OFFICER Labs: CrimeTracer Gen3 From SoundThinking
What to Know
- CrimeTracer Gen3 consolidates over one billion records from more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies, facilitating comprehensive data sharing and analysis.
- The platform features advanced search capabilities, including AI-powered Chatbot, enabling quick and detailed data retrieval from multiple related sources.
- Field analysts like Brittany Dyer and Liza Quirino highlight the system's ability to generate detailed reports, track trends, and manage case data in real time.
One of the biggest advantages that law enforcement has seen develop in the past two decades is the immense amount of data we have access to. The challenge that has grown with the amount of data is the ability to properly manage, mine, analyze and correlate that data into easily understood and easy-to-act-on information packets. The OFFICER team was introduced to CrimeTracer Gen3 from SoundThinking, Inc. (creators of ShotSpotter) and tasked with evaluating the system for value to the law enforcement community. In brief, we are more than impressed. For a more detailed look at the system, keep reading.
We first started out talking with Paul Bailey who is the Senior Director of Customer Success & Product Management, and he’s been with CrimeTracer for over 20 years — since before the new moniker “CrimeTracer” actually existed and it was a product called CopLinkX. When asked to give a brief description of CrimeTracer, Paul said, “It’s Google for cops.” He went on to explain that it was the first CJIS-compliant search engine specifically designed for law enforcement agencies. The primary goal of CrimeTracer was to empower agencies to share RMS data across jurisdictional lines, and with over 2,000 agencies contributing data into the consolidation system, it has access to over one billion CJIS records.
CrimeTracer Gen3 — what we’ve reviewed here — is actually the third major generation of the product, building upon previous versions and introducing brand new functionality.
Our team couldn’t simply take Paul’s word for it that CrimeTracer Gen3 is the best data analysis and reporting tool available, so we talked with two field users who have extensive experience with it. Our first interview was with Brittany Dyer at the Tempe Police Department. Brittany is a tactical analyst for that police department and is tasked with performing data research to provide write-ups for detectives. Her job involves analyzing trends that she can hand off to those detectives as well as generating BOLOs, bulletins and Roll Call briefings.
Brittany’s statement during the interview was, “CrimeTracer Gen3 has become essential to how we build workups. It pulls together the information officers and detectives need in one place.” That’s a bold statement, and when we asked her to support it, she explained that CrimeTracer empowers searching for related documents or items by using any pieces of available data. For example, by searching a name and date of birth the analyst can get back a plethora of related information from vehicles to weapons and even to include Modus Operandi for any crimes attached to the individual searched. CrimeTracer will even return data on associates of the individual searched and all the vehicles, weapons, etc. related to them, if applicable.
Brittany added that the Chatbot in CrimeTracer Gen3 was the best feature in her opinion. With two types of searches available, quick (searches narratives for given terms) and advanced (searches data fields for specific data), the Chatbot allows the analyst to refine and get greater detail out of the system with the help of the incorporated AI.
After our conversation with Brittany, we got in touch with Liza Quirino, Crime and Intel Analyst at a large law enforcement agency, who served as a beta tester for CrimeTracer Gen3. As part of her job, Liza uses CrimeTracer almost constantly throughout her workday. Liza said, “The case management segment of CrimeTracer is a game changer for me. You can keep a virtual folder open as you search and add items as you find them in real time.”
Having interviewed two field users, we returned to a call with SoundThinking’s Paul Bailey who, online, demonstrated for us a new dashboard in the system that aggregates RMS/crime data and segments it out as necessary for building briefs or determining asset assignments. Further, that information can be focused down to make it of greater value for a given patrol sector or beat. Mapping can be tailored to officers in their patrol area and with data from a specific time frame.
With all of that in mind, the OFFICER Media Group is proud to award CrimeTracer Gen3 from SoundThinking our “Tested – Field Rated” seal of approval. For more information go to https://www.soundthinking.com/law-enforcement/crime-data-solution-crimetracer/.