A windowless room with a two-story video wall and a vast digital database is the nerve center of the Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center. With the center, police have access to a warehouse of data at their fingertips, providing up-to-date information with ease. The program, according to Government Technology magazine, sets the standard for the use of technology in government. As such, they have placed Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on their annual top 25 list of Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. The individuals on the list “represent the best and brightest in public-sector [information technology].”

“Kelly has continued New York’s pioneering CompStat crime-mapping strategy,” the magazine says, “but he’s also taken city law-enforcement efforts to another level, presiding over the development of New York’s Real Time Crime Center.”

The center, considered a critical tool in keeping crime low, was originally piloted in 2005 to address murder and shootings. But it was expanded in 2006 to include the addition of all police arrest records dating back to 1995, when the system also saw a number of technological improvements. The center supports over 100 detective squads and around a dozen Investigative Response Vans, and its data is available to all detectives investigating major and violent crimes including rapes, robberies, stabbings, kidnappings missing persons, and sex offenders. In his State of the City address the year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he plans to add “a comprehensive database of firearms evidence.” Soon, it will be connected to the city government’s municipal WiFi system.
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