Skimming the article, it seems to me that what they need most right now is not systems for gathering more data, but systems for analyzing data they already have. Like, the iPhone thing - they didn't notice because they classified each event as one-off, so nobody looked for possible connection. I assume police stations don't exchange data with each other as much as they should either.
As for the crimes going unreported, a cost-effective way of solving that would be investing in solving the crimes they know about, or at least making it look like they're good at solving them. Make people believe the police works effectively, and they'll hesitate less before reporting.
>>a cost-effective way of solving that would be investing in solving the crimes they know about,
it also has to involve looking at what is classified as a crime. Today priorities are often tilted in the wrong direction and resources misapplied. This article has some of that in it... The Fentanyl epidemic. 30+ years of the war on drugs as proved that Drug Addiction can be be solved with the criminal system, even the most charitable understanding of the research points to laws have no effect on use or abuse, and if you look at it realistically you can find substantive arguments for criminal enforcement being directly leading to increase death not to mention other negative effects.
However there is a ocean of federal funding, external resources, Civil Forfeiture and political capital to be spent on the Drug War, Local police depts will have their budgets flush in cash to go hard on drugs.... However to go over iphone thefts, or ID Fraud, or Property Crimes, or even non-drug related violent crimes it is a cost to the local dept...
In order to police work effectively, they need incentives to redirect their resources off of drugs and on to the other crimes... We as society also need to accept that the criminal war on drugs is a failure and always will be, it needs to be a medical and social battle, not a criminal one.
The best thing we can do for crime and drug addiction, is to stop treating drugs as a crime
As for the crimes going unreported, a cost-effective way of solving that would be investing in solving the crimes they know about, or at least making it look like they're good at solving them. Make people believe the police works effectively, and they'll hesitate less before reporting.