Miami Twp. Police Chief and Interim Administrator Ron Hess said, “This is going to allow the officers compare hot spots in the township, compare them hot spots in Moraine” and other cities.
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“It’s going to help our detectives with investigations,” Hess added. “It’s going to help our sergeants direct patrol. It’s going to help our officers direct their own patrol. (To ask) ‘what’s happening on my beat?’ Take beat ownership.”
The cities are members of the Miami Valley Communications Council’s Tactical Crime Suppression Unit. Under the plan, the crime suppression unit would join with Miami Twp. in using the LexisNexis service at costs ranging from $5,516 to $10,016 annually per community, records show.
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“It’s a way for us to, one, use our own crime data and figure out where the trends are and where we need to put our resources,” Kettering Police Chief Chip Protsman said. “But it also shows us what’s going on in other cities and the trends that they’re having as well.”
The TCSU invited the township, Protsman said, because it touches a majority of the cities involved, “and we want to see what’s going on there as well.”
LexisNexis unveiled the system more than a year ago, calling it “a new policing technology that gives law enforcement greater visibility into crime in both their jurisdictions and nationwide by linking billions of public records with agency-provided data.”
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The MVCC’s crime suppression unit compared three systems before selecting Accurint. It got the nod over Footprint and Environmental System Research Institute, two other products law enforcement agencies use in crime analysis.
A comparison by West Carrollton Police Chief Doug Woodard indicated Accurint has more than twice as many positives than the others.
Among them were a combination of cost, ease of use, flexibility and scope of data offered, records show.
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“LexisNexis searches dozens of categories of records from thousands of jurisdictions all over the country. All of this information would be included as part of the Accurint program and would be available to all (eight) jurisdictions,” Woodard wrote in his analysis.
“The use and operation of the Accurint program requires minimal training and is intended to be utilized by the rank and file of each department,” he added.
Overall, “the Accurint product seems to be a culmination of many of the best attributes and characteristics as Footprint and ESRI while maintaining a very similar financial obligation to that of ESRI,” according to Woodard’s findings.
Miami Twp. trustees last week approved a measure paving the way for the LexisNexis contract. MVCC partnering cities are expected to address the issue in the coming weeks, Protsman said.
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COMMUNITY COST/YEAR
Kettering, $10,016
Centerville, $8,516
Miami Twp., $8,516
Miamisburg, $8,516
Springboro, $8,516
Germantown, $5,516
Moraine, $5,516
Oakwood, $5,516
West Carrollton, $5,516
TOTAL: $66,144
SOURCE: West Carrollton Police Department
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