Top Three Datasets Your Police Agency Should Start Releasing Openly

With the initiation of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing earlier this year, more and more police agencies are voluntarily signing up to take part in the Police Data Initiative. The initiative centers around police agencies opening up dozens of data sets that have otherwise been hard to find by the general public.

26 agencies are currently participating

Here are just a few of the datasets being published openly by police agencies nationwide:

• Computer aided dispatch logs (CAD) 
• Records management system logs (RMS)
• Response time 
• Use of Force 
• Complaints 
• Officer Involved Shootings 
• Assaults on officers 
• Citations 
• Traffic Stops 
• Pedestrian Stops 
• Pursuits

This list may seem overwhelming to some, however it's not impossible. So, where to start? In some cases, we've seen agencies start to tackle this laundry list of data sets by publishing one dataset at a time. If this is the route your police agency decides, we've picked our top three datasets to start with:

1. CAD data 
2. RMS data 
3. Use of force data 

Yes, CAD and RMS are the datasets that SpotCrime uses, but that's not the only reason they are the number one and number two on our list.

These two datasets give an inside look of the day-to-day, minute-by-minute happenings of a police department. 

Community watch groups (like the ones popping up on social media sites like Facebook and Nextdoor) digest and disseminate this information regularly and frequently. We've found that our email alerts get forwarded on to community watch mailing lists consisting of hundreds of people.

RMS and CAD data provides answers to questions like 'Why was there a police car in my neighborhood yesterday?', 'How many houses other houses were burglarized in my neighborhood?', 'Did someone else report that suspicious person yesterday?'. 

This kind of transparency builds a solid relationship while fostering an important feedback loop between agencies and communities.

Another reason why CAD and RMS data are our top two datasets is it's most likely the easiest datasets to start with - we’ve found that typically there is already a report circulating within police departments that could be shared openly with the public. 

Most importantly, these two datasets draw a bigger picture behind all of the datasets listed above.

The third most important dataset to be released, in our opinion, is use of force data. SpotCrime doesn’t deal with this type of data specifically, however, with use of force being a hot button topic after events like Ferguson, Baltimore, NYC, North Charleston, publishing this type of data shows the agency is trying to be as open, honest, and transparent.

Rutland, VT recently started publishing use of force data. Each incident includes data points like ages and races of both officer and subject, the type of force, the reason, weapon (if any) used by the subject and officer, case number and officer rank. These are all data points that can paint an impartial picture of what occurred. 

So, do you agree - are these the top three datasets to start with? What datasets would you like to see your police department release? Let us know by emailing feedback@spotcrime.com!

Stay aware, stay safe.