Saint Paul

Saint Paul Police Department uses FEMA funds to access Esri’s crime prediction tools
Population
0
Police Officers
0
Police Budget (2021)
$

2021

Contract Years

34

# of Police Esri Users

$88,609

Annual Contract Amount (2021-22)

For over a decade, Saint Paul Police Department (SPPD) used a program called CrimeGIS, provided by the company GIS Solutions. This program allowed for the sharing of crime data within the SPPD through interactive maps. By the late 2010s, GIS Solutions no longer supported CrimeGIS, and SPPD needed to decide how to move forward. They decided to upgrade to ArcGIS Pro and go deeper with Esri.

In the decision making documents, SPPD cited Esri’s tools for creating and publishing maps and its “crime prediction tools” as reasons to do more with Esri (Decision Doc at p. 2). SPPD wanted to “take advantage of the tool and map layers already created for use within Police departments.” (Decision Doc at p. 2). By 2019, Esri had a well-developed suite of tools and trainings for law enforcement, and was in the process of developing out of the box Solutions.

In June 2021, SPPD were invoiced for $88,609 for the installation of servers, the setup of an AcrGIS Enterprise environment, and licenses for 20 Named Public Safety User Creators as well as 12 Spatial Analysts. A later phase of the planned work includes an integration of closed-circuit television cameras with the SPPD’s GIS system. According to decision-making documents, although this setup with Esri technology is expensive, funds were available: the SPPD would use a FEMA Port Security Grant, earmarked for anti-terrorism rather than criminal law enforcement, to pay for their new GIS setup.

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