CIO outlines NYPD’s crime-fighting IT plan

Deputy Commissioner Jim Onalfo describes “help desk for detectives”

By Kathryn M. O’Neill – May 15, 2007

A leading architect of the technological turnaround that has bolstered New York City’s crime-fighting capability gave credit to systems thinking during his May 3 lecture at MIT, “Systems Solutions to Real World Challenges at NYPD: The Real Time Crime Center.”

“Any CIO that doesn’t start with a systems plan—it’s a role of the dice,” said Jim Onalfo, the deputy commissioner and chief information officer for the New York Police Department (NYPD). He insists that every IT manager put together a business plan and include the implications of the plan.

“If you have a plan, you’ve got to deliver,” he said, and he follows his own advice. Among the many improvements he’s brought to the NYPD, Onalfo delivered the Real Time Crime Center, the jewel in the crown of NYPD technology.

“It doesn’t get more complex, and the world doesn’t get more real than what Deputy Onalfo does,” said MIT Visiting Professor Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who introduced the speaker at the IBM-MIT/ESD Innovation Lecture held in Room E40-298. About 50 people attended the 1-hour talk, which was sponsored by MIT's Engineering Systems Division and IBM.

The NYPD handles 11.5 million 911 calls, sends police cars out on 4.5 million radio runs, and produces 45,000 prosecutions every year. Onalfo is responsible for fulfilling the technology needs of 53,000 people, including men and women who are handling life and death situations every day. His IT department supports everything from radios to laptops to the city’s award-winning Real Time Crime Center.

“A help desk for detectives,” as Onalfo describes it, the Real Time Crime Center integrates more than 10 systems and databases in real time, including a data warehouse of more than 120 million criminal complaints and 911 calls, more than 5 million New York criminal records, state records and even a tattoo database. In 2005, the center helped detectives solve 74 percent of New York City's homicides.

Now when a violent crime is reported, experienced detectives working at the center’s bank of computers can access the data most relevant to the incident—similar suspects, similar crimes, criminals known to be in the area—and speed the most valuable information to investigators on the scene.

The center uses sophisticated data mining tools and enterprise data integration technology. Clearly, the NYPD has come a long way from custom-coding COBOL for data integration.

In the four years he’s been at the helm of IT, Onalfo has given the NYPD its first email system, videoconferencing, laptops in squad cars and, critically, its first adequate disaster recovery system.

But interestingly, Onalfo is not a technician. “I have never written a program in my entire life.” Instead, he takes a business approach to IT, getting the right people moving in the right direction. “I’m a very practical guy. What I do is solve problems with logic,” he said.

Onalfo brings decades of experience to the job. He spent more than 30 years at Kraft Foods, directing IT in more than 40 countries. And, after retiring as CIO of Kraft, he served as vice president and CIO of Stanley Works before “retiring” again and joining the police force.

Onalfo’s key philosophy is that IT’s strategic role is to support the core mission of the business—whatever that may be. At the NYPD, the goal is to fight crime—and the crime rate is, in fact, going down.

“My philosophy is: start slow, next year make it better, make it better,” he said.

It’s working. Onalfo has received six awards for the Real Time Crime Center. And, Computerworld named him one of the “Top 100 Global IT Executives for 2007.

He is winning accolades not just for solving obvious problems, but for thinking ahead. “I view my job as redundancy, because you just don’t know what’s going to work the next time,” he said, and the NYPD needs to be prepared for anything. “We’re the number one target in the country. Don’t ever forget that.”