Government Technology - December 2007 - (Page 22)

20 YEARS IN REVIEW ‘IT CREATED A REVOLUTION’ NYPD’s CompStat changes the face of policing and city management. When, as a police lieutenant in Boston, William Bratton first began putting up huge maps to show his officers where to patrol, and then later, as New York police commissioner incorporated a computer into the equation, he had no idea it would stretch into today’s version of CompStat. “When CompStat was conceived and implemented in the New York Police Department in 1994, I don’t think any of us involved in its creation ever envisioned that it would have the rapid and phenomenal impact on policing that it had and continues to have,” Bratton said. “CompStat helped to significantly refocus policing from use of its crime statistics for reactive, after the fact purposes, to preventive policing initiatives and accountability,” he said. “It created a revolution in how police thought of themselves and their capabilities.” CompStat continues to impact policing, but also has found its way into other aspects of government. Baltimore developed CitiStat, a program modeled after CompStat that helps the city keep track of things such as trash pick-ups and overtime. City data is entered into a computer, and GIS maps are made showing such things as potholes that need filling and trash cans that need emptying. City staff meet every other week to discuss the data garnered by CitiStat and the resulting strategies that enable the city to function efficiently. Cities everywhere have developed their own forms of CompStat, including programs like HealthStat, ParkStat and TrafficStat. Now the police chief of Los Angeles, Bratton employs CompStat to fight the violent gangs so entrenched in the city. He announced recently, along with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Community CompStat, a program aimed at reducing crime in schools by engaging parents and teachers and keeping track of at-risk kids. It’s another arm of community policing and aims to prevent crime rather than react to it. JIM McKAY, JUSTICE EDITOR DEC_07 from the combination of growing amounts of electronic data and the beefier desktops was new software applications for electronic publishing. Government bodies large and small began maximizing new desktop publishing capabilities while saving themselves millions in the process. North Carolina, California, Dallas, New York City and many more could finally forgo traditional publishing techniques. In addition, as more state and local governments began expanding their networks, meeting minutes, directories, legal documents and more began appearing on agency intranets — arguably laying the groundwork for the coming era of e-government applications. ONE RESULT ACROSS THE ATLANTIC, the next chapter in technology was being written. As 1990 drew to a close, Tim Berners-Lee created the first Web server. Berners-Lee, an independent contractor working at CERN in Switzerland, also is credited with creating the World Wide Web. In only two years, the Web went from academic obscurity to household name. By 1992, commercial Web browsers were being developed, with Marc Andreessen’s and Eric Bina’s Mosaic transforming the way the world exchanged information. Even Gopher, the largely text protocol popular among universities, quickly folded under the enormity of the Web phenomenon. Despite the clichéd criticisms often leveled at government when it comes to technology adoption, almost everyone recognized that the Web offered tremendous potential. The Web was a boon to government across all levels, from education to the department of motor vehicles to criminal justice. In 1994, the nation’s first city Web site was launched in Palo Alto, Calif. Only 14 years ago no city Web sites existed. Now even the smallest municipalities have them. j j 1993 The World Wide Web goes public Intel introduces Pentium processor National Center for Supercomputing Applications releases Mosaic Web browser 1994 Iomega introduces 100 MB zip drive AT&T develops the computer video phone The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA. Among others, Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Eisner attend. In 1994, Palo Alto, Calif., became the first city in the nation to have a Web site. After viewing a presentation of the Web given by local business leaders, city CIO Dianah Neff immediately saw the potential and began work on launching a city site. 22

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - December 2007

Government Technology - December 2007 Contents Point of View Big Picture Profile The Last Mile GT Spectrum Well...How Did We Get Here? Dark Spaces A Paler Shade of Green? Decertification Dilemma Game On Two Cents Products Signal:Noise

Government Technology - December 2007

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