Ontario Government Justice Cluster: Fighting Crime Through Collaboration

By Heather A. Smith
(Article appears courtesy of itWorld Canada)
The circumstances were chilling and all too familiar: a serial rapist was prowling Scarborough. He had broken into over a dozen houses, assaulted eight women and was terrorizing the community. But unlike the case of the "Scarborough rapist", who managed to evade police by changing communities, raping and murdering three other victims before he was finally caught, this time Toronto police had a new weapon with which to fight – the Major Case Management (MCM) system. And unlike the previous case, the "bedroom rapist" was caught in just six weeks with the help of a system that was able to link three different but similar tips from three different people and highlight a suspect to police officers. A DNA sample led to a quick arrest and conviction, and the prevention of untold suffering.

In the tragic Paul Bernardo case, tips about his involvement languished for years in the thousands of boxes of files collected by three different police departments and were never connected. As a result, following Bernardo's conviction, Mr. Justice Archie Campbell was appointed to make recommendations on improving police investigations into major crimes in Ontario. His report found that the organizational processes for multi-jurisdictional investigations were non-existent and that there was limited information-sharing between police services.

"If a serial offender moved to a different jurisdiction, he might as well have gone to a different country," explained Bill Van Allen, Detective Superintendent of the OPP and the MCM Project Director. "We had no experience, no skills and no dedicated resources to manage these types of cases." Greater cooperation and sharing between police services was therefore a key recommendation of the Campbell Report.

However, even where there was willingness to share, the lack of a standard approach to investigating major cases (e.g., murder, sexual assault, missing persons), meant that there was no effective way to exchange information. "Police departments had to photocopy their documents and physically transport them," said Rick Codini, MCM's IT Project Manager. "Information wasn't searchable and wasn't manageable." A major case could involve literally rooms full of file and evidence boxes, making it virtually impossible to cross-reference information or make sure that leads didn't fall through the cracks.

Even before the Campbell Report was issued, it was obvious to many in the policing community that changes had to be made. Under the leadership of James Young, Chief Coroner and Commissioner for Public Safety and Security for Ontario, a small group of police chiefs began to look at what other jurisdictions were doing in this area. Unfortunately, they found that everyone had the same problems; there were no "silver bullets" available. However, their proposal that every police service adopt a standard terminology and common approach to solving major crimes was incorporated as a second major recommendation of the Campbell Report. A final recommendation was to introduce a case-management tool to allow police investigators to better manage information both within and between jurisdictions.

The MCM system was developed to address these three recommendations. It is the first of its kind in the world and winner of the 2003 ITX Award for Business Leadership. It connects every police service in Ontario to a multi-jurisdictional early warning system, and combines a standard investigative approach with common tools to support the management of major cases.

While the system is world-class, getting there was a "tremendous leadership challenge", according to Ean Algar, Halton's Chief of Police. "We had to develop consensus across many different groups of stakeholders, including 66 different police departments." To address the wide variety of requirements and perspectives involved, a Transition Steering Committee composed of Deputy and Police Chiefs of representative police services in the province, the Chief Coroner, and senior Ministry officials including John DiMarco, CIO of Justice Technology Services, was formed to guide the project.

"A critical success factor for this project was the clear vision this committee brought to its work" stated DiMarco. "From the start, it was committed to making MCM work and there was a clear focus on deliverables."

The Steering Committee played a crucial role in gathering support for MCM from across the province. Its leadership took many forms. First, it met frequently to make decisions and to ensure the project was on track and had the resources and support it needed. Second, it had to form strategic alliances with the host of different stakeholders (see sidebar). Particularly important was gaining provincial support and resources for the extra costs and work that MCM would involve. Third, communication was crucial. Committee members made many presentations to ensure all stakeholders were solidly behind the project. Fourth, it established a series of sub-committees to deal with such complex issues as governance and software selection in a more hands-on fashion. Finally, it made sure that seasoned, credible investigators were involved in every aspect of MCM.

"Bill Van Allen's appointment as the Project Director gave us instant credibility in the policing community," said Codini. "His deep knowledge of investigative practices opened many doors and helped bring everyone together." Van Allen's team from several police forces established system requirements, the common method of case management to be followed, and designed training for every investigator in the province.

IT's leadership role was equally important, but more subtle. It provided all the behind the scenes "heavy lifting", including project planning, coordination with the user team, alignment with the architecture to facilitate future forms of information sharing, software research and procurement, vendor management, project management, addressing security and privacy concerns, piloting the project, technology training and implementation. The project team and Di Marco's staff were so committed to making the project a success that it completed the system's rollout in June 2000, a full year ahead of schedule.

MCM consists of two key pieces of software:
1. Xanalys PowerCase is used for entering and maintaining all investigative information (e.g., reports, statements, tips, persons, vehicles, locations, events etc.). Its PowerIndexing feature uses Intelligent Extraction and Natural Language Understanding to automatically locate "objects" (e.g., people, locations, vehicles) in a witness statement and to identify their relationships to one another. It interprets a witness statement written in narrative form and cross-indexes key objects and relationships for extraction into the triggering database. Its Watson feature draws connections and provides graphical representations of relationships between people, suspected criminal organizations, sequencing of events and forensic objects.

2. Triggering Data Base. This contains selected information for persons, vehicles, locations and phones. It is extracted from the PowerCase database and identifies common information among cases, flagging potential links among different investigations.

The system assists investigators in collecting, managing, retrieving and analyzing large volumes of investigative data. It tracks and links related information between cases to identify possible serial and predatory offenders. Once a link between two or more cases is confirmed, a Joint Management Team is formed to steer the investigation. MCM then provides online connections, giving investigators real-time access to each other's cases. Other features track the tasks involved in the case and prepare Crown Briefs.

While not a substitute for skilled police analysis, MCM has substantially changed how major cases are investigated in Ontario and provides a valuable tool to improve the focus and efficiency of their analysis. As one investigator commented, "It's like flying a 747 when you're used to a kite."

There have been many less obvious benefits of the system as well. "Simply identifying the possible links between cases has led to many more interactions between police forces, promoting interpersonal relationships and willingness to share information" said Codini. Van Allen noted, "The system enables us to clear people much faster than in the past, helps prevent police 'tunnel vision', and is a huge time saver."

"There is a huge preventative element to this system," stated Young. "If we can use it to catch people sooner and before their crimes escalate in violence, we will be able to dramatically reduce the incidence of serial major crimes."

Article courtesy of itWorld Canada