. Information systems typically include an Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) component but are not purely concerned with Information and Communicaion

Technology (ICT), focusing in instead, on the end use of information technology. Information

systems are also different from business processes. Information systems help to control the

performance of business processes, O'Brien, (2003)

Alter argues for an information system as a special type of work system. A work system is a

system in which humans and/or machines perform work using resources to produce specific

products and/or services for customers. An information system is a work system whose activities

are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and

displaying) information.

As such, information systems inter-relate with data systems on the one hand and activity

systems on the other. An information system is a form of communication system in which data

represent and are processed as a form of social memory. An information system can also be

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considered a semi-formal language which supports human decision making and action.

Information systems are the primary focus of study for the information systems discipline and for

organizational informatics, Beynon-Davies (2009).

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 CASE TRACKING SYSTEM IN ENUGU.

The delay in the administration of criminal justice in Enugu state led to the setting up a

sector-wide criminal Case Tracking System (CTS) which enables criminal cases to be monitored

throughout the entire criminal justice process. Under the system the Ministry of Justice (MOJ)

coordinates the efforts of 5 institutions – Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Police,

Prison Service, High Courts and Magistrates Courts. An electronic databank of information is

kept about every accused that is remanded to prison custody by the Magistrates or High Courts.

The system identifies each accused by a unique reference number, tracks key events in the

progress of his case, and provides a search facility to enable the current status, location and

history of the case to be established at any time. The system also incorporates an ‘Alert’ system

to give early warning of approaching deadlines or key milestones in a case, enables the

production of sector-wide, institutional, case and individual ‘performance data’ and reports and

has enhanced ability to locate any case/accused in the criminal justice system at any time and

indicate the cur-rent status.

The main objective of the project was to: ‘Speed up criminal trials and reduce the length

of time Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs) stay in prison by setting up a criminal case tracking

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system that improves coordination between justice institutions. The system would ensure a better

case flow and efficient data management that would inform better management decisions.’

The project was designed to address the short-comings of the criminal justice system in the state,

such as lack of responsibility for cases, poor communication among the criminal justice

institutions, and the lack of reliable central case recording system and the prolonged de-lay of

cases generally.

Implementation of the Case Tracking System (CTS) began in earnest in November 2005

and was expected to last 18 months. It was extended on two occasions and eventually concluded

and was fully handed over to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in December 2008.

The stakeholders created a multi-institution management team known as the Development and

Management Team (DMT) which served as a coordinating unit to ensure that all the participating

agencies work together in a concerted manner. All the partner institutions had at least two

positions on the Development and Management Team (DMT).

Apart from technical advice, funded refurbishment of offices, provision of equipment,

training of staff, development of software and manual forms, funding of Information Technology

(IT) support staff and provision of consumables. The Enugu state government made a substantial

contribution. The main focus of the project was the creation of an automated system to enable

the management and tracking of all criminal cases in the State throughout the entire criminal

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justice process. The project was under the management of a part-time international consultant

supported by a full-time local Deputy Project Manager.

Through an Awaiting Trial Prisoner (ATP) exercise attached to this project to deal with

cases of long term Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs), the cases of 672 ATPs were covered. Out of

these, by the time the project was fully taken over by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in December

2008, the cases of 537 Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs) had been resolved either through

completion of their cases or their release from custody. This means the lives of many long-term

Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs) have been improved (those that have been released) or at least

their cases resolved (those whose cases have reached conclusion), resulting in an increase in the

quality of justice for the poorer members of society who constitute the overwhelming majority

among the Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs).

A functioning case tracking system is in place, as an automated system containing

records of all prisoners sent to the custody of the Nigerian Prisons Service since November 2006.

The system includes:

a) A customized case tracking software developed and installed in the five institutions

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 b) Case Tracking Units in each institution (Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Nigerian Police Force

(NPF) and Magistrate Court), including refurbished and well equipped offices, and the

Central Collating Unit (CCU) at the Ministry Of Justice (MOJ), although maintenance

and resource challenges mean that some of these units are already showing signs of

becoming inactive

c) A database listing all long-term Awaiting Prisoners (ATPs) pre-November 2006.

Hundreds of staff from each institution has been trained in the completion of forms, use

of the Information Technology (IT) system and purpose and objectives of the Case

Tracking System (CTS).

Users of the system are able to locate prisoners on the Case Tracking System (CTS) and

view basic information about their cases; and performance reports have been produced (albeit the

data they contain so far cannot be considered wholly reliable because of shortcomings in data

entry in institutions other than the Nigerian Prisons Service).

A functioning Development and Management Team (DMT) is in place and functioning,

comprising representatives of the five justice institutions involved, although its true influence (in

relation to being able to change existing practices in the institutions) is so far marginal.

The initiative has brought about a number of positive changes which include:

a) Realization by members of the Data Management Team (DMT) and many officers from

the institutions of the necessity for coordination and cooperation.

b) Senior officers of some institutions (e.g. Attorney-General) have become more aware of

the potential impact the data on the system and the performance re-ports could have on

the delivery of criminal justice

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c) Greater levels of acceptance of the need to speed up cases and the consequences of not

doing so.

d) Increasing understanding of the significant increase in accountability that will result from

the successful functioning of the Case Tracking System (CTS), although perversely, this

may be one of the reasons for its failure to be fully implemented as many officers

perceive it is a threat to their way of working.

e) Increase in levels of understanding of many officers in all institutions of the potential of

automated systems (and greater understanding of the effort required to develop and

maintain them)

f) Greater interest in data collection, improved use of Information Technology (IT)

solutions in criminal justice matters, greater accountability by institutions at least to

fellow institutions and remarkably better perception of the Criminal Justice System of

Enugu state. All these may well be the seeds needed for more fundamental impacts such

as greater efficiency in the disposition of the cases of Awaiting Trial Prisoners (ATPs).

But they require careful nurturing.

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 SUMMARY
While police organizations have existed as long as government itself, the idea of a

computerised crime tracking system by police force is relatively modern concept. Max Weber

famously argued that the state is that which controls the legitimate monopoly of the means of

violence. The military and police carry out enforcement at the request of the government or the

courts. The term failed state refers to states that cannot implement or enforce policies; their

police and military no longer control security and order and society moves into anarchy, the

absence of government. But with the implementation of the crime tracking system designed I this

project, it will be much easier for police to keep track of crime information in other to have

control over the state.

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 CONCLUSION

The complexity and anonymity of computer systems may help criminal camouflage their

operations. The victims of the most costly scams include banks, brokerage houses, insurance

companies, and other large financial institutions.

Most people guilty of embezzlement do not have criminal histories. Embezzlers tend to

have a gripe against their employer, have financial problems, or simply an inability to resist the

temptation of a loophole they have found. Screening and background checks on perspective

employees can help in prevention; however, many laws make some types of screening difficult

or even illegal. Fired or disgruntled employees sometimes sabotage their company's computer

system as a form of "pay back". This sabotage may take the form of a logic bomb, a computer

virus, or creating general havoc.

Some police stations have developed measures in an attempt to combat and prevent crime.

Police sometimes implement security measures such as cameras, fingerprint records of crimes,

and background checks. Not only do these methods help prevent crime, but they help police to

keep track of crimes and maintain a database of criminal records.

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