U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

DEP

ARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OF

FIC

E OF JUSTICE PRO

GR

AM

S

BJA

N

IJOJJ DP BJS

OV

C

The Chicago PoliceDepartment’s InformationCollection for Automated

Mapping (ICAM) Program

National Institute of JusticeP r o g r a m F o c u s

2 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

The Chicago Police Department’sInformation Collection for AutomatedMapping (ICAM) Programby Thomas F. Rich

computerized mapping to be a valu-able tool that had not yet reached itsfull potential.1 Because mapping soft-ware has a unique ability to overlaydisparate data sets (e.g., citizencomplaints; police incident data; thelocations of specific sites, such asabandoned buildings or liquor stores;

To better understand the nature and extent ofcriminal and social problems in the community andimprove allocation of resources, a growing number ofcrime control and prevention organizations are turningto computerized mapping. A recent National Instituteof Justice (NIJ) study reported that officials found

Highlights

Computerized mapping is emerging as aneffective tool to help police departmentstrack criminal activity in neighborhoods.Combined with a technique known asgeocoding (which verifies addresses andlinks other geographic information withthem), computer mapping software cancombine data sets to provide a multidi-mensional view of crime and its potentialcontributing factors.

Although many large police departmentsare using this technology, the ChicagoPolice Department (CPD) has put togetherone of the most accessible and easy-to-useprograms in the Nation. Since its imple-mentation in May 1995, the InformationCollection for Automated Mapping(ICAM) program has been praised by thecity’s police officials, beat officers, andthe public.

Because the mapping program was cre-ated in conjunction with the Department’scommunity policing program, the mapshave been an effective way to work withresidents on addressing problems in theirneighborhoods. The maps are expected tobecome regular features of neighborhoodbeat meetings with police officers.

User Friendly

ICAM’s unique easy-to-use design can betraced to the mandate of the ICAM co-project coordinator, Deputy Superinten-dent Charles Ramsey, who said the map-ping system should be “so user-friendly,even I can make a map.” The systemdesigners also factored in the needs ofofficers. A CPD detective and an officerspent several weeks at a precinct stationfinding out what officers wanted from thecomputerized mapping system.

Using a series of clicks made with a com-puter mouse, ICAM can produce a map ofreported offenses of a particular type in aspecified area, or it can produce a chart ofthe 10 most frequently reported offensesin an area. A keyboard is not required forthe ICAM system.

The computer hardware and software forICAM were developed with a $1 milliongrant from the Illinois Motor Vehicle TheftPrevention Council. The council under-stood that computer mapping could per-mit geographic analysis of the relation-ship between the locations of a car’s theftand its subsequent recovery—thus,

potentially contributing to significant re-ductions in motor vehicle theft and savingmillions of dollars for the insuranceindustry.

Planned EnhancementsICAM currently is not fully accessible tothe public because no program exists toblock out confidential information, suchas the names and addresses of victims. Amodified version of ICAM is being devel-oped that will allow the public to generatemaps and lists of crimes in their neighbor-hoods without divulging confidential data.

ICAM is currently limited in its ability toaid crime analysis. For example, an officercannot generate a map of calls for serviceor arrests. Major revisions, being madeunder an initiative known as ICAM 2, willaddress these and other issues. For ex-ample, the enhanced system will be able tomap reported offenses within specifieddistances of a location (e.g., within 1,000feet of a school) and track changes incrime over time. In addition, a new citywide911 emergency network will allow offic-ers to access the data bases of districtsthroughout the city.

Program Focus 3

PROGRAM FOCUS

and census data), computerized mapscan provide a multidimensional over-view of crime and its potential contrib-uting factors.

Computerized mapping is particularlyuseful for police departments withcomputer-aided dispatch and recordsmanagement systems, which storeand maintain calls for service, aswell as incident, arrest, and otherdata that are potentially mappable.These systems typically have a geo-coding feature that verifies addressesand associates them with other geo-graphic information, including policereporting areas, beats, and districts.

Before implementing computerizedmapping systems, however, policedepartments are faced with a numberof issues:

■ The costs of the necessary hard-ware and software can be substantial.

■ Commercially available mappingsoftware is more complicated andharder to learn than word processingor spreadsheet software and oftenrequires special multiday trainingcourses. This limits the accessibilityof the mapping software and oftenmakes police departments dependenton a small number of specially trainedpersons.

■ The data to be mapped must beavailable on an ongoing basis to en-sure that maps are timely and up-to-date. Unless the mapping system canuse electronic data that already existin the department’s computer-aideddispatch or records management sys-tems, substantial data entry costs will

be incurred when the data are trans-ferred to the mapping system.

■ Procedures are required to ensurethat addresses of data to be mappedare accurate (e.g., street names arespelled correctly). Ideally, an addresswould be verified whenever it is en-tered into a computer system. How-ever, it may be necessary, first, todevelop an accurate base map; policedepartments may want to undertakethe time-consuming, albeit one-time,task of editing computerized streetfiles of their jurisdictions. The streetfiles can be obtained from the U.S.Bureau of the Census or commercialgeographic data vendors, but even

these files may have missing or un-named streets or incorrect addressranges.

The Chicago Police Department(CPD) has overcome these obstaclesand put together a mapping system—Information Collection for Auto-mated Mapping (ICAM)—that canbe used by police officers throughoutthe agency. While a growing numberof law enforcement agencies havehighly sophisticated mapping systems(see “Mapping Systems in Other Po-lice Departments”), it appears thatonly CPD has a system that enablesofficers with little or no special train-ing to create and quickly retrieve

Mapping Systems in Other PoliceDepartments

Numerous police departments around thecountry use mapping software, in mostcases, to support crime analysis activities.The Dallas and Los Angeles Police De-partments are among the more active usersof this technology.

