Interesting drips and drabs coming out concerning the search for the next chief of police. Richmond Chief Rodney Monroe (right) is on the short-list, and check out what they’ve been up to Richmond. An IT trade site hit the details last summer:
The Richmond PD had plenty of data in its 911 and records management systems, but it could draw little insight — and certainly not timely insight — from dry 14-day and 30-day stats. “By the time we figured out what was going on, the criminals had moved on,” said Monroe.
The department decided to build a Law Enforcement Analytics dashboard combining current and historical 911 and police report information with graphical information and information on citywide events from Richmond.com. …
Mapping capabilities … help police correlate information on specific types of arrests to crime in a given area. For example, analysis revealed that Hispanic neighborhoods in Richmond were plagued by armed robberies on pay days, so the department increased patrols around check cashing establishments on certain days of the month. Similarly, the department now balances patrols based on recent crime by sector, as well as predictive factors such as weather, day of the week and events such as sporting events and concerts that draw large crowds.
The project’s success speaks for itself. Major crime declined 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and it’s down another 19 percent this year. In addition, the city has seen a 49-percent reduction in random gunfire incidents, a 246-percent increase in weapons seized and a $15,000 reduction in overtime costs. With these improvements the city dropped from fifth to 15th in “dangerous city” rankings, and it’s on track to drop from the top-25 this year.
Now isn’t that interesting? On the one hand, Richmond and presumably Monroe, although we need to be sure a great IT department and crafty vendor don’t deserve the credit, have exactly the kind of techie experience that Curt “311” Walton seems to favor as an approach to local governance.
On the other, can you imagine the Queen City talking openly about which neighborhoods foster particular kinds of crimes — let alone pro-actively trying to stop them? Right now we just act like property crime is force of nature. We cannot hope to stop it or combat it, we can only cope and try to be a “good neighbor” in the process.
Let’s look at our experience with CMS. Remember those data dashboards? Where the hell are they? The brutal truth is that the local power structure in Charlotte functions primarily via obfuscation and misdirection. Timely, accurate, detailed, widely disseminated info is not in the status quo’s best interest.
