Data Based
February 25, 2005
Article
courtesy of Pulse 24
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It’s a bitter lesson from the worst crime in Ontario
history – the Paul Bernardo case. And now the government
is moving to ensure it never happens again, by mandating that
every police force in the province use a new computer crime
fighting tool.
PowerCase allows detectives to accumulate clues in a central
database and form a picture of a suspect they may not be able
to see among the thousands of clues.
Equally important, it allows cops from one jurisdiction to
share valuable information with another force elsewhere in
Ontario – clues that might never be discovered any other
way.
The Liberals decided to order all Ontario police services
to use the process, after the 1996 Campbell Report on the
Bernardo case indicated too many diverse squads missed too
many important clues because they weren’t working together.
Debbie Mahaffy, the mother of one of the victims, admits
it likely wouldn’t have saved her daughter Leslie, but
it may help someone else before a killer like Bernardo can
strike again.
"If we as a society are creating bigger rats, then we'll
need a bigger rat trap to catch them, and I think this is
it,” she explains. “It definitely would have made
a difference in the time of Bernardo's arrest.”
PowerCase has been around since 2002, but only 42 percent
of all police forces in the province were using it. But as
of January 1st, all have been ordered to put it into place.
And Ontario is stepping in to help smaller investigative
units pay the considerable cost of the innovation, by kicking
in $5 million annually to keep it up and running.
“By making the use of M.C.M. (Major Case Management)
mandatory, the McGuinty government is making Ontario strong,
safe and prosperous by ensuring police services have the right
tools to do their jobs,” exhorts Community Safety Minister
Monte Kwinter.
Toronto Police have been using the system for some time.
It even helped them solve one of the city’s most notorious
murders.
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