How to Champion the White House 21st Century Policing and the Police Data Initiative

Over these past couple of weeks the Task Force on 21st Century Policing published a final report, and a White House Police Data Initiative was announced! We’ve been excited to see the results of police transparency and open data discussions by the White house.

The Task Force on 21st Century Policing Final Report outlines 6 Pillars along with 59 recommendations for improvements to law enforcement. The Pillars include: 

1. Building Trust and Legitimacy

2. Policy and Oversight

3. Technology and Social Media

4. Community Policing and Crime Reduction

5. Officer Training and Education

6. Officer Safety and Wellness. 

The report concluded that ‘Trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is essential in a democracy. It is key to the stability of our communities, the integrity of our criminal justice system, and the safe and effective delivery of policing services.’ We couldn’t agree more!

The White House Police Data Initiative was created in part to better use data and technology to build trust, enhance community policing, and reduce inappropriate use of force. It lists twenty-one police jurisdictions who are working in accordance with the initiative to create deliverables to respond to the Task Force recommendations in the area of data and technology.

Both the Police Data Initiative and Task Force Final Report recommend that the federal government and local agencies work together to utilize open data and better use technology through grant funding, technical assistance, or creating partnerships with, for example, public universities. 

We believe the best way to champion both 21st Century Policing and the Police Data Initiative is by mandating that police agencies who receive federal funding must make crime data open and available to the public.

Take for example Kissimmee, FL. Kissimmee took down an open crime data feed previously located at http://map.kissimmee.org/google_crimes/ and replaced it with a proprietary vendor who locks up incident based public crime data. When we asked them to open up the data again, the response we received was that they wanted to retain control over the data. Read more here.

Through FOIA requests we’ve learned that Kissimmee is using federally granted funds - specifically the Edward Byrne Grant - to pay for a proprietary crime mapping system that places restrictions on public data. If the crime mapping system is displaying crime data and is doing so with federal funds, why are they not required to make the data open?

The Cook County blotter that could previously be found on the 

Sheriff's website at http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/

crimeblotter/crimeblotter_main.html

The list of all agencies receiving funding via the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program is public information. In 2014, there were 1091 awards granted totaling $90,558,677.00.

Of the 1091 grantees in 2014, Cook County, IL and Durham, NC can also be found on the list.

Cook County Sheriff’s office has decided that there is no longer a need to provide crime data daily like they previously had done on their crime blotter. When they turned off the crime blotter, we began sending FOIA requests for the same information. They’ve elected to respond to our requests once a month. We’ve submitted a request for review and are waiting on a response.

Finally, Durham, NC turned off an open crime data feed in favor of a proprietary vendor. The police department not only endorses the proprietary vendor and admits the vendor is not open data, it has also acknowledged that the vendor won’t directly interact with the open data initiative the city and county are engaged in.

We are excited to hear that the White House is now behind the open crime data effort! We are hopefully awaiting the open data aspect to roll out and remove monopolistic control of public data from the hands of vendors.