ARTICLES

Company Profile: Crime Prevention Analysis Lab

In what will be a continuing series, MP2K profiles a company actively developing a vertical-market application using MapPoint.

Richard Fedora writes, "CPAL Crime Prevention Analysis Lab Inc has developed CrimePoint, an investigative aid, for use primarily by investigators and analysts working for law enforcement and public safety agencies. Our product focuses on the relationships between crimes, known offenders, and suspects. CrimePoint is based on pioneering research conducted by Professors Paul and Patricia Brantingham in the area of environmental criminology. We have US and Canadian research labs located at Simon Fraser and California State Universities.

"CPAL Inc. is a Microsoft Certified Partner and relies extensively on underlying Microsoft technologies. CrimePoint combines proprietary criminology algorithms with a Microsoft SQL database and the Microsoft MapPoint ActiveX Control.

"CrimePoint's architecture is modular. Customers buy the core application component then install specific crime modules based on their needs. For example, one jurisdiction might be experiencing an auto theft problem and would buy only the core product with the auto theft module whereas another agency might be interest in the auto theft module, the fire&arson module and the burglary module. Regardless of which modules are purchased the customer experiences an integrated product with no apparent delineation between the various modules.

"Geography is a significant aspect of crime and plays a critical role in CrimePoint. All crimes, suspects, and related elements are geocoded for geographic analysis and display. CrimePoint focuses on the relationships between these elements and the ability to derive and display the geographic relationships easily is fundamental. MapPoint allows our customers to use feature rich maps without requiring them to invest the significant resources in time and money which would be required if we were to utilize other more traditional mapping solutions in our CrimePoint product."

The company's web site is at http://www.crimepatterns.com.

Readers are invited to see CPAL's submission to the gallery.

	MP2Kmag Internet