Dallas. The Dallas Police Department hasdeveloped what might be called a “text-only” version of ICAM. Located at eachpolice substation, a “walk-up-and-use”system produces a list of reported offensesthat meet specified criteria. Once a list isgenerated, the user can export it to a gen-eral purpose mapping software package(the Department uses MapInfo) that can beused to map the list of offenses. A “hand-ful” of officers in the Department—andat least one civilian at each substation—know how to use MapInfo.2

Los Angeles. The Los Angeles PoliceDepartment contracted with MapInfo

Corporation to develop a custom softwareapplication that allows users to generatemaps of reported offenses meeting speci-fied criteria. The options for querying thedata base of reported offenses are exten-sive—a user can specify crime types, dateand time ranges, modus operandi, pointsof entry/exit, property descriptions,weapon descriptions, suspect descriptions,vehicle descriptions, victim descriptions,and narrative key phrases. The applica-tion is installed at all 18 area stations,where it is used by the area crime analyst.The analyst uses the application to pro-duce crime alert bulletins, “in-custody”bulletins, and “wanted” bulletins. The ap-plication is also used to enhance cases, torespond to officers’ requests for crimemaps, and to generate crime maps for areabiweekly tactical planning meetings.3

4 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

ICAM’s Relationshipto CAPSIn 1995, officers in all of Chicago’s25 police districts began using ICAMto better understand the problems intheir assigned areas and to developstrategies to address them. The offi-cers also began to share ICAM mapswith residents, improving police-community relations and giving citi-zens a chance to help police cut downon crime by providing data for jointpolice-community problem-solvingefforts. Developing ICAM was thusan integral part of Chicago’s commu-nity policing approach.

The superintendent’s strategicvision for ICAM. The importance ofusing and sharing information throughtechnology was a key element in thesuperintendent’s 1993 plan for imple-menting CAPS:

The Department must continue toseek out and apply new technolo-gies, as it has done in the past withAFIS, Live-Scan, and other sys-tems. New technologies must gobeyond finding better ways todetect offenders and respond tocrimes: they must provide theinformation and analytical capa-bilities that help police officersand the community identify andsolve problems and, therefore,prevent crimes.

Information is power. To supportour new, decentralized approachto decisionmaking, the Depart-ment must establish a new, decen-tralized approach to data collec-tion and analysis as well. Systems

their own maps of crime and commu-nity conditions and share them withthe community. This Program Focusdiscusses ICAM in terms of its devel-opment and implementation; currentfeatures, usage, and impact; plannedenhancements; and implications forother police departments.

The Context forICAM: CommunityPolicingICAM was developed as part of CPD’sfar-reaching and ambitious communitypolicing strategy. Unlike many othercommunity policing programs that arelimited to a single unit in the depart-ment, the Chicago Alternative PolicingStrategy (CAPS) is departmentwide.The strategic plan for reinventing CPDdescribes CAPS as a “wholesale trans-formation of the department, from alargely centralized, incident-driven,crime suppression agency to a moredecentralized, customer-driven organi-zation dedicated to solving problems,preventing crime, and improving thequality of life in each of Chicago’sneighborhoods.”4 In fact, CAPS isreally a city program with strong sup-port from the Mayor’s office and closeinvolvement of city agencies, whichhave been directed to give top priorityto “CAPS service requests” that affectcrime and neighborhood safety.

CAPS was launched in April 1993in 5 prototype police districts; it hassince been adopted in all of the city’s25 districts. CAPS revolves aroundthe beat officer, who is assigned for

a minimum of 1 year to a single beatwithin his or her district.5 Beat officersare instructed to focus on problemsolving, and dispatch procedures havebeen changed to limit the time theyspend responding to calls for serviceoutside their assigned beats.6 Beatofficers are also required to attendregularly scheduled “beat meetings”with community residents.

The evaluation of CAPS, partiallyfunded by NIJ, has focused on theprogram’s implementation in the fiveprototype districts.7 The 1995 reportstated:

[Many] prototype district residentsdetected positive changes in polic-ing during its first year of opera-tion, and residents of most of theprototypes thought the police hadgrown more responsive to com-munity concerns. There was alsoevidence that the program led to asignificant decline in crime-relatedproblems in three prototypes, drugand gang decline in two districts,and significant decreases in levelsof physical decay in two areas.Many of the changes in percep-tions of crime problems in theprototype areas were mirroredby declines in officially reportedcrime and survey measures ofvictimization.8

Wesley Skogan, director of the evalua-tion effort, called the results of CAPS“among the most substantial I’veseen” compared to other communitypolicing programs in the country.9

Program Focus 5

PROGRAM FOCUS

should be put in place to giveofficers the information theyneed, when and where they needit. Where appropriate, these sys-tems should also provide com-munity members with up-to-datestatistical information to helpthem in identifying and targetingproblems.10

The superintendent also emphasizedthe importance of accessibility as afeature of any new information sys-tem: “In many cases, computers willneed to be moved out of the backroom, where they have served asspecialized tools, and into the opera-tional levels of our organization,where they can become more flexibleand far-reaching tools of the police.”11

Developmentof ICAMUsing the superintendent’s strategicvision as a guide, Officer JonathanLewin (24th District) and DetectiveLarry Soltysiak (Area 4 Division) tookon the challenge of developing a sys-tem that would provide useful infor-mation directly to the beat officer. Atthe time, beat officers relied on hand-written offense reports to determinethe level of criminal activity in theirassignment areas, which took days toanalyze in any detail. Computerizedincident data were kept on CPD’smainframe, but the system was ac-cessible only to trained computeroperators.

