DEPTFORD TWP. -- South Jersey has a new tool in fighting crime.

State legislators and officials from area prosecutor's offices and police departments joined state police Friday to officially open the Real Time Crime Center - South.

The center, located at Rowan College at Gloucester County, is a tactical facility where South Jersey's law enforcement agencies will work together to develop a regional perspective on criminal activity, officials explained.

The center is staffed with New Jersey State Police personnel and officers from various law enforcement entities around the region.

"This is an enormous moment for the law enforcement community of southern New Jersey," state Sen. Steve Sweeney during a ceremony that preceded a ribbon cutting for the new facility. "This is a coordination of efforts to improve law enforcement."

The Real Time Crime Center - South joins its northern counterpart in Newark and the state police Regional Operations & Intelligence Center in Trenton.

"This is what I call closing the circuit on information sharing in the state of New Jersey," Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said of opening the south site.

The fight against crime requires rapid response and coordination, Fuentes said, and these centers help pull together information from a variety of sources to identify suspects, share data and prevent future crimes -- such as retaliation killings following a murder, Fuentes explained.

"We are bringing the capabilities we have in Trenton and the capabilities we have in Newark and bringing them to South Jersey," said Major Frederick Fife, commander of the Trenton intelligence center.

The 1,200-square-foot south center is located within the Gloucester County Police Academy Law & Justice Education Center at RCGC.

The goal in this space is to connect South Jersey's six counties, more than 100 police departments and more than 4,000 officers with the tools to fight some of our biggest regional crime challenges.

"Our goal is to give decision makers the ability to fish with a spear rather than a net," Fife said.

The six counties are divided into three pods. Atlantic and Cape May are teamed up in one pod, while Salem and Cumberland work together and Gloucester and Camden make up the third.

"The people that work here work in the areas that they worked prior to coming here," explained Lt. Mike Peterson, commander of the south center.

Officers staffing the center aren't flooded with a tidal wave of reports from all across the region.

"If there is a trend going on in Atlantic County, only Atlantic County people are going to see that until it touches somebody else, like Camden or Gloucester County," Peterson said.

He described this as a "very strategic dissemination of information."

Information on active reports is displayed on a data wall with the status of each report.

"The beauty of the room is everybody works where they belong until there's an event that requires everybody," he said. "Then we can bring force to bear to that specific event."

Among agencies that already have a permanent presence at the center are Washington Township and Pleasantville police departments and the Salem County Prosecutor's Office, explained NJSP Investigator Travis Coleman, adding that more agencies will be represented soon.

While the facility isn't staffed 24/7 yet, that is a future goal, he said.

The center consists of 20 work stations and an array of monitors where personnel can keep an eye incoming reports, information released by various public agencies and even check TV news reports. Coleman's station includes about 10 monitors.

For an example of how these cooperative ventures can work, Coleman pointed to a string of Dunkin' Donuts burglaries in the Camden area a few years ago. By sharing information with other agencies, including surveillance video and vehicle tag numbers, police learned of similar crimes in Maryland. That work led police to discover that the same operators were pulling these jobs in several states on the East Coast. This work led to arrests and convictions.

Local police like what they have seen so far.

"It's a force multiplier," Deptford Police Detective Lt. Kevin Pancoast said of the center. "You're sharing intelligence from all over the state of New Jersey."

He said the south center, which actually began operations late last year, has already helped locally.

"It's already been successful in solving some of our crimes," Pancoast noted. "We've seen results."

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.