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ViCAP's mission is to facilitate cooperation, communication, and coordination between law enforcement agencies and provide support in their efforts to investigate, identify, track, apprehend, and prosecute violent serial offenders.
What ViCAP is:
ViCAP is a violent crime investigation system that collates and analyzes the significant characteristics of all murders, and other violent offenses in Massachusetts
Cases examined by ViCAP include:
Solved or unsolved homicides or attempts, especially those that involve an abduction; are apparently random, motiveless, or sexually oriented; or are known or suspected to be part of a series.
Missing persons, where the circumstances indicate a strong possibility of foul play and the victim is still missing.
Unidentified dead bodies where the manner of death is known or suspected to be homicide.
How ViCAP works:
ViCAP collects homicide and assault information from the entire state
Submitted reports are then analyzed for unique characteristics and queried against the database
If possible links are found, the agencies are put in contact with each other.
Services ViCAP provides:
Acts as a clearinghouse for case information
Maintains historical information on case files
Provides investigative tools to investigating agency
Statistical information
Incident GIS Mapping
Bulletins
The History of ViCAP:
The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program is long over due. The gaps in information sharing between the 16,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States have literally allowed people to get away with murder. By providing law enforcement with the knowledge they need, ViCAP reduces the information gaps in investigations and provides the investigator with the tools to enable them to be more productive and more effective in their investigations of violent serial offenders.
ViCAP was initially conceived in the 1950's by LAPD Detective Pierce Brooks. Det. Brooks was involved in the investigation of a difficult homicide and his experience told him that the suspect had most likely committed other homicides like the ones he was investigating. However with no easy way to gather or compare homicide information Brooks was forced to painstakingly search newspapers for leads. Finally his work paid off after several years when he found a similar homicide and was able to piece together enough information and identify another murder his suspect had committed.
The experience convinced him a national clearinghouse for homicide information was needed and the idea for ViCAP was born. Detective Brooks would have to wait almost 30 years for technology to finally catch-up with his conception. In the early 1980's the advances in computers made ViCAP possible and by 1985 several state law enforcement agencies and the FBI had begun ViCAP programs. There are currently twenty-three other states in the nation who participate in the program.
The Massachusetts State Police ViCAP was begun in 1996 by Sgt. Michael Kalmbach who identified the need for an entity that could improve homicide tracking in Massachusetts. He successfully applied for a federal grant to implement this project and MSP-ViCAP was formed within the Criminal Information Section. Personnel were then selected and put through extensive training in a multitude of disciplines including homicide investigation, crime analysis and the use of database and mapping tools. Currently MSP-ViCAP is staffed by Tpr. Sarah O’Leary, Tpr. Peter Frothingham. The program’s supervisor is Sgt. Steven McCarthy.
How to contact us:
ViCAP, 470 Worcester Rd., Framingham, MA 01702
Telephone (508) 820-2129
HOMEPAGE
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