Hundreds of crime-prevention experts converge on Louisville

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - At least 400 brilliant minds in crime analysis are in Louisville for the 26th annual International Crime Analysts Conference, where experts will share tactics, strategies and new technology to help solve crime.

Now that the conference is in Louisville, LMPD officials are taking full advantage of the opportunity to find new ways to help solve violent crime locally.

"It's a way to network with other analysts across the country to find out how other units are doing things, what kind of technologies they're using that we could probably bring back here, and that might be able to help us do different things," LMPD Sgt. Holly Rogers said.

Rogers manages the team of 19 analysts who work within the Louisville Metro Police Department. A year of violent crime means Rogers is constantly looking for new strategies in prevention, like predictive policing or forecasting for policing.

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"Predictive policing or predictive analytics ... (allow you to) get your officers in position, even if they're just sitting in front of a business, maybe that might prevent a crime," Rogers said.

IACA President Noah Fritz said crime is changing, so the opportunity for analysts to connect is crucial.

"Crime is not local anymore, whether you're talking homeland security or terrorism," Fritz said. "Offenders are not local. They literally cross lines, they get on airplanes. With terrorism, they can be coming and going."

The IACA conference offers sessions from experts on traffic analysis, mapping, case studies, predictive policing, social network analysis and evaluating crime analysis. It features technology from facial recognition, crime mapping, license-plate detection and other brand new tactics for analyzing crime trends.

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"Anytime we have a conference, I'm always looking for feedback for opportunities for additional training, particularly when it comes to crime analysis" LMPD Chief Steve Conrad said. "So much of what they do helps drive our decision-making, helps drive and inform the direction we take, because I hope this is an opportunity for us to learn from the experience and hopefully make some positive changes "

Next year's conference will be in New Orleans.

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