Building a Police Data Analytics Platform
Loren Atherly & Rebecca Boatright
The last decade has seen an increased focus on policing and its relationship with the community. In what may be considered the second reform movement in modern policing, Business Intelligence (BI) systems are critical. Typically, police data systems are constructed to support the delivery of police services, without consideration for the analytical potential of the data captured by these systems. Although there have been some recent developments in Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software packages for both Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) purposes, many agencies will find it necessary to construct a purpose built application to bring together existing data sources into a common warehouse.
In 2014, the Seattle Police Department (SPD), in support of efforts to demonstrate compliance with a Settlement Agreement (SA) between the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the City of Seattle, initiated a project to build a BI system, the Data Analytics Platform (DAP). The result of this project is believed to be a first of its kind resource for research level analytics of police performance and behavior. Additionally, early outcomes from field and management group engagement is encouraging and suggests a path forward for other agencies engaged in reform efforts.
Examining Police Use of Force Behavior and Citizen Complaints
William Terrill & Logan Somers
Recent research on citizen complaints shows that cities where internal affairs units serve as the investigatory entity, but have their outcome decisions (i.e., dispositions) reviewed by an external civilian oversight agency, were significantly more likely to sustain complaints. We look to extend this work by examining police use of force behavior. More specifically, we examine the extent to which varying types of complaint investigatory models (e.g., internal affairs, command level, and external civilian oversight) are related to the extent to which officers use force in such agencies.