AN OVERVIEW OF THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT DETAILS THE SIZE OF THE POLICE FORCE AND THE AREA GOVERNED, THE STRUCTURE WITHIN WHICH THE COMPUTER SYSTEM IS FOUND, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPECIAL POLICE RADIO INQUIRY NETWORK (SPRINT). SPECIALIZED TERMS, SOME OF WHICH MAY BE UNIQUE TO NEW YORK CITY'S GEOGRAPHIC DATA BASE (GBF), ARE LISTED. A DESCRIPTION OF SPRINT PROVIDES INFORMATION ON THE HARDWARE USED, THE VOLUME OF CALLS HANDLED, AND THE WAY THAT THE SYSTEM WORKS. THE DESIGN DEVELOPMENT AND FILE CREATION FOR THE LOCATION DATA BASE IS DISCUSSED. SPECIAL CONSIDERATION IS GIVEN TO THE FILE ORGANIZATION AND THE VARIOUS FILES WITHIN THE LOCATION DATA BASE: THE STREET NAME FILE, THE LOCATION FILE, THE PLACE NAME FILE, THE PLACE INDEX, THE FIRE ALARM BOX FILE, AND THE SIMILAR NAME LIST FILE. WITH REGARD TO DATA BASE MAINTENANCE, EXPLANATION IS GIVEN ON MODIFYING THE DATA BASE AND ON MONITORING HAZARDOUS OR SENSITIVE LOCATIONS THROUGH THE DATA BASE. FLOW CHARTS PORTRAY THE DATA BASE CREATION FOR EACH FILE AND SHOW THE PROCESS FOR ONLINE DATA BASE ACCESS. AN ADDITION, TABLES OFFER EXAMPLES OF AN INCIDENT-CODE TIME SURVEY, A DAILY CODE SIGNAL ANALYSIS, SPRINT HOURLY JOB DISTRIBUTION, A SPRINT JOB SUMMARY, A SPRINT ASSIGNMENT EXCEPTION LISTING, AND A SPRINT WORK LOAD SUMMARY. (MHP)