1.1 Background of The Study
Man by nature is social, gregarious and cannot live in isolation. To maintain peace and harmony in the society, man has to fashion out conduct and some laws to govern the conduct of members of the society. When people appreciate these codes of conduct and laws, protection of lives and properties are guaranteed.
Generally tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move andsupplying a timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a modele.g. capable to serve for depicting the motion on a display capability.
The traditional and age-old system of intelligence and criminal recordmaintenance has failed to live up to the requirements of the existing crimescenario. Manual processes neither provide accurate, reliable andcomprehensive data round the clock nor does it help in trend prediction anddecision support. It also results in lower productivity and ineffectiveutilization of manpower. The solution to this ever-increasing problem lies inthe effective use of Information Technology. Crime Tracking InformationSystem uses computer-generated records as an interface for integrating andaccessing massive amounts of location-based information.
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Crime tracking system allows police personnel to plan effectively foremergency response, determine mitigation priorities, analyses historicalevents, and predict future events. Crime tracking system helps identifypotential suspects to increase investigators suspect base when no leads areevident. The ability to access and process information quickly whiledisplaying it in a spatial and visual medium allows agencies to allocateresources quickly and more effectively. In the ?mission-critical‘ nature oflaw enforcement, information about the location of a crime, incident,suspect, or victim is often crucial to determine the manner and size of theresponse. Crime tracking software helps co-ordinate vast amounts oflocation-based data from multiple sources. It enables the user to layer thedata and view the data most critical to the particular issue or mission.It is used world over by police departments, both large and small, to providesolutions for crime analysis, criminal tracking, traffic safety, communitypolicing, Intranet/Internet mapping, and numerous other tasks.Crime tracking system helps crime officers determine potential crime sitesby examining complex seemingly unrelated criteria and displaying them allin an interface. It also helps them map inmate populations, fixtures, andequipment to provide for the safety of inmates by separating gang members,identifying high-risk or potentially violent inmates, and identifyinghazardous locations in an area. It reduces the potential for internal violence
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by providing better command and control. Traditionally, these activities have been supported by paper and pen. Police officers now have the ability to immediately generate crime report directly relevant to the situation at hand. Police agencies collect vast amounts of data from many sources including called-for-services, arrests, first information reports and daily report. The same information provides a powerful decision making tool for investigators, supervisors, and administrators.
1.2 Statement of Problem
The Nigerian Police, which is used as a case study, has an existing criminal Tracking System, but this system is not automated. The documentation of criminal records is done on paper and pen. The storage of these criminal records is not something to write home about.
Case files are dumped in heaps while some are kept on shelves. With themoldy nature of the state such important documents quickly get dusty andbecause of lack of proper storage, some criminal documents are seriouslydamaged by rats that feed on them. With this kind of situation, it becomeshighly difficult if not impossible to track down known criminal, access pastcriminal history of a suspect and know the status of some concluded cases.
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1.3 Purpose of the project
The project intends to computerize the existing Criminal Tracking System at the Nigerian Police. Specifically, the project will accomplish the following:1) Design and develop a central database system that would serve asstatewide repository of criminal data. The smaller database systemat the sub-police station will be networked to the central databaseto access criminal data on cases not handled at the local station.This database system will be updated by local police station withinthe state as well as the police headquarters. (acting as a criminaldata collection centers)2) The central database system will be resident on a server at the
police headquarter and will be linked to both the local police station and the Central Criminal Registry via a client- server between station as well as Criminal Justice, the rendering of Criminal Justice.
3) The database system will capture detailed information about crime
suspect right from the time the crime was reported at the police
down to the point the suspect appears before the court for
prosecution as thereafter.
4) The systems will posses features that will enable criminal data to
5) be purged from the system, updated and queried.
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1.4 Justification
Implementation of a crime information system by the Nigerian police will
help the police and the masses to get useful information on individuals with
crime records. The system developed will among other things:
suspect
1.5 Scope of the project
Basically any Criminal Tracking System as an integral part of the Criminal
Justice Information System consists of three major sections, that is:
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1.6 Limitation of the Project
Due to time and financial constraint, I was unable to visit few of the policestations in Nigeria to gather information on the existing crime informationsystem. Few police stations were visited and the information gatheredfrom the officers in charge forms the basis for the design of the newsystem.The project did not cover the Prison and the Magistrate Segment, which could also be automated.
1.7 Project Report Organization
The project is organized as follows;-
Chapter one introduces the project; the background of the project is also discussed. The objectives of the project, its significance, scope, and constraints are pointed out.
A brief history of the Nigerian police and review of literature on Criminal Tracking System are subject matter of Chapter two.
Chapter three discusses system Analysis and design. It deals with detailedinvestigation and analysis of the existing system and problem identification.
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Chapter four covers the system implementation, testing and integration
Chapter five was the summary of findings, limitations of the project, recommendations, bill of engineering measurement and evaluation conclusion, bibliography, appendix A and Appendix B of the project.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Crime: A normative definition views crime as deviant behavior that violates prevailing norms – cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally
Criminalization: One can view criminalization as a procedure deployed by society as a pre-emptive, harm-reduction device, using the threat of punishment as a deterrent to anyone proposing to engage in the behavior causing harm.
FIIB: Federal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau IGP: Inspector General of Police
DIG: Deputy Inspector General
FCID: Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) is the highest investigation arm of the Nigeria Police NPF.