CPD’s prior experience with map-ping. Developing ICAM was notCPD’s first attempt to implementcomputerized mapping. Two earlier

collaborations between researchersand CPD had demonstrated both thefeasibility and utility of such an ap-proach. The first effort in 1988, anNIJ-funded project, involved CPD,the Chicago Alliance for Neighbor-hood Safety (CANS)—an umbrellaorganization that trains communityresidents in problem solving)—andresearchers at the University of Illinoisat Chicago and Northwestern Univer-sity in creating a rudimentary map-based crime analysis system in oneCPD district. In their report, the re-searchers stated that the system had animpact in a number of areas, including:

[In] combining data from differentsources, in providing an institu-tional memory of a beat, in pro-viding detectives with the abilityto search for patterns more readily,in permitting proactive manage-ment by the district commander,and in improving community re-lations between the police andcommunity organizations.12

Warren Friedman, executive directorof CANS, believes that initiation ofthe ICAM project was a particularlysignificant step toward obtainingCPD acknowledgment of the impor-tance of working with communityorganizations.13

Later, in 1991, researchers at theIllinois Criminal Justice InformationAuthority and police officials inCPD’s Area 4 teamed up to implementa map-based system for studying streetgang crime.14 The study helped iden-tify those areas with the highest risk ofgang-related violence. This effort wasnotable because it combined policedata with a wide variety of community

data, including the location of rapid-transit stops, schools, youth organiza-tions, public housing facilities, parks,liquor stores, and demographic data.15

These maps could depict not only“hot spots” and other locations wherecrimes were committed but also anarray of associated and possibly con-tributing factors.

To build on these previous efforts,in 1993 Officer Lewin and DetectiveSoltysiak first spent several weeksin the 11th District (Area 4) inter-viewing beat officers and detectivesand testing various formats to deter-mine the presentation and type of in-formation that would be most useful toofficers and detectives. The consensuswas that maps—“simple, clear, andeasy-to-read”—would be the most use-ful format to display crime information.

Obtaining funding. However, oneobstacle to developing the computer-ized mapping system was cost. Fora comprehensive system to be put inplace, money was needed to pay forthe hardware and software at all 25police districts and specialized CPDunits at the area level, which includeda work station for running ICAM, aserver for network maintenance andsupport, and a laser printer.

CPD applied for and received a $1million award from the Illinois MotorVehicle Theft Prevention Council(IMVTPC) to buy the necessary equip-ment. IMVTPC, created in 1991 bythe insurance industry, envisionedcomputerized mapping as an effectivetool for auto theft investigators be-cause it would allow a geographicanalysis of the relationship betweenthe location of a car theft and the

6 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

number of ways, each of which re-quires a few additional mouse clicks.As shown in exhibit 1, page 8, the usercan change the default query param-eters by specifying one or more sec-ondary classifications of the primaryoffense, changing the desired geo-graphic area, changing the date andtime range, or specifying a particulartype of location.

The ability to map offenses meetingthese criteria is a standard feature ofany map-based crime analysis system.What is unique about ICAM is theway in which the user formulates thequery. By default, ICAM maps of-fenses occurring in the past 10 days.However, any date and time range canbe selected (e.g., the past 2 days ormidnight to 8 a.m. during the pastmonth). The simplicity of the methodfor selecting a date and time rangeillustrates the efforts made by theICAM development team to ensureICAM’s accessibility to officers.Since keyboards are not attached toICAM PC’s, the traditional way ofspecifying a date and time range—typing in the starting and ending datesand times—could not be used. Instead,a calendar screen is displayed (see“ICAM’s Query Screens”), and theuser simply clicks on the desiredmonth, day, and year for both thestart and end dates. There is a similarscreen for selecting the time range.

After the user clicks “Do It!,” ICAMruns the query against the offensedata file and displays on the screenboth a map and a tabular view of theoffenses meeting the specified criteria

location of the car’s recovery.IMVTPC supports a variety of vehi-cle theft prevention programs; forexample, they provided funds formobile data terminals for CPD patrolcars in 1992, which enabled patrolofficers to query State and nationalstolen vehicle files.

If computerized mapping could re-duce the number of auto thefts inChicago—where two-thirds of theState’s auto thefts occur—IMVTPCbelieved it could save the insuranceindustry millions of dollars each year.IMVTPC made the award even withthe understanding that the mappingsystem would cover all crimes, notjust those related to automobiles.16

From prototype to implementation.With funding secured, Lewin andSoltysiak, then joined by Gene Chin,a senior systems analyst in CPD’sData Systems Division, began devel-oping the mapping system. But afterattending a workshop on using com-puterized mapping for crime analysisat the Illinois Criminal Justice Infor-mation Authority in August 1993, theteam realized that although many po-lice departments had sophisticatedcrime mapping systems, no depart-ment had a system that was accessibleto beat officers.17 Thus, the team hadto create a unique prototype. In latesummer 1993, the development teamset up its first model in CPD’s 24thDistrict. The results were disappoint-ing. Beat officers found the systemtoo complicated to use, and the 10 to15 minutes required to generate a mapwas considered unacceptable.

Then in summer 1994 CPD DeputySuperintendent and CAPS Co-ProjectDirector (then Deputy Chief) CharlesRamsey made an unannounced visitto the 24th District. Ramsey issued achallenge to the development team:Implement a system “that is so user-friendly even I can make a map.”18

The team focused its efforts on devel-oping a system that, in terms of easeof use, more closely resembles anautomated teller machine (ATM) thanstandard office automation software.In addition to changing ICAM’s hard-ware and software platforms,19 theteam decided that ICAM would notrequire use of a keyboard (in fact,ICAM PC’s do not even have key-boards). Instead, all user selectionsand commands would be issued witha mouse.

In October 1994, an ICAM prototypewas set up in the 24th District. ByMay 1995, ICAM was installed in all25 districts.

ICAM FeaturesWhen the ICAM computer is turnedon, the main screen automaticallyappears (see “ICAM’s QueryScreens”). The two main tasks thatICAM performs are indicated in theboxes containing the “Do It!” buttons:ICAM can produce a map of reportedoffenses of a particular type in an area,or it can generate a list of the 10 mostfrequently reported offenses in a beat.

ICAM allows a user to generate a mapin as few as three mouse clicks. Asimple query can be modified in a

Program Focus 7

PROGRAM FOCUS

(see “ICAM’s Information Screens”).The map displays the specified geo-graphic area (e.g., district, sector, orbeat), the streets in this geographicarea, the names of major streets, andicons showing the location of eachoffense meeting the specified criteria.If secondary offenses have been re-quested, each type will have a different

icon, with all the different icons beingshown in a map legend window.

