By John Vandiver, Greensboro News Record (North Carolina)
HIGH POINT, N.C. - When Neighborhood Watch leader Robert Nichols patrols Campbell Street on the West Side, he knows what he’s looking for - drug dealers.
What concerns Nichols is that not everyone else in his neighborhood, or High Point more generally, understands what is going on around them.
“If everybody follows what goes on in the community, things will get better,” he said.
High Point police are hoping to close that information gap in the coming months with several computer initiatives to make the department more community-connected.
Chief Jim Fealy said posting more crime information on the department’s Web site has been one of his goals since he took over the force in 2002.
“I wanted to make it more available. It’s a customer-service issue, but it’s also an efficiency issue,” he said.
Each day, people arrive at police headquarters on Leonard Street, looking for police reports and inquiring about instances of crime in their neighborhoods.
Much of that information will be available online within three to six months.
One of the programs, Police 2 Citizen, developed locally by SunGard OSSI, will give people online access to some of the most requested information police provide, such as incident, arrest and traffic reports.
High Point joins a department in Coral Gables, Fla., as the only two police forces with plans to provide such information through the P2C computer program.
Also coming to the Web will be advanced crime-analysis programs that will map crime trends in High Point.
“The technology has gotten much, much better and a lot less expensive,” said Eleazer Hunt, High Point police’s crime analyst. “We’re going to encourage people to use the Web.”
One of the advances will allow residents to search for crime data in specific communities. People will be able to get information about their neighborhoods, town house and apartment complexes. For example, if you want to know about burglaries in Emerywood, just log onto the department’s Web site.
The information could also be useful for prospective home buyers, according to Fealy.
“There’s the information. You see it. You make the call,” Fealy said.
The program, known as Community View, was developed by a San Diego-based technology group.
“That will give you the what, where, when. It will be very easy to use,” Hunt said.
The technology upgrade also includes benefits for police, including advanced crime analysis that maps trends and better identifies hot spots.
In all, police are spending about $100,000 on the programs. The money came from local block grants and cash seized by police during drug busts and other arrests.
“It’ll be a useful tool. People will be able to keep up on things,” said Nichols, the neighborhood watch leader.