Thursday, September 1, 2011

P3i for public

Our new location-based service application, P3i (Proactive Police Patrol information) is now in the Apple iTunes store and the Android Marketplace.  The public version is just like our internal police-only version, except the data available to the user is different.  For the general public, it is a sanitized subset of police incident reports in the past 30 days: crimes like burglary, theft, robbery, vandalism, and assault—with the exact address and personal identifiers redacted. 

You will be able to see the incident reports of this type near your current location as you move(within Lincoln), based on the GPS position reported by your device.  The app will give you some insight into the capabilities the officers have with the application and you can imagine the full-fledged police-only data that displays on their devices.

On a related note, the Omega Group, our longtime crime mapping software vendor, has recently released a mobile version of crimemapping.com for iPhone.  The app is very similar to the public version of P3i.  Just as with the regular browser version of crimemapping.com, you can sign up for Crime Alerts—something anyone who lives in Lincoln or any other community served by crimemapping.com should definitely do.  I’m subscribed to my own address in Lincoln, and to my daughter’s in Omaha, and even though I swim in the stream of police incident reports and daily briefings, I often find out about crime in my own neighborhood through Crime Alerts. 

12 comments:

Steve said...

Those maps and apps would be a lot more fun if they weren't sanitized.

Anonymous said...

You talked a few blogs ago about saving grammatical errors in Officer reports. If you go to P3i on iTunes it shows it was developed by Thomas Casady, Public Safety Directory.

Tom Casady said...

11:46,

I noticed that a couple days ago. I have no idea how to get it corrected, however, so I'm now referring to my little cubicle as "The Directory."

Michelle said...

Thanks for letting us know about these apps. Now I just need to get my agency on board. Technology is such a great thing.

Anonymous said...

I grew up here in Lincoln and I go to school in Missouri. I am a friend of a police chief here who is sort of my mentor as I am studying Criminal Justice. This summer one of my classes had a discussion about the legalization of drugs. As a young person I support (or at least did) the legalization of marijuana because I feel too many resources are used for a relatively harmless drug. The police chief vehemently is opposed to it. He said you are going to merely change the name of the crime. There will really be nothing to gain from legalizing that. He gave a great comparison that really changed my thinking: He said "Aren't we doing pretty much the same thing with prescription drugs? They are heavily regulated and it is a serious crime to have them in your possession if you aren't prescribed them. Yet, they are the number one cause of overdoses in our country today. I will just mention alcohol. No need to elaborate on that." It was pretty much game, set, match. The chief won. lol

I know it had nothing to do with your post but thought you would have a bit of insight on this subject.

ARRRRG!!!! said...

My favorite Android App.

Anonymous said...

@10:33 the difference is our abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol isn't funding cartels trying to breach our borders, smuggle in contraband, and kill our border guards, take the money away and we will help more people than we will ever arrest ever meet a recovering alcoholic? ever meet a recovering pothead?

Valerie Oakleaf said...

ARRRRG!!! I seriously love you. Can I be your internet stalker?? LOL You always make me smile with your posts.
~V~

ARRRRG!!!! said...

I've never had a stalker Valerie. Could be fun.....

Anonymous said...

I downloaded the app, and there is a small bug (on the IPhone 4) when you leave the P3i app, it keeps the GPS running (indicated by the little arrow up by the battery icon) and KILLS the battery VERY fast. It took me 2 days to figure out why by 2 pm I had no juice left in my phone, when before I was good to go until 2am.

Anonymous said...

11:17 that's what scares me about these apps, chief, is the source code going to be made available to the public? similar to how the linux(father of your android) community operates

Anonymous said...

My downloaded app keeps saying :unable to connect to server". Any suggestions?