At this point, the user has several op-tions (see exhibit 2, page 10), includ-ing printing the map or tabular view ofthe data, displaying community data,performing other geographic analyses,or returning to the ICAM Main Screen

and formulating another query. A listof the ten most frequently reportedoffenses in a beat in the past 10days—the “Top Ten” feature ofICAM—can be obtained with justthree mouse clicks. The default timeperiod of 10 days can be changed byaccessing the date and time selectionscreens.

ICAM’s Query Screens

From the ICAM Main Screen, the user can selectthe default setting to map the locations of allreported robberies occurring in the past 10 daysin a district; the user simply has to:

1. Click on the primary offense scroll button todisplay the list of primary offenses.

2. From the list of primary offenses, click on“robbery.”

3. Click on the button labeled “Do It!”

The user could choose to pose a different queryto obtain a list of the most frequently reportedoffenses in a beat; in this instance,the user would:

1. Click on the “pick beat” scrollbutton to display the list of beatsin the district.

2. From the list of beats, click onthe desired beat.

3. Click on the button labeled“Do It!”

If the user wants to specify a differ-ent time and date range from the10-day default period for the query,he or she moves to the followingcalendar screen and clicks on thetime period desired.

TO MAKE MAP:

TOP TEN

DO IT!

DO IT!

8 20 95 30 958

8 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

cost of entering the data. Fortunately,ICAM was able to “piggyback” ontoexisting data-entry procedures in thedistricts to minimize costs. Data-entryprocedures are standardized. At 6 a.m.in each district, offense reports writtenduring the previous 24 hours are en-tered in a PC-based data base pack-age—a practice instituted long beforeICAM for the purpose of producingdistrict “24-hour” reports. To enhancethe data consistency, the user selectsvalues from predefined lists ratherthan simply typing in values. Forexample, if the offense is a burglary,the user selects “burglary” from thelist of offenses rather than typing inthe word “burglary.” Once these dataare entered, the data-entry clerk fol-lows a three-step procedure: (1) ex-ecuting a “geocode” routine on thedata, during which the latitude andlongitude of the location of each of-fense are computed; (2) executing a“copy” routine that extracts the of-fense data and writes it to a diskette;and (3) executing a “load” routine thatcopies the new offense data from thediskette to ICAM. These proceduresensure that ICAM data are, at most,24 hours old.

The importance of the geocode step inthis process should be emphasized. Asnoted earlier, some addresses stored inpolice files may be initially unmappa-ble because the underlying street mapsare incomplete or inaccurate. A teamof researchers from Loyola Universityin Chicago encountered this problemin 1991 when they attempted to mapthe location of homicides in Chicagousing the U.S. Bureau of the Censuscomputerized street files (i.e., TIGERfiles). The researchers found missing

Exhibit 1ICAM’s Mapping Features: Query Components

Component Options

Primary Offense Only one primary offense can be selected per map.

Secondary Offense For the selected primary offense, up to 10 secondaryclassifications can be selected. For example, if robberyis the primary offense and the secondary offenses are“with a knife” and “with a gun,” then only robberieswith a knife or a gun are mapped.

Geographic Area The choices are the entire district, one sector, or onebeat. The default selection is the entire district.

Date Range Both a start and end date are selected. The defaultselection is the past 10 days.

Time of Day Range Both a start and end time are selected. For example, ifthe user is only interested in offenses occurring duringthe day shift, 800 to 1600 would be selected. Thedefault selection is all day.

Type of Location The type of location includes those categories listedon the CPD General Offense case report—examplesinclude on a bus, in an apartment, at a business, and ata church. If “in an apartment” is selected, then onlyoffenses occurring in apartments would be mapped.The default selection is all types of locations.

ICAMImplementationand TrainingAn official unveiling ceremony ac-companied installation of ICAM ateach of the city’s 25 districts as thedevelopment team introduced thesystem to district police officialsand residents during the period fromOctober 1994 to May 1995. AlthoughICAM was designed for easy accessi-bility, training in its use was stillneeded by police officers at the districtstations. The ICAM development teamproduced an 8-minute instructionalvideo to be played during roll call atall district stations. Detective Soltysiakalso spent 2 days at each district sta-tion demonstrating ICAM to officersand training district administrativemanagers, who would then serve

as contact persons to provide assis-tance to district personnel. Thus, thedevelopment team adopted a “trainthe trainers” approach to ICAMinstruction.

The development team also wrote anICAM users’ guide and prepared aone-page “Quick Map” instructionsheet, which was posted next to theICAM PC’s in each district station.The ICAM PC’s were placed in acommon area (e.g., behind the districtdesk), rather than being locked in anoffice, to make them accessible topolice personnel around the clock.

Quality of data. The availability oftimely and accurate data is key toICAM’s effective use. One of thepotential obstacles that police depart-ments face in implementing computer-ized mapping systems is the added

Program Focus 9

PROGRAM FOCUS

ICAM’s Information Screens

A query on criminal damage to vehicles would result in a map and tabular data.

A query on the top ten offenses in one beat does not generate a map but, instead,produces a simple list and graph.

streets near the boundary of the city,unnamed and misnamed streets, andincorrect or missing address ranges.They corrected these problems andadded important landmarks to theTIGER files.20

The researchers provided these im-proved files to the ICAM develop-ment team, who refined them evenfurther. About 95 percent of the of-fenses entered at the district stationsare geocoded automatically by thecomputer.21

Use and Impactof ICAMICAM has fulfilled two of the keyrequirements for successfully imple-menting CAPS; it has provided:

■ Police officers with an automatedtool for analyzing timely and accuratecrime information.

■ An effective and convenientmechanism for sharing informationwith the community.

