CODY Citizens’ Crime Mapping: The Newest Trend in Public Safety Software Increases Citizen Awareness in PA

POTTSTOWN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Berks County, PA District Attorney, John Adams, announced last week that citizens in the county will now have access to an interactive, online map detailing the crimes happening within the county, thanks to the new CODY Citizens’ Crime Mapping Module for COBRA.net (http://www.codysystems.com) powered by The Omega Group’s CrimeMapping.com (http://www.crimemapping.com). Visitors to the site can view interactive maps, generate reports for specific types of crimes, specific time periods, and much more. The goal of the crime mapping tool, Mr. Adams said, is to enhance local community policing efforts by increasing citizen awareness of crimes happening throughout the county.

“With the county-wide real-time records sharing and reporting that CODY’s COBRA.net system already provided our county, adding the CODY Citizens’ Crime Mapping module to COBRA.net was the next logical step”

Mr. Adams is hoping that with the implementation of this new tool on top of the existing COBRA.net system, citizens of Berks County will be more aware of the crimes happening around them and encourage the residents to inform police officers with tips to help solve crimes faster.

“This tool is designed to be the eyes and ears for our law enforcement,” Mr. Adams said.

Berks County purchased the CODY Citizens’ Crime Mapping Module as an add-on feature to the COBRA.net County-wide Information-Sharing System already in place for over 10 years in the county. COBRA.net synchronizes data from all connected RMS databases throughout Berks County within seconds of entry and already provides the C.tac 5 search app for law enforcement officers anywhere in the field to search county-wide for persons, vehicles, police activity and more. Now, with the Citizens’ Crime Mapping Module online, such information is also available through the Omega Group’s CrimeMapping.com website, offering residents in all districts within Berks County the ability to see types and volumes of crimes happening not only in their backyards, but across the entire county. This is another example of how the COBRA.net platform can fuel virtually any tool(s) agencies wish to use to extend and inform the use of the data available through their county/region or state-wide information sharing networks.

“With the county-wide real-time records sharing and reporting that CODY’s COBRA.net system already provided our county, adding the CODY Citizens’ Crime Mapping module to COBRA.net was the next logical step,” said Lt. Todd Trupp, Head of the Berks County Chiefs of Police Technology Committee. “It also allowed our county to leverage the previous investment in the COBRA.net system to increase the efficiency of our government at minimal cost to the County.”

The purchase of the crime mapping tool was funded by District Attorney drug forfeiture funds and was purchased at no cost to the taxpayers in the county.

City officials and several law enforcement professionals attended the press conference last week when the announcement was made. Here is a link to the story which aired on WFMZ, Channel 69 News in Reading, PA. Website maps crimes in Berks County

To view a video and short tutorial of CrimeMapping.com, please follow this link: http://www.crimemapping.com.

ABOUT CODY SYSTEMS

CODY Systems (http://www.codysystems.com) is a 33-year veteran of the Public Safety Software market, providing integrated software to nation-wide public safety, homeland security and intelligence agencies of all sizes and tiers, from rural police departments up to state-wide and federal agency deployments. Our mission is field safety for police officers, sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement agents, augmenting investigators' instincts through intelligence-led policing. CODY's award-winning solutions include Desktop RMS, Express RMS/CAD and Field Reporting, Hosted RMS, Dispatch, investigations, corrections, etc., as well as the COBRA.net Cloud-ready information-sharing platform, with its C.tac 5 tactical search app, which integrates, shares, and provides true real-time information on ALL entities across jurisdictions to officers on the street, investigators and upstream destinations -- regardless of the RMS vendor that participating agencies use.