I wish our LE would follow their lead. Coming together to compare notes and to find connections is something all LE should be doing when there are so many unsolved cases. Here, one city or county do not have a clue what is going on in the next city or county over. They don't begin to communicate unless something comes up which clicks in an officer's mind as a rule.
SS, I completely agree. There should be a database in the U.S. just like here in Canada, but the compliance rate for LE to enter data is something to be looked into. I think LE across Canada needs more funding so that LE in every Province can afford to have a mandatory complaince rate which would mean that all serious crimes would HAVE to be intered in the database. Then they could efficienty compare cold cases, unsolved homicides and other serious crimes and then have a better chance of solving them.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/html/codis1.htm
How do you feel about CODIS. I am not familiar but I will read up on it. Do all police deptartments have to enter their crimes into Codis? What is the criteria?
Here is Canada, we have the Violent Crimes Linkage Analysis System.
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tops-opst/viclas-salvac-eng.htm
Introduction
In the mid-1980s, following several complex, multi-jurisdictional serial homicide investigations (the Clifford Olson case being the most notable), it became apparent to Canadian law enforcement officials that a system was required to identify and track serial violent crime/criminals. The Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) Advisory Committee, comprised of the major police services across the country, agreed on the need for a central repository to capture, collate and compare violent crimes.
Major Crimes File (MCF)
Following research into the FBI’s automated case linkage system, known as the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP), the Canadian police community was presented with the Major Crimes File (MCF) as Canada’s first attempt at automated case linkage. Data relative to homicides was to be captured on “fill-in-the-blank” questionnaires by investigators in the field and then forwarded to regional analysts who would input the data. Subsequent analysis would then be based upon a query of key words and phrases, or combinations thereof.
By 1990, the MCF had approximately 800 cases on the database; however, no “hits” (linkages) had occurred and the system had acquired a less than enviable reputation as an investigative aid. Concurrent with the lack-lustre performance of the MCF, Inspector Ron MacKay, Officer-in-charge of the Violent Crime Analysis Branch at RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, returned from training at the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia.
Insp. MacKay had spent 10 months at the Academy to acquire the training and skills necessary to become Canada’s first qualified Criminal Investigative Analyst, or “Psychological Profiler”, as it is more commonly known. Upon his return, he recognized the advantage of having an automated case linkage system that utilized some of the same behavioural principles that were applied in psychological profiling to identify and track serial violent crime/criminals.
