It doesn't take the place of a crime analyst. In fact, Whisenant emphasizes that this is not a crime analysis tool. What Command Central does do is provide officers with information that they can use in their everyday jobs, even accessing charts and graphs from in-car computers.
"It puts numbers and data at the fingertips of officers, where normally a crime analyst would have to do that," Whisenant explains. "What we do is use their existing CAD [or RMS] database and get access to that data and are able to display it in a browser in a way that's intuitive," says Whisenant.
With Command Central, you can compare crime by area and type and track trends over time in chart and graph form. You can also view crime activity on a map that can delineate different beats. With side-by-side maps, you can compare crimes by area, date, and type. A "heat map" even shows crime hotspots by displaying data from the last 90 days, with different crimes coded with different colors for easy tracking of trends. If you zoom in, you can access more detailed statistics, and even see the report filed for a particular incident.
Despite the variety of functions provided, Whisenant says the learning curve is minimal. "We don't sell or offer training, because it's not needed. Everything is simple to learn and simple to use."
Versatility and ease of use make the Command Central tools work for individual agencies and even individual officers with different concerns. But what really sells many departments on the suite of services is the price.
