Customized algorithm and software development

One of the services CRIME De-Coder offers is customized algorithm and software development. It is easier to showcase specific case studies, instead of defining exactly what this means. Examples in my career are:

• Creating a social network algorithm to prioritize call-ins for focused deterrence initiatives
• Optimizing patrol beats for Carrollton with workload equality constraints
• Creating simple statistics to monitor crime patterns and tell if an intervention reduced crime

These examples in my career came from either working on problems directly with police departments and developing algorithms ancillary to the projects I was consulting on (the focused deterrence algorithm and monitoring crime patterns are examples). Or police departments specifically asked me for help developing algorithms explicitly – Carrollton asked for help with patrol areas that had unequal workloads, and Jerry Ratcliffe asked for help with the intervention stats.

This is one of the areas that substantively distinguishes CRIME De-Coder’s services from most current software or SaaS based tools. Software companies want to sell you a specific product, your use case may (or may not) fit their product, but they will still try to sell you that software no matter what.

This differs from what I offer, which is customized solutions. If you can articulate your problem, I can help develop a solution (both in terms of algorithms and software development), and help write software so your department can deploy that algorithm in practice.

If there is currently off the shelf software I think is reasonably priced to help you accomplish your specific goal I will just tell you to use that. Or it may be I think you should use a software you already have available, but suggest to write code to enhance the software to accomplish your specific needs. For example, if you need help batch geocoding crime incidents, I will probably suggest ArcGIS and a local geocoding engine, but may write python code to help you automate the process.

My experience is that pretty much every client I work with has a myriad of unique constraints and local circumstances that make providing custom software the most reasonable fit. I don’t care if it is custom python code, a GUI program, an ArcGIS dashboard, a custom web app, SQL queries and Microsoft word output, or a combination of these things. I take your specific needs into account and suggest solutions that work for your department. (Check out my demos page for examples of my work across all these different scenarios.)

The final point I want to make is in terms of pricing. The majority of software vendors in the criminal justice space use the business to business model, and so do not have public pricing. Many of my clients are quoted software prices ranging from mid 5 to mid 6 figures, and then come to me to see if I can do better. Part of providing custom solutions means I can meet you where you are at – if you only have a 5k budget, I can discuss with you what that will and not cover, and likely suggest a meet in the middle approach. If all you need is some help with automated reporting for example, it will very likely not take me long to provide that for you and may not cost much.