Support for ICAM. As a result,ICAM has earned enthusiastic supportfrom high-ranking city and CPD offi-cials. Mayor Daley, who attended 10of the 25 district unveiling ceremoniesfor ICAM, has said, “ICAM is the bestthing to come from the police depart-ment in years.”22 CPD SuperintendentMatt Rodriguez has pointed to ICAMas the epitome of decentralized deci-sionmaking: “[ICAM] goes a longway to making the officer the chief ofpolice of his beat.”23 CAPS Co-ProjectDirectors Barbara McDonald andCharles Ramsey have seen ICAM

10 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

Exhibit 2ICAM Mapping Features: Options Once the Query is Run

Option Comment

Panning and Zooming The section of the map shown on the screen can be moved in any direction (panning), or thedistance across the displayed section of the map can be changed (zooming).

View Details of Offenses A tabular view of the data is produced (see “ICAM’s Information Screens”). The data elementsinclude: address, house or apartment number, case report number, crime code, primary offenseclassification, secondary offense classification, whether the offense is a Part 1 index crime, date,beat, start and end times, location code, type of location, number arrested, four analysis fieldsused to flag special offenses (e.g., domestic violence, gang-related offenses), offender descriptionor name, vehicle make, vehicle model, vehicle year, and the beat in which the vehicle was taken.

Print Map The map can be printed. A disclaimer is shown at the bottom of the printout indicating that theclassification of the offense is based only on the facts known at the time the offense was reported(see exhibit 3). Printed maps can be shared with the community.

Print Tabular View The tabular view of the data can be printed. However, because the offense information availableof Data in ICAM is unverified, printed tabular views of the data are not shared with the community.

Add Vacant Buildings The locations of vacant buildings can be added to the map.to the Map

Add Schools to the Map The locations of schools can be added to the map.

Add Establishments with The locations of establishments with liquor licenses can be added to the map.Liquor Licenses to the Map

Add “EL” Stops to the The locations of Chicago Transit Authority elevated (EL) railway stops can be added to the map.Map

Radius Select A list of all offenses within a specified distance from a specified location on the map can begenerated (e.g., all offenses within 1,000 feet of a school) and displayed in a table.

Area Select A list of all offenses within a specified beat within the sector or district can be generated anddisplayed in a table.

as critical to the success of CAPS.ICAM, Ramsey said, has been “alinchpin of the whole strategy.”24

Of equal importance has been the re-action at the district stations. Althoughno formal survey of officers has beentaken, in general, they have praisedthe simplicity of the system and saidit helps them in performing their jobs.

Data on ICAM usage. The actualnumber of CPD officers who are usingICAM is not known. The developmentteam estimated that 20 percent of allofficers use ICAM regularly, 60 per-cent use ICAM occasionally, and 20

percent use it rarely, if ever. One mea-sure of ICAM use—the number ofqueries run at each district (a queryresults in either a map or a “Top Ten”list)—can be tracked. From June 26,1995, to July 25, 1995, a total of 6,689queries were run citywide—an aver-age of 223 queries per day citywide,or 9 queries per day in each district.Even more revealing is the increasinguse of the system over time. The num-ber of queries in the period’s fourthweek was 34 percent higher than inthe first week.

Crime analysis. In general, the mostcommon use of computerized mapping

in police departments is for crimeanalysis. Crime analysts use mappingsoftware to prepare crime alert bulle-tins and other reports. Because ofICAM’s simplicity, all CPD officershave access to analytic tools that areunavailable to police officers in otherdepartments. No determinations canbe made of the number of crimesICAM has helped to resolve, but anec-dotes of ICAM’s effectiveness as acrime-solving tool for CPD are plenti-ful (see “ICAM in Action”).

ICAM also helps beat officers to makedecisions about their work plans. Of-ficer Valeria Mac, a beat officer in the

Program Focus 11

PROGRAM FOCUS

Members of the ICAM development team check out the program.

Ph

oto

by Jo

na

tha

n C

oh

on

routinely distributes ICAM maps atbeat meetings, has noted, “everybodylikes the maps.” In one beat, commu-nity residents had already been pro-ducing hand-drawn maps, so theywere especially appreciative of ICAM.In many beats, community residentscall Officer Mullen prior to the meet-ings and request that she bring certainmaps, particularly those depictingoffenses that residents find mostproblematic.

In many districts, ICAM is relativelynew, so the impact of ICAM-producedmaps among residents is still un-known. Also unknown is the extent towhich residents are using ICAM todevelop new strategies for improvingtheir neighborhoods. A recent CANSpublication encouraged residents at-tending beat meetings to take advan-tage of the maps to prioritizeneighborhood problems, develop andplan a strategy for addressing prob-lems, and, later, use ICAM to assess

whether the problems are recurring.26

Warren Friedman, of CANS, a long-time advocate of police-communitypartnerships, is pleased that CPD nowroutinely shares information with thecommunity. ICAM “helps to facilitatediscussions with the police depart-ment,” Friedman says. But he cautionsthat it is too early to tell if the tech-nique will help residents develop moreeffective and appropriate strategies tocombat neighborhood problems.27

Court Advocacy project. ICAM isimportant to another component ofcommunity involvement in CAPS—the Court Advocacy project. CourtAdvocacy units exist in every policedistrict. Their purpose is to “identifycrime problems within their policedistricts—especially those...whichnegatively impact upon quality oflife—and to follow those cases incourt in order to actively participatein and have an effect on the criminaljustice process. The intended out-

24th District, said she regularly usesICAM as an aid in deciding where toconcentrate her foot patrol activities.When Mac returns to her beat aftera few days off, she prints out ICAMmaps so she can see where crimeswere committed.

Beat meetings. Since the success ofCAPS depends on police-communitypartnerships, beat meetings are a pri-mary mechanism for soliciting com-munity involvement. These meetings,which occur regularly in each ofCPD’s 279 beats, are intended to be“the forums in which officers andresidents jointly develop plans fortackling neighborhood problems.”25

The cornerstone to developing strate-gies that address neighborhood prob-lems is the availability of timely andaccurate information on their natureand extent. ICAM is helping to fulfillthis information need as officers rou-tinely bring maps to meetings anddistribute them to residents (see ex-hibit 3). However, the tabular viewof the data, available to officers usingICAM, is not made public because itis not fully verified (i.e., ICAM con-tains information recorded on the ini-tial offense report that has not yetbeen validated by detectives or otherfollowup investigators). In addition,exact street addresses of the offensesare excluded to prevent identificationof victims. However, the maps allowresidents to see the approximate loca-tions where offenses occurred andprovide an overall understanding ofcrime in the area.

