Welcome to our monthly feature spotlight blog series! Each post will include a brief overview of a specific PredPol feature. We will cover the benefits of using the feature and how it works. This month we'll take a look at the Manage Crime Types tool. If you would like to see last month's feature spotlight on the Daily Patrols Report, click here.

Manage Crime Types:

What is a crime type?

• In PredPol parlance, a crime type is simply a collection of violation codes. Crime types can be either property or personal offenses. Some common crime types include robbery, assault, and vehicle burglary. Crime types can be used in both the predictions and/or reporting that PredPol offers.

• As your officers continue to actively police the PredPol boxes with their discretionary patrol time, the crime types being targeted will trend down over time. As this happens, other crime types may start to trend upwards. An important component of PredPol is to monitor these crime trends over time to make sure you’re efficiently and effectively focusing your efforts. For example, if PredPol is generating predictions for commercial burglary, and your officers are adequately dosing the prediction boxes, you can expect commercial burglary to decline over time. However, you may experience an increase in residential burglary during the same period as offenders change their behavior in response to your deterrent efforts. In this case, you’d want to manage your crime types to predict on residential burglary as well.

• In addition, your analysts and officers may identify different violation codes that are leading indicators of future crimes. For example, you may find that burglaries and robberies are strong leading indicators for overdoses. If so, you may want to create a crime type for overdoses which is made up of burglary and robbery violation codes. PredPol already offers all the tools you need to gain insight into these trends and stay ahead of the curve on emerging crime trends in your community.

How do I manage my crime types

• Navigate to the ‘Crime Types’ tool under the ‘Manage’ tab:

• There are two main functions of the tool: to add new crime types and to edit existing crime types. To add a new crime type, enter the crime type name, select a color for map display, and select the violation codes or event description that will roll up into the new crime type:

• Then create a matching rule for the selected violation codes/event descriptions. You can select exact matches (for example, only violation codes that equal ‘211 PC’ will be classified as a robbery), or you can select a “fuzzy” match (for example, all event descriptions with the word ‘weapon’ will be classified as a weapons offense).

• To edit an existing crime type, select the crime type and click the ‘Edit Crime Type’ button:

• In the ‘Crime Type Edit’ window, make the desired changes the same way you’d make them when creating a new crime type:

• Whether you’re adding a new crime type or editing an existing crime type, you must reclassify your data. This ensures accurate predictions and reporting for your new/edited crime type. To start classification click on the 'Start Classification' button as shown below.

• That's it! You can now easily manage existing crime types as well as add new crime types as crime trends change across your community. 

If you would like to learn more about the Crime Types tool or any other feature: