Building a Crime Reporting and Tracking Application for a Police Division in Kaduna State

Crime reporting in police divisions across Kaduna State relies on paper-based processes that delay incident logging, hinder case tracking, and limit analytical capabilities for commanders. This study describes the development of a web-based crime reporting and tracking application for a divisional police headquarters in Kaduna State, North West Nigeria. The application was developed using ASP.NET Core with a SQL Server database and supports case entry, suspect profiling, evidence documentation, case status updates, and offence mapping using an embedded OpenStreetMap interface. Requirements were derived through structured interviews with twelve officers and administrators at the target division. Role-based access distinguishes desk officers, detectives, and commanding officers. System testing included functional testing, data integrity validation, and user acceptance testing involving 25 police officers. All 120 functional test cases passed after two rounds of defect fixing. Crime location mapping was validated against 50 manually recorded incident locations with 100 percent coordinate accuracy. The system was piloted over 60 days, during which 340 cases were entered. Post-pilot evaluation by officers showed a mean satisfaction rating of 4.0 out of 5.0 and a perceived 45 percent reduction in time spent on administrative case documentation. The study concludes that digitising crime reporting and tracking in Kaduna State police divisions can enhance operational efficiency and evidence management, and calls for state-wide deployment across all police divisions.

Keywords: crime reporting system, police management, Kaduna State, web application, law enforcement technology