One neighborhood relations officer inthe 24th District, Athena Mullen, who

12 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

ICAM in ActionAnecdotes of how ICAM has been used tohelp solve crimes include the following:

■ In March 1995, three officers in the10th District caught three teenagers in theact of burglarizing a home.28 The sur-rounding area recently had experienced arash of burglaries, and the officers sus-pected that the teenagers were responsiblefor many of them. The teenagers con-fessed to committing several of the bur-glaries, but they could not remember theaddresses of the homes. Back at the districtstation, the officers used ICAM to gener-ate a map and a list of all burglaries occur-ring in the past 6 months in the generalvicinity of where the teenagers were oper-ating. With the map and list as a guide,the officers then drove the teenagers tospecific homes to determine which onesthey had burglarized. With just a fewhours’ work, 11 burglaries were cleared,

■ Tactical officers in the 24th Districtreceived a complaint from residents thatdrugs were being sold at a particular streetcorner. Using ICAM to check crime con-ditions at that corner, the officers foundthere had been numerous prostitution ar-rests, but no drug activity. Further check-ing revealed that one particular female—who matched the description provided byresidents—had been arrested several timesat this corner. In this case, ICAM revealedthe true nature of a suspected problem ina neighborhood.

■ In the 7th District, an ICAM mapshowed that the locations of recoveredstolen vehicles were clustered around spe-cific abandoned buildings. Armed withthis information, police officials workedwith the city’s Department of Planning toexpedite demolition of the buildings.

and residents were able to recover theirstolen property, which had been stored inthe home of one teenager.

■ In the 22nd District, officers learned ofa rash of burglaries occurring at schoolsand used ICAM to map the exact locationsof these burglaries and determine patternsabout the times they were occurring. Of-ficers then established surveillance at theappropriate times and locations and soonarrested a burglar as he was fleeing aschool.

■ In the 3rd District, residents at a beatmeeting complained about an increase incriminal activity. Using ICAM, officersspotted an area in the beat that had experi-enced an increase in burglaries and robber-ies. Tactical officers set up surveillanceand arrested three offenders for armedrobbery.

comes...include: encouraging police/citizen participation in fighting crime[thus] sending a strong message tojudges, prosecutors and others in thecriminal justice system that the com-munity is involved and watching.”29

Eileen Donnersberger, manager of theCourt Advocacy project, sees ICAMas “a useful tool for deciding whattypes of cases to follow.”30 For ex-ample, an ICAM map might show aseries of prostitution offenses occur-ring at a particular intersection; track-ing these cases through the criminaljustice system might be an effectivestrategy for addressing the prostitutionproblem at that site. Use of ICAM inCourt Advocacy units is still new, butDonnersberger sees ICAM as having“tremendous potential.” While theadvocacy units currently rely on CPDto provide them with ICAM maps,they will soon have direct access tothe system.

Current ICAM limitations. AlthoughICAM represents a major improve-ment in information delivery systemsfor CPD, its capabilities are still lim-ited. Reported offenses are the onlypolice data that can be mapped—dataon calls for service and arrests are notincluded in the system. Moreover, theoffense classification is based only onthe facts known at the time the offensewas reported. If, after further investi-gation, the classification changes, amodification would not be reflected inICAM. In addition, only one offensecan be mapped at a time; a map show-ing the locations of burglaries anddrug offenses, for example, cannot begenerated. Finally, district personnelcan map offenses occurring onlywithin their district. A host of reasonsaccount for these limitations, includingtime and resource constraints and therequirement that the system be assimple as possible to use. RecognizingICAM’s successes and limitations,

CPD plans to expand usage and train-ing while making major revisions tothe system.

Future ICAMEnhancementsA new CPD directive being imple-mented in 1996 requires beat officersto bring ICAM maps to monthly beatmeetings. ICAM is also being in-cluded in the CPD training academycurriculum, so that candidates will beinstructed on its use. Other enhance-ments planned for ICAM will makeit more accessible to the public andto the CPD command staff.

ICAM 2. The overhaul of ICAM be-gan in September 1995 with a newsystem dubbed ICAM 2. As CAPSCo-Project Director BarbaraMcDonald explained:

Program Focus 13

PROGRAM FOCUS

The current version of ICAM hasfulfilled its original purpose andhas achieved national exposure asan innovative, cutting-edge lawenforcement application. It contin-ues to assist in the day-to-dayproblem-solving activities of po-lice officers and members of thecommunity and is a critical com-ponent of the CAPS model, pro-viding useful information directlyto the hands of users. However,we now propose a complete over-haul of the ICAM system. Whencomplete, the new system will beknown as ICAM 2. It will becomemore powerful, more flexible,more useful, and more innovativethan the current version, yet [it]will become even easier to use.31

Superintendent Rodriguez subsequent-ly approved the ICAM 2 developmentplan. ICAM 2 made its debut in May1996 in the 3rd and 12th Districts,and citywide installation should becompleted by October 1996.32 Keyenhancements include:

■ Increased public access toICAM . Because ICAM terminalsare located in secured parts of eachdistrict station and certain informationavailable in ICAM cannot be revealedto the community (e.g., the addresswhere the offense occurred), the sys-tem is not directly accessible to thepublic. A modified version of ICAM,one with certain features disabled andsome data elements blocked out, isbeing developed to be made availablethrough two new and innovative ways.One is through public informationkiosks. Chicago currently has 50 such

Exhibit 3Burglary Offenses in Sector 2 (39*) at Residences

not have access to the Internet at theirhome or office can access the CAPSWeb page at the city’s public libraries.

