"... In Vancouver, geographic information system (GIS) data and direct
marketing have been linked by computer to produce Orion, a new
law-enforcement tool. This locally-developed geographic "profiling"
system enables police to analyze vast quantities of information --
psychological profiles, aerial photos, postal codes, motor vehicle
licensing information, letters from criminals, census data and land-use
records -- to find out where a serial criminal is most likely to live.
The new Vancouver Police Department Geographic Profiling Section, headed
by Detective Inspector Kim Rossmo, helped develop the Orion system which
manages "mail-outs" to the targeted areas with requests for further
information and descriptions of wanted suspects. According to Rossmo,
"We've even been successful getting mail-outs into the offender's home,
with interesting results."
Orion software performs a spatial analysis of the furnished data and
produces a three-dimensional "jeopardy surface" which is a multicolored
map highlighting the most probable target areas. It "gives you an optimal
searching path for the area," according to Rossmo who developed a
prototype of Orion after receiving a doctorate at Simon Fraser University
where environmental criminologists Paul and Patricia Brantingham had
developed a model showing that where a criminal lives affects where he is
likely to commit a crime. Rossmo worked the other way around, trying to
show that "most offenders commit crimes in their `comfort zone,' which is
often not far from where they live", the conceptual basis for Orion whose
"jeopardy surface" highlights the probable "comfort zone" of an
individual criminal.
---------------------------------------------
<END OF FILE>
from:
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES
Intelligence, N. 64, 14 July 1997, p. 2
HIGH-TECH CYBER COP NOW OUT ON THE BEAT
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