New development: Implementing SOA to deliver police performance management and intelligence reporting

Abstract

Improved access to intelligence data is a major initiative within UK police forces. This article describes new developments that deliver the data integration and new analytical needs of police performance and intelligence reporting. An initial solution has successfully been developed and implemented, which can extend the life of legacy systems and uses commercial subscription services to abstract data into a new analytical processor. The solution provides a blueprint for a common technical architecture that is capable of tackling data integration on a global scale. This approach not only provides policing with improved information and knowledge sharing, but also offers an opportunity for efficiency gains across the entire criminal justice system

Keywords:

• Business intelligence
• data integration
• enterprise architecture
• police data
• service orientation

Notes

* Service computing is the recent style of distributed programming for internet computing that uses functional XML message exchange. Service computing uses the internet as a conduit to find and repackage data from existing, disparate systems, thus delivering new services at less cost than making new systems (Sartipi and Yarmand, 2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Hunton

Paul Hunton was formerly a police officer with Cleveland Police IT, Middlesbrough, UK; he is now with cyber crime and security consultants Hunton Woods Ltd.

Alan Jones

Alan Jones is a retired principal lecturer from the School of Computing, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK.

Richard Short

Richard Short is a senior technical analyst with Cleveland Police, Middlesbrough, UK.