Knowledge Computing Corp. today announced that its award-winning Coplink solution suite is fully deployed at the Chicago Police Department’s Crime Center.
"Coplink’s outstanding performance in over 550 jurisdictions across the country, and its proven ability to meet and exceed the demands of the most sophisticated intelligence led-policing initiatives like Chicago’s is fueling the company’s rapid growth,” said Robert Griffin, CEO of Knowledge Computing Corp. “We are pleased to support the Crime Center’s efforts to increase its effectiveness in thwarting crime and terrorism with Coplink’s tactical lead generation and actionable intelligence capabilities.”
The Chicago Police Department is the largest police department in the Midwest and the second largest in the United States, with 13,500 sworn police officers. The Crime Center serves as the nucleus of one of the largest law enforcement information sharing initiatives in the country, providing 411 police departments and criminal justice agencies in Illinois, Northwest Indiana and elsewhere with real-time access to over 5.8 million law enforcement records.
"Coplink’s ability to instantly detect non-obvious relationships, associations and patterns to generate actionable investigative leads will reduce the time it takes to identify and apprehend criminal or terrorism suspects,” said Interim Superintendent Dana V. Starks. “This will enable us to build on the successes we’ve already achieved at the Crime Center in thwarting criminals who operate across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to avoid detection.”
Coplink provides analysis and decision support for rapidly identifying criminal suspects, relationships and patterns that help solve crime and thwart terrorism. Using a GJXDM compliant interface, it works by allowing vast quantities of structured and seemingly unrelated data—including data currently housed in various incompatible databases and records management systems—to be securely organized, consolidated and rapidly analyzed over a highly secure intranet-based platform.
Through sophisticated analytics, including powerful visualization tools, Coplink builds "institutional memory," reduces knowledge gaps and prevents criminals from falling through the cracks.
Coplink will be used for law enforcement purposes only, utilizing public data from the Chicago Crime Center’s Illinois Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting System data warehouse, known as I-CLEAR. I-CLEAR houses over 5.8 million arrest records from the Chicago Police Department and 130 Cook County law enforcement agencies. Data will continue to reside and be updated within I-CLEAR to protect the integrity of the data and sensitive information.
Coplink was used in the Montgomery County, Maryland sniper investigation. Today, the solution is in use in over 550 jurisdictions nationwide including four of the nation’s five largest cities, helping police officers fight crime, thwart terrorism and improve community safety. A powerful force multiplier, Coplink is documented as conservatively providing a 14:1 investigative time advantage, reducing the time it takes to identify qualified suspects, thereby enabling law enforcement to keep more feet on the streets.
Winner of numerous awards, Coplink was recognized twice by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for deployments in Tucson, Arizona and across the State of Alaska. The Center for Digital Government also recognized Coplink as one of the best-of-breed and most innovative IT projects undertaken by cities in the nation.