■ Increased police access to ICAM.ICAM was initially designed as a toolfor beat officers. Under ICAM 2, of-ficers and detectives assigned to gang,narcotics, and youth units also willhave access to the maps. A modifiedversion of ICAM—the CommandInformation System—will be devel-oped for the CPD’s command staff tosupport police planning at the sector,district, area, and citywide levels.

kiosks in the city, which provide (via atouch screen) information on city ser-vices and the CAPS program. A proto-type touch-screen version of ICAMwas recently demonstrated in the 19thDistrict, and an 85-year-old resident(who had never before used a com-puter) generated a crime map of herneighborhood in less than 1 minute.

In addition, a modified version ofICAM will be available on the Internetvia the World Wide Web. Chicagocurrently has a “Web page” that is acomprehensive source of informationon CAPS.34 Chicago residents who do

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

|

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

Loyola Park

W. Pratt Ave.

N. P

aulina St.

N. A

shland Ave.

N. G

lenwood A

ve.

N. S

heridan Rd.

W. Lunt Ave.

W. Greenleaf Ave.

W. Touhy Ave.

W. Chase

W. Jarvis Ave.

N. E

astlake Ter.

W. Juneway Ter.

N. C

lark St.

N. D

amen A

ve.W. Howard St.

W. Morse Ave.

N. Rogers

Ave.

N. R

idge Ave.

W. Jarvis Ave. TouhyPark

W. Estes Ave.

N. W

olcott Ave.

N. R

avenswood A

ve.

Loyola Park

Burglary Crimes 00:00 08/01/95-23:59 08/29/95

Forcible Entry (27)

Unlawful Entry No Force (8)

Attempt Forcible Entry (4)

*This data reflects initial case classification based on facts known at the time the incident wasreported. It may be revised at a later time.

33

14 National Institute of Justice

PROGRAM FOCUS

■ Analysis capabilities.ICAM 2 will vastly improvethe system’s analytical capa-bilities. It will allow officialsto perform temporal analyses(e.g., track changes in thelevel of crime over time indifferent geographic areas),exhibit families of offenseson a single map (e.g., crimesagainst persons or crimesagainst property), map of-fenses occurring within aspecified distance of a speci-fied location (e.g., produce amap of drug offenses occur-ring within 1,000 feet of aparticular school), and map“hot spots” of criminal activ-ity.36 The challenge for theICAM development teamwill be to provide these newfeatures while preservingthe system’s user-friendlynature.

Implications for OtherPolice DepartmentsPolice departments considering a com-puterized mapping system have twobroad design options: employingtrained analysts to produce maps forofficers or developing a system similarto ICAM. In the first scenario, trainedanalysts use commercially availablemapping software to either produce aset of prespecified maps on a periodicbasis or respond to ad hoc requests byofficers for maps.

The second option allows officers toproduce their own maps. The benefits

of the ICAM approach are clear, par-ticularly for departments implement-ing community policing. Since com-munity policing depends on individualofficers taking the initiative to solveproblems and having residents becomeactive partners in this effort, accessto timely and accurate information isessential. While developing an ICAMsystem costs more than an “analyst-only” system,37 members of CPD,from the Superintendent to beat offi-cers, strongly urge other departmentsto consider developing a system thatgives officers this direct access.

Notes1Rich, Thomas F. 1995. The Use of Com-puterized Mapping in Crime Control andPrevention Programs. Research in Action.Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.NCJ 155182.

2Personal interview with Sergeant MarkStallo, Dallas Police Department, in October1995.

3Personal interview with Officer AngeloMorton, Los Angeles Police Department, inOctober 1995.

4Rodriguez, Matt L. 1993. Together We Can.Chicago: Chicago Police Department, p. 13.

5The CPD divides the city into five areas;areas are divided into districts; districts aredivided into sectors; and sectors are dividedinto beats. There are 279 beats in the city. Thesize of beats ranges from 0.31 to 2.54 squaremiles, with the average size being 0.82 squaremiles. Eight to nine officers are assigned toeach beat, with one or two on duty at anygiven time.

6Responsibility for responding to calls forservice within a beat is shared between rapidresponse units and beat officers. Rapidresponse units patrol and respond to callsfor service throughout a sector.

Ph

oto

by

Jon

ath

an

Co

ho

n

ICAM will eventually be installed onlaptop computers in CPD patrol cars.

■ Access to more information.The initial version of ICAM allowedofficers to access only offenses in theirparticular district and a limited set ofnonpolice data. But the implementationof a new citywide 911 emergency com-munications system and fiber optic net-work will link all police facilities andmany city agencies, allowing ICAM 2 toaccess citywide information from sev-eral data bases, including calls for ser-vice and arrests.35 Offense data in ICAM2 also will be more accurate, includingupdated information on offense classi-fication and case status.

At public kiosks, Chicago citizens can learn about cityservices; soon they will be able to obtain ICAM maps.

Program Focus 15

PROGRAM FOCUS

7The two reports are: Chicago CommunityPolicing Evaluation Consortium. 1994.Community Policing in Chicago, Year One:An Interim Report. Chicago: Illinois CriminalJustice Information Authority; and ChicagoCommunity Policing Evaluation Consortium.1995. Community Policing in Chicago, YearTwo: An Interim Report. Chicago: IllinoisCriminal Justice Information Authority.

8Chicago Community Policing EvaluationConsortium. 1995, p. 79.

9Criminal Justice Newsletter. 1995.Community Policing in Chicago Gets HighMarks From Evaluators. Washington, DC:Pace Publications. Volume 26, Number 16.August 15, 1995.

10Rodriguez, 1993, p. 17.

11Rodriguez, 1993, p. 25.

12Maltz, Michael D., Gordon, Andrew C.,and Friedman, Warren. 1989. Mapping Crimein Its Community Setting: A Study in EventGeography. Washington, DC: NationalInstitute of Justice, p. vi.

13Personal interview with Warren Friedman inAugust 1995.

