Proactive Policing in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) using “Big Data”

The aim of this paper is to provide evidence to support the use of "Big Data" as a viable option for achieving proactive policing within the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS). In today's information technology environment, "big data" has become the buzz wordandcontinues to be a topic of much discussion and hype. The use of big data is shifting decision making practices in all sectors of society to which law enforcement belongs and the resulting revolution brought about by its useprovides a fertile environment for enhancing proactive policing as a means of gaining competitive advantage over the criminal element. Trend and pattern analyses derived from big datacan provide the ideal criminal profile. Big data analytics makes it possible to track threats and potential attacks by online monitoringof communication between persons of interest. By finding ways to integrate all of its disparate data sources and analyzing it in the aggregate may lead the TTPS to discoverthat the benefits are real.