Design and Implementation of Web-Based Crime Reporting System

Design and Implementation of Web-Based Crime Reporting System

ABSTRACT

Web-based crime record information system is a research work that will help police agency to keep record of criminal records in a computerized way. It is aimed at developing a web based crime record information system that will provide required information for quick and accurate prosecution of crime suspects in a court of competent jurisdiction. Online Crime Reporting System project’s main idea is to implement an automated software application for maintaining the proper common people complaints of different police departments. By using this application people who are afraid or don’t have enough time to go police station for complaint about their personal legal issues here they can give their complaint through online to register any type of complain.

The developed system was developed using the PHP programming language for front-end and MySQL for data storage.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In view of Karl Marx theory, human being are intrinsically, necessarily and by definition social beings that (beyond being “gregarious creatures”) cannot survive and meet their needs other than through social co-operation and association. It is very vital maintain peace and unity in multi-ethnic and multi-religious country of Nigeria. In order to maintain peace and harmony, man has to fashion out constitution that will govern the conduct of the member of the society. When people appreciate this code of conduct and laws, protection of lives and properties are guaranteed.

National security has been a source of concern to all and sundry in Nigeria. There is the issue of religious crisis in some states of the Northern part of Nigeria, ritual killings and kidnappings in some states of the South-East and South-South, sectarian clashes in some states of the South-West, bombings in Abuja and some states of the federation. In order to reinforce Security and Justice in Nigeria, and to ensure the security of citizens, it is important to establish at all levels a concrete and user-friendly system which will enable an efficient exchange of information on previous convictions of criminals. Information about previous convictions shall circulate between judges and prosecutors as well as police authorities. This is essential in order to provide adequate responses to crime and also to prevent new crimes from being committed.

It should not be forgotten that prior to the arrival of the British, criminal laws were existing in this part of the world now known as Nigeria, wherever there was political entity requiring the enforcement of standards of behavior and imposing punishment for their breach.
Peter (2010) describes the computerized crime record system as one that will enable the police to have accurate statistics to draw analysis from, on information of a case, the year a crime was committed, who investigated it, etc.” The police may decide that an offence is not serious enough to warrant recording. It is important to observe that in Nigeria with, the high level of illiteracy amongst both the public and the police and the high level of corruption, it is not unlikely that it is only very few cases that will ever get recorded. In recent times, with the economic hardship the country is going through it is not uncommon for the police to complain about lack of stationeries in cases which they may wish to record James N. (2010).

In most of the North were highly systematic and sophisticated Islamic laws. The laws were so systematic that there were several schools of jurists, and even differences within them. Nigeria is one of the limited members of the countries in the world that has death penalty, however according to figures in 2007 the Nigerian police annual reports have no records of crimes according to regions, states or cities. However, it is generally known in Nigeria that property crimes are perpetrated more in the Southern states than in the Northern states. This may be due to greater business activity in the South (Nigeria Annual Police Report, 1986 – 1989).

Although the police record of crime is generally acclaimed as being closest to the criminal happenings, it is plagued by the following problems: The victim may not be aware that an offence has been committed. This frequently happens when employees are dishonest over deliveries of goods, receiving money and thefts by employees within the store or business. Such losses are often written off during stock taking as shortages or breakages. There is an enormous amount of internal dishonesty which is never discovered or which is condoned.

The ‘victim’ may have been a willing partner to the crime and so it ‘is unlikely to be discovered unless a third reports it. This is the case for many sexual offences against children, and criminal abortion and homosexual offences. Even where the victim knows an offence has been committed and has not consented to it or partaken in it, he or she may decide not to report the offence to the police for a variety of reasons. It may be regarded as too trivial to warrant such a report. A criminal record is a record of a person’s criminal history, generally used by potential employers and lenders to access his or her trustworthiness.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Manual crime records in Enugu State Crime Investigation Department, were maintained on paper, and were created and updated manually (typewriter or hand-written). Until 1960’s criminal history records were maintained on paper, and were created and updated manually (typewriter or hand-written). That is to say that the process of daily task and activities are done manually. Quite unfortunately, manual procedures for job execution delays and reduces ones output quality.

Manual crime record keeping has resulted in many setbacks to the expected standard. The bottleneck encountered includes:
• Time wastage.
• Partial or total loss of file or documents
• Under recording of criminal analysis
• Exposures of confidential information
• Inefficiency of some members of staff due to laziness in searching for.

As a result of these problems, the manual system of crime record system of information storage, input and retrieval is very clumsy, inefficient and time consuming.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this project is to develop a web-based crime record information system capable of automating crime reporting processes. This will assist the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in their bid to solve crimes with timely and useful information about criminals and/or their mode of operations so as to nip in the bud criminal activities in a given locality. To achieve the stated objective, the following specific objectives were laid out:

i) To develop a secured software that will receive and store crime reports.

ii) To make the crime records available online to facilitate faster dissemination of information to different police stations irrespective of their location.

iii) Keep record of those convicted of crimes to help the criminal justice system have accurate information for decision making.

iv) To use computerized crime record system to replace some of human roles thereby cutting down human error arising from wrong documentation.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is a research geared towards correcting the factors affecting the crime reporting, investigation and correction role of the Nigeria police. In view of the scope, an online crime reporting application will be implemented. The developed system is web-based hence it will run on a browser and accessed from anywhere in the world. For the purpose of this project, a localhost web server will be used. In the system, a user can post details about crimes, view crime report history. This enhances crime reporting processes.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The aim of this project is to develop an online crime report and managing system which is easily accessible to the public, the police department and the administrative department. This system registers the complaints from people through online and it will also helpful to police department in catching criminals, in system and person can give any complaint at any tie.

This project on computerized crime record system is developed to carryout tedious work and activities performed by human beings, in which they end up misplacing and discarding some important files and case records. But if this (computerized crime record) is installed it will render remedy to this case. In general people in Nigeria are afraid to give a complaint in police station because they are filled with a false fear about the police department. An online complaint registration system will solve the fear of the public and which also helps police department catching criminals and taking appropriate action.

An online solution is very useful as the solution is inherently distributive. This distributive characteristic of the online solution helps in getting the different police stations to share information and get in contact with one another.

1.6 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This project was constrained by the following factors:

a) Unavailability of Source codes: PHP source codes needed for the implementation of the software was difficult to obtain. This made me go for the available but less preferred code for the development.

b) Financial Constraints: Bearing in mind the economic state of the nation, it was found difficult in making both ends meet, because of the exorbitant nature of things nowadays in travelling for the collection of data needed for the project.

c) Time Constraints: Looking at the interval between the resumption and vacation of the final semester for the project to be completed, the time given seemed to be short for the collection of required information for better work to be done.

d) Non-Availability of Material: During this project, it was noticed that the required materials needed for the project are not documented. Those that were documented lacked storage facilities where they can be reached.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

i. SYSTEM SECURITY: refers to the technical innovations and procedures applied to the hardware and operation systems to protect against deliberate or accidental damage from a defined threat.

ii. DATA SECURITY: is the protection of data from loss, disclosure, modification and destruction.

iii. SYSTEM INTEGRITY: refers to the power functioning of hardware and programs, appropriate physical security and safety against external threats such as eavesdropping and wiretapping.

iv. PRIVACY: defines the rights of the user or organizations to determine what information they are willing to share with or accept from others and how the organization can be protected against unwelcome, unfair or excessive dissemination of information about it.

v. CONFIDENTIALITY: is a special status given to sensitive information in a database to minimize the possible invasion of privacy. It is an attribute of information that characterizes its need for protection.