Useful forecasting tool
The Zurich City Police have been working with a forecasting tool for residential burglaries for over a year. The tool has proven itself in everyday practice.
Once again, apartment burglars are on the loose. Today they are up to mischief in this neighborhood, the next day in another. But when and where exactly? This question is central to the police force's ability to be on the scene before the perpetrator, so to speak. For this reason, the Zurich city police have been working with a new type of forecasting tool for about a year and a half. But they are not the only ones using the tool; it is also in use in Aargau and Baselland. The software does not have clairvoyant abilities, says Thomas Schweer from the Institute for Pattern-Based Forecasting Technology at the recently conducted Swiss Police Informatics Congress (SPIK) in Bern. "Precobs" is an analysis and progonosis system for fighting crime; it was developed in close cooperation with and for the police. This type of crime hunting goes under the term "predictive policing".
Of course, nothing works without precise information, even with "Precobs," which has to be fed with as much crime data as possible. In this way, the tool does nothing different than any experienced police officer, only much faster, says Dominik Balogh from the Operations Department of the Zurich City Police. The system can recognize offender-related patterns from large amounts of data, which, according to Thomas Schweer, allows conclusions to be drawn and thus a look into the future. International studies show that geographical districts where offenders have been on the move often strike again in a short time and in the immediate vicinity. This is known as the near-repeat phenomenon.
It is important for Thomas Schweer to mention that "Precobs" is merely a tool for police work. But even for Balogh, who has tested the system in everyday practice in Zurich, it is undisputed that the analysis of experienced police officers is still needed. According to him, based on the recently published crime statistics of the Zurich Cantonal Police, residential burglaries have decreased in those city neighborhoods where the forecasting tool has been used. Now the city police wants to extend the system to burglaries of commercial properties, Balogh further said.
