The researchers ultimately turned the department onto a predictive software called SPSS, which had for years been used to crunch data in a host of disciplines not necessarily connected to crime. The department launched a pilot program with it to analyze trends, as part of a strategy of fighting crime by real-time data-mining.

via How To Catch a Criminal With Data – Technology – The Atlantic Cities.

IBM acquired SPSS back in 2009, and did the same late last year with Knisley’s software company, i2. On a computer monitor, Knisley had pulled up a program called COPLINK, which sucks into one massive database all that disjointed information that was once scribbled down by hand.