Smart police approach to business intelligence

The Netherlands’ Amsterdam-Amstelland Police Department has received the "Excellent Performance Award 2009" for its information-driven organisation

For over five years now, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Amsterdam-Amstelland Police Department have been working together in the field of information management and business intelligence. From 2007-2009, Professor Dr. Stijn Viaene, Steven De Hertogh and Luc Lutin conducted a study on the police department’s achievements in the area of information management (and specifically, business intelligence architecture) during the past five years. Their research paper supported the jury’s decision in conferring the Excellent Performance Award.

Information flow is key to success

For the police department, this award crowns a number of years of hard work. Indeed, good information flow is the foundation for successful police intervention. Police force priorities are quickly and clearly translated into the (preventive) counteraction of street crime. Information from numerous internal and external sources is combined into an integrated information reporting system so that (amongst other things) the police capacity can be geared to the probability that lawbreakers will commit a crime at a particular location, at a particular time.

The system’s effectiveness is also constantly improving. The police are more often at the spot where a crime is about to be committed, so that criminals are walking, as it were, right into the agents’ waiting squad cars. Thanks to clear feedback to the agents on the street, the system is providing an extra incentive to keep them enthusiastic and involved in innovative initiatives regarding information management. Needless to say, this is also helping to continually improve the quality of the data entered, which is often a real challenge for many organisations.