Executive Summary

Crime is a serious problem that has plagued New Mexico for decades [1], and is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Solutions such as training and deploying more officers are a temporary solution and extremely costly. The average cost of a police officer is nearly $149,362 with supervision [2], making it an expensive solution, especially for a financially limited state such as New Mexico. The best way to address crime is to raise more people out of poverty, educate more people, and improve the economy, but until long-term solutions are put into place crime will remain high while resources for police departments are limited. Considering this, every police officer serving is a valuable asset and should be used as effectively as possible to increase performance.

To address this, our team has created a model which forecasts and weighs crime, then places officers where they would be most effective based on forecasted data. The model works in four parts. First, it collects data on crime, including the location and the time of occurrence, as well as what happened. It then forecasts the possible crime rates based on the collected data, and then determines the best place to position police officers. Finally, it displays the predicted crime and proposed officer locations on a map. This offers a temporary solution to addressing high crime rates and rising response times whilst more advanced and long term solutions are created.

Model

Visualization