Is Your Police Department Telegraphing Quality?
There are many problems plaguing police community relations right now. Running SpotCrime, it is something I think about often in terms of improving trust between the public and the police so that we all focus on the target of reducing crime instead of pointing fingers at each other. We identify this as improving the trust quotient between law enforcement and the community.
I often want to draw inferences about transparency and the quality of policing. Truthfully, we have not explored the data in terms of finding anything statistical about this. Most of our experience is anecdotal.
Intuitively, I think we can all agree that if a police department is making a sincere effort to be transparent with the public they are moving in the right direction.
We’ve seen crime data transparency within police agencies develop in a couple of different ways throughout the years. There are some agencies who still do not make an effort to be open and transparent with crime data, but typically if crime data is made open in an agency it’s one of these four ways:
- A sincere effort by city or police department to be transparent
- An effort by local media (normally a newspaper) to make the data open
- A lone technical person
- Forced by Federal review
Here’s an explanation of the main four:
1. Sincere Effort by City or Police Department to be Transparent
Chicago and Salt Lake City have continually been open to provide crime data since before SpotCrime was founded in 2008. Fortunately, today there are now many agencies around the US who are making crime data openly - check out the Police Data Initiative.
As early as 2005, the Chicago police department allowed Chicagocrime.org to pull data from an antiquated system and map the data on a Google map. This is one of the first examples of this type of crime mapping and was an inspiration to SpotCrime. Even more so, it’s impressive how transparent Chicago PD is with their data especially because of all the shootings happening daily in Chicago.
The second example we like to use is the Salt Lake City Police (SCLCPD). Originally using a proprietary system, the SLCPD moved to an open data format in 2013. In our view, we see this as a sincere effort by the department to be transparent. Taking an effort to be proactively open with data by moving away from a proprietary vendor that places restrictions over public information is a move toward openness and telegraphs quality and leadership.
2. Effort by strong city paper to make crime data open
When SpotCrime launched in 2007, we found some cities already providing crime data to the press. Two of note were Indianapolis and the Phoenix region. Indianapolis and the surrounding Marion County had an up to the minute feed of crime data. And in the Phoenix region, multiple police departments were all reporting data frequently. In 2007, this was an anomaly for SpotCrime to find.
Based on what we were able to ascertain, these police agencies made the data available because of a concerted effort by local press. The availability of crime data was a direct result of the efforts of the Indianapolis Star and the Arizona Republic.
The unfortunate outcome of this is that both areas dialed back transparency as the local press was weakened by the economics of the internet. Indianapolis turned off their feed in 2013, and some police departments in the Phoenix region began to resist providing data - most notably the Phoenix Police Department and the Scottsdale Police Department.
Indianapolis, Phoenix, and Scottsdale continued to contract with proprietary crime mapping vendors who place restrictions on how the press and public can collect, use, and share the crime data. This move from semi openness to a closed, single source for access to public information (one opposite of SLCPD) telegraphs the quality of trust an agency has with the public and press and reduces the level of transparency.
3. Lone Technical Open Data Champion within the Police Department
Over the last eight years, we’ve talked with many folks within police departments. One of the greatest treats is finding a person with technical knowledge in a small agency that has the authority and ability to release data.
The downside of this is that when the person leaves the department, the data access is scuttled and communication moves back to modus operandi.
For about six years, SpotCrime enjoyed the pleasure of mapping West Haven, CT and Belleville, IL. Unfortunately, within the last year, both individuals who championed technology within the departments left and access to public crime data disappeared.
The upside is that we encounter good people in almost every department who care about informing the public and have a grasp of technology. The downside is that budgets are not getting better, and it seems smaller departments grasp on technology is decreasing.
An agency electing to turn off an open data feed simply because there is no longer a person to run the feed is an cop-out excuse. To eliminate a resource that connects the agency with the community is a purposeful step backwards in transparency and reflects poorly on leadership and quality.
4. Federal Review
The saddest reason that a police agency starts releasing data publicly is Federal review. When an agency has received federal review it means things have gotten so bad that the Feds have come in and cleaned house, forcing an open data portal.
New Orleans and Detroit are good examples. Both agencies used the same proprietary vendor Crimemapping.com prior to their review. Both agencies paid thousands of dollars for the service and now, after Federal review, both agencies use an open data portal.
Probably one of the reasons the agencies moved from a closed, proprietary source for crime data (crimemapping.com) is the open data portal allows the public and the press faster access to information and the department spends much less money and effort reaching the public. Unfortunately, things within agencies had to get horrible before an outcome of forced transparency was reached.
So, what is the solution to true police data transparency?
Today, crime data is being collected on some type of digital format by almost all police agencies. Yet there are still police agencies who are not transparent with crime data.
We’ve found that a lot of technically capable agencies turn to using a proprietary crime mapping vendors that place restrictions on how crime data can be collected, used, and shared - alienating the press and the public and slowing down the spread of the data.
Why? We’re not completely sure. Sometimes it’s on purpose so the police agency doesn’t lose ‘control’ of who and what uses the crime data, other times it’s poor understanding that the vendor is restricting access.
Local press has been decimated every year for the last 10 years. The job of accountability has moved to the public as the press has weakened. Thankfully, the Internet and availability of data and technology to the general public may be a good replacement for the historically strong press. When access was difficult, and unmanageable, it made sense that the press had the responsibility to obtain, interpret, and report on the information. Now, we must rely on our police agencies to be more open because there isn’t a complementary strong institution holding them accountable as before.
We are not asking for these proprietary crime mapping systems to be turned off. If your police agency has a proprietary mapping system that displays data, they should keep it. Especially if it's free. We are just asking that the press and the public get equal and fair access to the crime data.
With all the turmoil in police relations, we see improving the trust quotient within the community as the biggest factor in reducing crime. Once fast way to increase this is through the proficiency of making crime data available and current to the public.
In our view, if your police agency is not making data open in 2016 and/or has plans to use a proprietary controlled system, they are not telegraphing quality or a sincere effort to be transparent or improve public trust.
Long term, we can’t rely on a strong press, lone technical person, or a Federal review to open up this data. We need law enforcement to recognize the power of transparency to fight crime and take the independent initiative to make the data available to all.
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