Building the Case for Crime Mapping
Dr. Nicholas Smith, GIS Centre of Excellence, QinetiQ
Chair, UK National Crime Mapping Working Group
A Year Ago…
A wide range of excellent independent initiatives
Driven to meet specific business needs
Often ‘made to happen’ by senior level staff
– A need to gain further support within ‘GI-rich’ organisations
– A need to spread best practice to ‘GI-poor’ organisations
Important Questions
•
Can we define an agreed picture of Crime Mapping ?
•
How do we get greater buy-in from senior level decision-makers ?
•
How can we effectively spread best practice ?
Can we pursuade others of the value of Crime Mapping ?
Building the Business Case
The Pain can be large...
– Structural reorganisation
– Retraining of staff, requirement for new skills
– Changes to working practices (admin and decision making)
– New data sharing policies with defined standards
…so is the Gain large enough ?
– Can we clearly describe the benefits ?
– Do they appeal to high level concerns of the organisation ?
The Business Case for Crime Mapping often needs to be
strengthened through partnership working and data sharing
– Access to larger resources with bigger payback
Who Shares Data ?
Integration within an organisation
•
Data driven environment
•
Application rich
Integration across organisations
•
Data shared for a common function
•
Application driven environment
•
Very data intensive
Internal Integration
• Main threats arise from
– Tribalism & shifts in power
– Resistance to changes in working practices
• Introduction of new approaches (e.g. NIM)
– Lack of ‘GI aware’ staff - particularly amongst
operational staff
• Pushing the use of GIS outside normal areas
• Building the business case depends on
– Securing a ‘sponsor’ within senior management
– Promotion to ‘peers’ as well as to senior management (buy-in)
– Benefits realised locally so may need to be highly cost-effective
– Integrated systems leading to improved workflow
– Automation of processes (e.g. area-based target reporting)
External Integration
• Main threats arise from
– ‘Herding cats’ - the need for organisations to retain independence
• Policy, operational and procurement decision making
– Perceived imbalances of power (different skill levels)
– Data protectionism - forced or otherwise…
– Lack of data sharing protocols and standards
• Building the business case depends on
– National level policy decisions / win-win situations
– Functions within different organisations being compatible
– Establishing cross-organisation communication channels
• ‘Champions’ or working groups appointed early in process
– Remaining focused on feasible objectives
• Will I ever want data from the other end of the country ?
One Solution does NOT fit all
Internal
External
•
Widespread GI education
•
Vendor neutral solution
•
Information / workflow planning
•
Open data standards
•
Integrated In-House Systems
•
Co-ordinated national programme
•
Strong application development
•
Centralised data management
•
Avoid an application-led approach to technology
– ‘I want a crime mapping tool’...
•
The only way to secure buy-in is by offering opt-out
– Avoid proprietary solutions, exploit open standards
– Mandated systems lead to unhappy users and disparate factions
•
Don’t implement a solution that doesn’t cause organisational change
– Investigate novel solutions - in-house, outsourced, managed services, web-based
solutions, distributed systems,...
Thank You
Dr. Nicholas Smith
QinetiQ
nssmith@qinetiq.com
01252 39 48 33