Corrections, Parole, Probation and Offender Tracking

Using a GIS, corrections officers can manage a facility more efficiently and effectively. GIS supports corrections facility management by

• Mapping crime patterns and trends among the inmate population
• Visualizing networks and associations among inmates that foster crime problems
• Identifying resource gaps and supporting effective reallocation processes

Over time, a GIS can ultimately capture and create a more informed picture of a facility and the population in it.

Correctional institutions can also use GIS to analyze a wealth of information about how criminal networks communicate and operate inside prisons. For example, many offenders often communicate with the outside via telephone calls. The locations to which these calls are made can be significant, and a cluster of calls to a specific address could be indicative of suspicious activity. Monitoring all these calls can be a difficult, if not impossible, task for a few officers. However, through a GIS, officers can

• Monitor voice traffic for discussions of criminal activity in near real time.
• Identify the address to which the call is being made.
• Analyze and link clusters of calls to determine hot spots of criminal activity.

Parole and probation officers can more effectively manage their workloads, monitoring criminals released back into society. GIS tools can assist parole and probation officers by

• Identifying and mapping shortest drive-time routes in assigning cases
• Mapping officers and available resources in the field to provide situational awareness
• Analyzing and pinpointing areas that feed criminal activity

For example, a GIS can tell a parole or probation officer where an offender lives and where that offender may have been rearrested for a crime. This can be compared to where other offenders have lived and been rearrested for similar crimes. The result is an intelligence-based method for locating travel patterns among parolees and probationers for certain offenses such as drugs or gangs - information that could be vital intelligence to all law enforcement.