COVID data is easier to access than crime data

It's almost 2021. Can crime data be easier to collect?

Data is the lifeblood of a functioning government. Preventing, reducing, and addressing crime is the top priority of any police agency. Any effective and community minded police agency wants to increase the number of stakeholders it collaborates with to prevent, reduce, and respond to crime.

Addressing police reform or any government policy requires data. So, why in 2020 is it still hard to collect public crime data (RMS/CAD datasets aka the crime blotter) nationwide? Policing can not move forward until we address the lack of accessibility to the most basic policing datasets. 

Right now, it is harder to collect RMS/CAD data from police agencies on a national scale than it is to collect national COVID data. In fact, there are more independent websites collecting COVID data and updating it almost daily than there are independent crime mapping websites like SpotCrime collecting RMS/CAD data. 

COVID data, even though it has its own difficulties, is an amazing example of open data. It shows governments (and their software vendors) across jurisdictional divides have the ability to collect and redistribute time sensitive data in an open and unrestricted format. 

This is not true for crime data. 

It could be argued that a worldwide pandemic is a catastrophic event that has made it easier for this mass data cooperation and aggregation. But the US has seen worldwide protests in response to misfired (and deadly) policing tactics toppled with lack of transparency and accountability from police agencies. Think of events like Ferguson and George Floyd to name a few.

Currently, there is no national standard for the release of this RMS/CAD data. No one is forcing or making it a requirement of police agencies to release public information in an open and unrestricted format. There are no federally backed standards (the SpotCrime Open Crime Standard (SOCS) is not federally backed) or regulations behind releasing these datasets. There are no laws that require the open release of these datasets. Without these measures in place, openness is left at the jurisdictional level where local political influence can undermine the level of a police agency’s transparency.

Chicago has an open data portal, Cook County Sheriff (encompasses Chicago) does not. This informational disconnect between jurisdictional lines is repeated across the country and is further complicated by different government vendors and Freedom of Information (FOIA) laws.

Vendors do not make it easy or cheap for police agencies to access their own public data. Local government becomes complacent with expensive legacy, closed, and proprietary software that fails to deliver, lacks transparency, and does not innovate or improve policing. 

Baltimore County police just upgraded their RMS vendor which in turn removed the capability to report crime data to the public in an open and timely format. This has knocked their brand new open data dashboard offline. It has not been updated since June. 

Baltimore County data dashboard as of December 2020 does not include data past June.

Even the FBI has trouble collecting data. 2021 is the year of the new FBI NIBRS reporting, but it is estimated 1 in 4 police agencies are unable to participate in the program as the transitions to NIBRS can involve millions of dollars in upgrades to computer systems. (Note RMS/CAD data is not the same as NIBRS data, but the point is even the only currently nationally recognized data collection is hampered by government vendors).

Finally - timeliness with crime data is not a priority for some agencies. There would be public outcry if COVID data was published only monthly, or was only made available to a private vendor to publish. However, this is acceptable with public crime data - why?

The only police related organization embracing the idea of open data is the Police Foundation through the Police Data Initiative. Introduced by the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing in 2014, the PDI embraces open data within police departments. No other police related organization, or police standards organization has also embraced the idea of open data - it is not a requirement of FBI, CALEA, IACP, NOBLE, NAPO, PERF, or police unions. These are the organizations that create level of accountability, why don’t they ask for transparency from their participants?

There is good news. Recently, post George Floyd global protests, we’ve found that agencies who were once ‘dark’ are embracing the idea of transparency more than ever before. Police agencies are seeing the benefits of open data - stronger and more transparent relationships with the community, an established feedback loop for these relationships, and real data and evidence to make better decisions for officers and the communities they serve.

Please reach out to your local police department and ask them to openly share their RMS and CAD data similar to how quickly and openly COVID data is being shared. Let’s fight this crime pandemic together.