14Block, Carolyn Rebecca, and RichardBlock. 1993. Street Gang Crime in Chicago.Research in Brief. Washington, DC: NationalInstitute of Justice. NCJ 144782.

15From this effort, the researchers developeda handbook that describes the data that couldbe included in a geographic data base or ageoarchive. See Block, Carolyn Rebecca, andLynn A. Green, The Geoarchive Handbook: AGuide for Developing a Geographic Databaseas an Information Foundation for CommunityPolicing. Chicago: Illinois Criminal JusticeInformation Authority, August 1994.

16Personal interview with Gerard Ramkerand Mark Mattozzi of the Illinois MotorVehicle Theft Prevention Council. IMVTPCbelieved that if the 50,000 annual auto theftsin Chicago could be reduced by 10 percent,a $24 million savings could be realized(assuming a $4,800 insurance industry costper stolen vehicle).

17This conclusion is consistent with thefindings of a recent NIJ assessment ofcomputerized mapping in crime control andprevention programs. See Rich, 1995.

18Personal interview with Deputy Superinten-dent Charles H. Ramsey in August 1995.

19The development team decided to changethe hardware platform from Sun Unix workstations to PC’s running Microsoft Windows.This improved both the speed and ease ofuse of the system. Microsoft Visual Basic,MapInfo for Windows, and MapBasic forWindows were used to develop ICAM.

20Block, Richard. 1993. “Geocoding ofCrime Incidents Using the 1990 TIGER File:The Chicago Example” in Proceedings ofthe Workshop on Crime Analysis throughComputer Mapping. Chicago: IllinoisCriminal Justice Information Authority.

21For ICAM and most other mapping applica-tions, geocoding is a two-phase process.During the “automated” phase, the mappingsoftware attempts to assign geographiccoordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude) toas many addresses as possible. Next, duringthe “manual” phase, the user examines thoseaddresses not geocoded during the automatedphase one-by-one and attempts to geocode asmany as possible. With ICAM, 95 percent ofoffenses are geocoded during the automatedphase. After the manual phase, virtually allthe offenses are geocoded.

22July 27, 1995, memorandum from CAPSCo-Project Director Barbara McDonald toCPD Superintendent Matt Rodriguez.

23Personal interview with Superintendent MattRodriguez in August 1995.

24Personal interview with Deputy Superinten-dent Charles Ramsey in August 1995.

25Chicago Community Policing EvaluationConsortium. 1995, p. 26.

26Hennelly, John. 1995. “You Can ICAM” inNeighborhoods. Chicago: Chicago Alliancefor Neighborhood Safety. Summer 1995.

27Personal interview with Warren Friedmanin August 1995.

28This story was featured on Chicago Crime-Watch ‘95, the CPD’s cable television program(Karl Productions, Show No. 25, May 1995).

29Chicago Community Policing EvaluationConsortium. 1995, p. 75.

30Personal interview with Eileen Donners-berger in September 1995.

31July 27, 1995, memorandum from CAPSCo-Project Director Barbara McDonald toSuperintendent Matt Rodriguez.

32Many of the key enhancements are beingfunded with a grant from the Justice Depart-ment’s Community Oriented Policing Services(COPS) office.

33The icons do not necessarily equal thenumber of incidents because more than oneincident occurred at the same address.

34Chicago’s Web page can be accessed bypointing a Web browser tohttp://www.ci.chi.il.us.

35In light of CAPS, including calls for servicein ICAM is particularly important, since callsfor service often more closely reflect citizenconcerns regarding fear and disorder thanreported offenses.

36ICAM 2 will eventually integrate a softwarepackage called STAC, developed by research-ers at the Illinois Criminal Justice InformationAuthority, which locates clusters of criminalactivity in an area.

37The ICAM development team had to writesoftware to allow officers to formulate a queryand to manipulate the generated maps. Thedevelopment team recommends that otherpolice departments allow four person-monthsof time for this software development, assum-ing the police department has or can gainaccess to skilled programmers. Developmentof ICAM required expertise in Visual Basic(Microsoft Corporation), MapInfo forWindows (MapInfo Corporation), and Map-Basic for Windows (MapInfo Corporation).This time estimate does not include time todevelop systems requirements or to test andinstall the system.

About This StudyThis Program Focus was written byThomas F. Rich, an associate in the lawand public policy area of Abt Associ-ates Inc. Interviews for this article wereconducted with the following membersof the Chicago Police Department:

Matt Rodriguez, superintendent;Charles Ramsey, deputy superintendent;Barbara McDonald, director, researchand development; Officer JonathanLewin; Detective Larry Soltysiak; GeneChin, senior systems analyst; and thefollowing staff from the 24th District—Commander Thomas Byrne, OfficerValeria Mac, Officer Athena Mullen,and Officer Jerry Martin.

Interviews were also conducted withWarren Friedman, executive director,Chicago Alliance for NeighborhoodSafety; Richard Block, Loyola Univer-sity of Chicago; Carolyn Block, IllinoisCriminal Justice Information Authority;Jill DuBois, Chicago Community Polic-ing Evaluation Consortium; EileenDonnersberger, project manager, CourtAdvocacy Project, City of Chicago;Sergeant Mark Stallo, Dallas PoliceDepartment; Officer Angelo Morton,Los Angeles Police Department; and thefollowing staff from the Illinois MotorVehicle Theft Prevention Council—Gerard Ramker and Mark Mattozzi.

The National Institute of Justice is a compo-nent of the Office of Justice Programs, whichalso includes the Bureau of Justice Assis-tance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Preven-tion, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Washington, DC 20531

Official BusinessPenalty for Private Use $300

BULK RATEPOSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/NIJPermit No. G–91

On the Cover: Using the ICAM sys-tem, a police officer generates a mapof crime offenses in his district. (Photoby Jonathan Cohon)

This report was supported by Research Ap-plications contract #OJP–94–C–007 fromthe National Institute of Justice to Abt Asso-ciates Inc. Points of view and opinions in thisdocument are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the official position orpolicies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

NCJ 160764 July 1996