The team, led by Ezra Zubrow, professor of anthropology, will design the algorithms for the software, as well as assess its utility. Also involved in the project are Hugh Calkin, professor of geography; Peter Rogerson, professor of geography, and Stephen Halpern, professor of political science.

Project to develop software

The goal of the project is to develop and test software based on geographic information systems that will provide police departments with the tools they need to optimize resources, such as when and where to deploy officers.

The software package will make these tools available in a standardized, desktop environment that officers will be able to access from their patrol cars. For example, officers on their way to investigate a crime in a particular neighborhood could use the system to call up demographic information about that neighborhood and patterns of incidents in it.

"This project allows us to take the best ideas in geographic mapping and in database structures and analysis, and some innovative ideas about probability theory and put them together, to serve the goals of community policing," said Zubrow.

He noted that while a community, for example, may want more police officers on the street, the best way to do so it may not be clear.

The new tools would assist by making it possible for police to geographically track where the most common criminal occurrences, such as burglaries, happen, as well as where stolen goods are pawned.

Tracking such common crimes and their effects could, he said, allow police to take preventive measures to thwart future criminal activity.

"We're not simply characterizing areas based on social demographics," Zubrow cautioned. "The assumption people traditionally make about high-crime areas is that like incidents occur with like," he said. "Sometimes they don't. Frequently, the patterns are surprising."

Buffalo police to test prototype

Once the UB team designs the algorithms, a prototype will be tested by the Buffalo Police Department.

The software will be integrated into an existing package, called ArcView, now in use by some police departments. ArcView is produced by Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. of Redlands, Calif., the consortium leader, whose president, Eleazer Hunt, is a UB alumnus.

The UB team is working in cooperation with the Salinas Police Department, the San Bernadino County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles Police Department Crime Analysis Unit.