Crime Tech for Crazy Times

With all the madness and chaos going on out there last night, tonight, tomorrow night, not to mention more days of tension and turmoil, I’m again compelled to revisit a topic I blogged about a while back – on crime tech.

Operational crime tools are fine and dandy, but they require good people to run them. And part of running this is the need to link all the pieces of technology together. Different developers and providers provide different systems to the security forces per the specifications provided, rooted in the needs and objectives of these pieces of technology. However, if the specifications for individual systems fail to include the need to link up these pieces together, then we’re wasting our time. Operationally, there are two conditions – peacetime and wartime. In peacetime, collect intelligence, collate data, make sense of known patterns and trends, deploy technologies sensibly. And when the inevitable wartime drops, like what’s going on now, these systems morph into force multipliers. We cannot take on the gunmen gun to gun and man to man on their turf. They would out-number us, and we would hope our security forces are better trained, but this is off-set by their home court advantage.

Use of current systems already deployed by the security forces to enhance firearms training (FATS), forensic investigations (IBIS, AFIS, CODIS), and Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) systems on helicopters are all good and well, and these can be augmented by plans to deploy GPS-tracked motor vehicles and CCTV cameras, and improve current cellphone tracking technologies and systems. But it’s how all these come together in wartime operations where we see the effective benefits play out. Command and control systems, supported by proper communications systems between bases and field commanders, and from commanders to field operatives, is crucial. This is where it no longer becomes technology for technology’s sake, but technology as a vital life and death support mechanism.

The legislative support for such technologies is important to make sure that the important advantages that technologies offer us are not negated by old laws that neuter our ability to protect ourselves from those who would abuse us. Everybody laughs about the use of CCTVs, that people will just shoot them out etc. But apart from the fact that any good camera should be able to get a shot of the shooter before the trigger is pulled, and we should be able, with the combined use of intelligence and other supplemental technologies (the ShotSpotter system can also detect and pinpoint gunfire), to find the shooter. This is assuming the camera is even damaged; there are kevlar-armoured camera casings out there. So having done that, we need to ensure the collection of the CCTV information as evidence and its admissibility in court; the role of the CCTV camera is not single-purpose. Certainly, its deployment will involve so many components that to maximize the benefits of this would require multiple use of a single technology in this case.

White collar crime investigations deploy a whole different level of technologies, but I’m not getting into that here. I’m talking about the hardcore deployment of technologies into war zones. The use of satellite imaging to assist in intelligence and major operations allows for a different dimension than a standard paper line map, where police can see recent or near-recent images of actual buildings not captured on a line map, as well as incorporate GPS-mapped data into the system, which will add intelligence collected, giving names to places seen on imagery and overlaid accordingly. Imaging has also been useful in a more nefarious and long drawn-out war we’ve become accustomed to – the war on illegal drugs, with the identification of marijuana fields, and potential landing sites for the notorious Haitian guns-for-drugs operations.

It’s just how we weave this all together. This means nothing if we don’t use it. This means nothing if we use it and nothing changes. If nothing changes, then we’re not using it properly. Technology is only as good as how it’s used. There’s no replacement for good people. And we need good people more than ever to take the reins from those who would condemn us to ignorance and poverty.

Finally, there is one very specific issue I wish to address within the context of this blog and situation. The Hannah Town Police Station, which was burned down yesterday, was the site of an after-school computer centre dedicated to giving children in the community a place to go after school to do their homework and/or interact with computers and the internet. It was also designed as a means by which the police could interact with members of the community and show that they’re not the enemy. The destruction of this place goes beyond the building itself, and the impact of this will be felt far beyond the police itself. Who are they really hurting? I just hope that the people being held hostage in west Kingston realize this fact, and turn on their captors. Time to put the blame where blame belongs.