Press Release

Cadcorp SIS powers West Devon crime reduction project

Cadcorp SIS – Spatial Information System from British GIS company Cadcorp is being used as the GIS engine for Project Jupiter, a regional government funded pilot IT project tackling crime and disorder being conducted by West Devon Community Safety Partnership.


	Images courtesy of West Devon CSP

GIS has a lot to offer the partner organisations involved in reducing crime and disorder. It is a powerful tool to integrate, analyse and output a wide range of valuable crime and socio-economic data in a highly effective, visual manner. Results of this analysis can be used to best target crime reduction resources to those areas that exhibit high and/or consistent levels of crime and anti-social behaviour. General disorder or anti-social behaviour usually shows itself in particular geographical locations, or what the police term ‘hot spots’. By plotting the incidents and overlaying information from Social Services, Health, DSS, Education and the Local Authority for example, it should be possible to ascertain patterns and causal links that explain crime and anti-social activity. Once common areas are recognised the partner organisations can take action to jointly address the root causes of these problems and their resultant impact on a community.

On a tactical level, a sudden surge in incidents in a particular area would lead to the cross-referencing of a variety of data. It may be that data from a prison shows that certain persons were released to that area at the relevant time. The appropriate partners, for instance the Police and Probation Service, would then be able to investigate possible links. Formal data exchange protocols exist between partners to allow analysis in greater depth, whilst ensuring that the rights of individuals are protected.

West Devon Borough Council is a user of Cadcorp SIS for a variety of council related applications. One such area is for the Borough to work in partnership with Devon County Council and the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary in addressing matters relating to crime and disorder. This is a statutory requirement under the 1998 Crime & Disorder Act. Such partnerships are known to the Government as Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), although many are known locally as Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs). Over 350 exist in England and Wales today.

These partnerships jointly create a three year strategy to tackle crime in a ‘joined-up’ fashion never previously pursued. Rather than simply using police data in isolation for targeting and ‘nicking’ villains. Dave Anning, Crime Reduction Officer for West Devon stated: “The intention is to take a much wider view of tackling crime and disorder than previously. In particular we are interested in establishing underlying causes. The police service deals with end results but has little information about those underlying causes. Much of this information can be obtained through other organisations such as Health Authorities and Social Services”.

West Devon CSP is special because it is now the pilot site of Project Jupiter in Devon . The principle is simple enough. As many partners as possible provide information in the form of sets of data in various geographical formats. The data will have been ‘cleansed’ using Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) by the partners providing it in order to protect the rights of individuals. The data is all loaded onto a computer and the appropriate software is used to integrate, analyse and output the results in various ways. The data sets will all be geographically referenced in Cadcorp SIS so that colour overlays, graphs etc can be used to map the information.

Lee Braybrooke, Cadcorp account manager for West Devon Community Safety Partnership states “The Cadcorp SIS range of mapping products supports over 80 GIS and database formats, making it ideal in situations such as this where data could come in one of the many GI forms. Using SIS, the Project Jupiter team can easily open and analyse the data without the need for data translation, a sometimes costly and lengthy process”.

Dave Anning continues: “We know that the use of GIS in this project is really only limited by our imagination. Furthermore we can look to using GIS as part of our regular project reporting. Thinking ahead, use of GIS on the Web could be invaluable in distributing very visual analytical results. With appropriate access controls, partners throughout the Borough could access and use this data”.

About Cadcorp SIS

Cadcorp SIS - Spatial Information System - is a suite of Windows-based and Web-enabled end user and developer digital mapping and geographic information system (GIS) software products. The desktop suite comprises: Map Viewer, which provides support for over 50 graphic and data formats, thematics and hard copy; Map Manager, which provides the mainstream user the ability to view, explore, query, symbolise and print digital map and associated tabular data; Map Editor, which in addition to the facilities provided by Map Manager, provides the GIS data custodian with tools to view, manage and edit map and tabular data; and Map Modeller, which adds 3D modelling, terrain analysis and several thematic and analytic mapping tools.

ActiveX based developer toolkits and Viewer, Manager and Modeller based runtime licences are popular products for the development and implementation of bespoke applications by third parties that take advantage of Cadcorp’s GIS know-how.

Cadcorp ASC (Active Server Component) extends the functionality of Cadcorp SIS for use over the Internet or a company-wide intranet. It is a dynamic, server-side Web-based GIS, not merely a map-publishing tool for pre-authored images. Cadcorp ASC provides a true, interactive Web-based solution for real time map creation and analysis.

Cadcorp SIS MasterMap Loader is supplied with Map Modeller for the loading and management of OS MasterMap data in relational databases.

Cadcorp apSIS is programmable component software for the development of geospatial applications for the desktop and Pocket PC platforms.

Cadcorp mSIS is a data collection package that incorporates a desktop data capture management application and a Pocket PC based data collection tool.

About Cadcorp

Established in 1991, Cadcorp is a leading developer of digital mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) software. With offices in the USA and UK, Cadcorp’s distribution and VAR network stretches worldwide. The company also plays a pivotal technical role in the OpenGIS Consortium. Cadcorp SIS is currently the only complete product family to attain OpenGIS conformance certification.

Cadcorp SIS applications exist in local government, central government, emergency services, insurance, oil & natural gas, mapping and surveying, commerce, broadcasting and many other markets.

ENDS

For further information, contact: Chris Holcroft, Tel: 01438 747996, e-mail: chrish@cadcorp.com

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