Police1

A Django REST Framework-based API for police management, providing endpoints to manage criminal records, criminal sightings, and police alerts.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Technology Stack
• Project Structure
• Data Models
• API Endpoints
• Installation & Setup
• Running the Application
• Deployment

Overview

Police1 is a RESTful API built with Django and Django REST Framework. It provides three core modules:

• Criminal Data – Store and retrieve detailed criminal records including personal information, known crimes, custody status, and latest sightings.
• Criminal Sightings – Log and query sightings of known criminals by date, time, and location.
• Alerts – Create and manage police alerts with subject descriptions and reference links.

Technology Stack

Technology	Version
Python	3.6.13
Django	3.1.5
Django REST Framework	3.12.2
Gunicorn	20.0.4
django-multiselectfield	0.1.12
django-cors-headers	3.7.0
WhiteNoise	5.2.0

Project Structure

Police1/
├── API/                    # Django project configuration (settings, URLs, WSGI/ASGI)
├── alerts/                 # Alerts app – models, views, serializers, URLs
├── criminal_data/          # Criminal Data app – models, views, serializers, URLs
├── criminal_sightings/     # Criminal Sightings app – models, views, serializers, URLs
├── manage.py               # Django management script
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── Procfile                # Heroku process configuration
└── runtime.txt             # Python runtime version for Heroku

Data Models

AlertAPI (alerts)

Field	Type	Description
name	CharField (max 100)	Name associated with the alert
date	DateField	Date of the alert
time	TimeField	Time of the alert
subject	TextField	Subject/description of the alert
link	URLField	Optional reference URL

CriminalDataAPI (criminal_data)

Field	Type	Description
name	CharField (max 100)	Full name of the criminal
dob	DateField	Date of birth
known_crimes	TextField	Description of known crimes
registered	CharField (Y/N)	Whether the criminal is registered
registered_at	CharField (max 100)	Location of registration
custody	CharField (Y/N)	Whether the criminal is currently in custody
latest_sightings_time	TimeField	Time of the latest sighting
latest_sightings_date	DateField	Date of the latest sighting
latest_sightings_place	CharField (max 100)	Location of the latest sighting

CriminalSightingsAPI (criminal_sightings)

Field	Type	Description
name	CharField (max 100)	Name of the criminal sighted
date	DateField	Date of the sighting
time	TimeField	Time of the sighting
location	TextField	Location of the sighting
description	TextField	Description of the sighting

API Endpoints

Alerts

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/alerts/	Retrieve all alerts
POST	/alerts/	Create a new alert
DELETE	/alerts/	Delete all alerts
GET	/alerts/<name>/	Retrieve alerts by name
DELETE	/alerts/<name>/	Delete alert by name
GET	/alerts/<subject>/	Retrieve alerts by subject
DELETE	/alerts/<subject>/	Delete alert by subject

Note: The <name> and <subject> path parameters share the same URL pattern, which may cause routing ambiguity. Use the collection endpoint with query parameters where possible.

Criminal Data

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/criminal_data/	Retrieve all criminal records
POST	/criminal_data/	Create a new criminal record
DELETE	/criminal_data/	Delete all criminal records
GET	/criminal_data/<name>/	Retrieve criminal record by name
DELETE	/criminal_data/<name>/	Delete criminal record by name

Criminal Sightings

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/criminal_sightings/	Retrieve all criminal sightings
POST	/criminal_sightings/	Log a new criminal sighting
DELETE	/criminal_sightings/	Delete all criminal sightings
GET	/criminal_sightings/<name>/	Retrieve sightings by criminal name
DELETE	/criminal_sightings/<name>/	Delete sightings by criminal name
GET	/criminal_sightings/<location>/	Retrieve sightings by location
DELETE	/criminal_sightings/<location>/	Delete sightings by location

Note: The <name> and <location> path parameters share the same URL pattern, which may cause routing ambiguity. Use the collection endpoint with query parameters where possible.

Installation & Setup

Prerequisites

• Python 3.6.13
• pip

Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/akulka404/Police1.git
   cd Police1

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate   # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Apply database migrations:

   python manage.py migrate

5. Create a superuser (optional, for Django admin access):

   python manage.py createsuperuser

Running the Application

Start the development server:

python manage.py runserver

The API will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

The Django admin panel is accessible at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/.

Deployment

This project is configured for deployment on Heroku using Gunicorn as the WSGI server and WhiteNoise for static file serving.

The Procfile defines the web process:

web: gunicorn API.wsgi --log-file -

To deploy to Heroku:

heroku create
git push heroku main
heroku run python manage.py migrate