What Lance wanted was a system that could be used to collect information in a database, and then facilitate the exchange of that information between officers, agencies and departments. What he eventually constructed is a system comprised of Lotus SmartSuite and Lotus Notes. According to Lance, the system is helping to solve more crimes and track areas of increased gang activity. The new system works by allowing officers to enter and access key pieces of data such as gang name, vehicle, an individual's legal name, weapon, suspect associates, or incident date. The system is designed so that even if an officer has a very small piece of information to work with, like the partial license plate number of a car belonging to a person known to associate with a gang member, the systems' cross-referencing function connects that information to more information in the database about the gang or gang member, his activities, addresses, descriptions and photos.
Officers can even access the database in their patrol cars utilizing laptops.
In conjunction with this database, Keller implemented a target offender database and a case tracking database. Since implementation, the case closure rate at Keller has increased from 30 percent to nearly 60 percent. Additionally, statistics show a 25 percent to 30 percent drop in more serious offenses. Juren of the Northeast Street Crimes Unit. It makes the availability of gang information and the sharing of that information much easier.