LAHORE:  The city police’s investigation wing has launched a mapping  programme to identify the most dangerous areas and work out how to  tackle crime there.
Police officials have been given 
smartphones loaded 
with an  
application designed by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB)  
and taught how to use it to map incidents of crime. The board has handed  
out a total of 83 phones, one 
to each police station.
Crime Records Office SP Mustafa Hameed Malik told 
The Express Tribune  that three or four Police Record and Office Management Information  System (Promis) personnel at each station had been taught to use the  
smartphone app.
The app allows policemen to enter the FIR number, date of occurrence,  
time, description and area of jurisdiction for each crime, as well as  
pictures of the crime scene and the complainant, and mark it on a Google  
map of Lahore using the GPS in the phone. The data is stored directly  
to the PITB database web server in real time, currently accessible only  
to the Investigations DIG and the CRO SP, police sources said.
A source at the PITB said that the main database server shows Google  maps marked with the crime data sent from the field by police personnel  
on their 
smartphones. A satellite view from 300 
metres above ground  level shows the place and 
name of the crime committed. A bubble appears  at the spot, upon clicking which the user can see the data entered about  the crime and the pictures.

Crimes can be viewed on the map separately or collectively. “The  proximity of different crimes in particular areas helps police  understand crime trends better, and thus helps devise appropriate  strategies to fight them,” said Investigations DIG Zulfiqar Hameed.
He said that the crime mapping was “the first step towards smart  policing. It will reduce the crime rate in the city to an extent that  will be felt by everyone within six or seven months.”
The training of policemen for the project began on July 31 and 2,500  cases have been marked on the crime map since then. The PITB sources  said that personnel at 15 of the 83 police stations in the city had yet  to start mapping crimes due to technical problems.
The 83 phones provided to the police came from the PITB, as the  Punjab government has not yet approved 
funds for the project. The PITB  sources said that the phones were given to the board by the Punjab  government during the elections in order to gauge voting trends.
“As soon as the government approves the PC-1 for the crime mapping project, the PITB will be returned the phones,” said the DIG.
The PC-1, seeking some Rs180 million for the project, has been  prepared by the Lahore police and sent to the Planning Commission for  approval, he said. Both the chief minister of the Punjab and the prime  minister have applauded the project, he added.
Hotspots
The DIG said that incidents of crime were not spread evenly on the  map. Clusters he called hotspots accounted for a disproportionate number  of crimes.
“The appeal of focusing limited resources on a small number of high  crime activity places is straightforward. If we can prevent crime at  hotspot locations, then we might be able to reduce total crime,” he  said. “Hotspot policing is a big plank of smart policing.” The mapping  would allow police to deal with crime “surgically” and would end random  patrols, Hameed said. Recent research showed that focused police  interventions, such as directed patrols, proactive arrests, and  problem-oriented policing were far more effective than random patrolling  and picketing, he added.
Hameed said that the new smart policing policy was based on 
CompStat  (comparative statistics or computer statistics), a police management and  accountability system originally developed by the New York Police  Department and now in use in most of North America.
The model seeks to focus police 
organisations on specific problems  and empower them to identify and solve them. “Given the growing  popularity of this approach to crime prevention across the world, it can  help executives and policymakers understand what works in preventing  crime in hot spot areas,” he said.
SP Mustafa Malik said that a pilot project at four police stations  had had positive results. It showed that Gulshan-
i-Iqbal Park alone  accounted for six per cent of car theft in Lahore.
“Just by focusing on that particular hotspot, we managed to reduce  the rate of car theft in the city. Foot patrols followed by patrol  maintenance resulted in significant reductions in calls for service. The  enforcement of a problem-oriented policing strategy also resulted in  significant reductions in total crime incidents, and varying reductions  in all subcategories of crime types,” he said.
He added that extra policemen would be deployed in the 10 areas with the most crimes.
Crimes Investigation Agency SP Umer Virk said that the project would  have great practical use. “Police officers know the locations in their  beats that tend to be trouble spots and are often very sensitive to the  signs of potential crimes across their beats. Pinning crime activities  on digital maps with dates, times and exact locations will enhance  police performance.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 18th, 2013.