IMPROVE YOUR DATA

How to improve policing data

Communities have different kinds of access to data on their police department, such as how many stops officers make. Some departments don’t yet collect data in a useful way. For example, they might use paper records which cannot be easily analyzed. Or they might not include information about the racial group of the person they stopped. Other departments do collect data, but the data are missing a lot of important information and don’t meet CPE’s requirements to produce results for the Justice Navigator.

Data quality issues can happen when departments do not set complete, clear, and enforced standards for when officers should record their actions. Departments might also be limited by the forms and electronic systems they have in place for collecting data. These systems can be expensive and difficult to change. The many factors that contribute to data quality mean that there are a lot of ways to improve data on policing and public safety.

Below are key questions any community or department can ask to improve their public safety data, no matter what stage they are at.

1

Does the department have a complete policy on data collection?

Communities can advocate for comprehensive, transparent data collection to measure when police stop or use force on members of the public. Departments and policymakers should seek communities’ opinions on data collection by creating clear and easy-to-access avenues for input, such as through advisory boards or meetings with elected officials.

Complete data collection means that officers record each interaction they have with a member of the public where the person is likely to believe they are not free to leave. Officers should record specific information about that interaction that can help answer questions about public safety. The Justice Navigator has a complete checklist of what specific information officers should record about each of these stop or use of force incidents.

The following key components should be recorded in every record about a stop or use of force incident:

The following key components should be recorded every time officers respond to a call for service:

Many communities are redesigning the systems that deliver public safety and creating alternatives to police response. These systems might include civilian-led crisis response teams or non-armed traffic enforcement agencies. Any public safety system should collect complete data, with these same standards, and in a comparable format to police data. This will allow communities to monitor whether alternative systems are achieving their goals of safety and equity.

2

Do officers understand how and when to record their actions?

Clear requirements for data collection are not enough to produce quality data. They need to be supported by good practices. Departments should train all officers on collecting data. Regular training should include: what information to collect, when to collect it, how to enter data into the computer system, and how the data will be used.

Officers should understand that they need to record any interactions immediately. If any paper forms are used, officers should know how to transmit them electronically at a later time so that they match exactly. Officers should also be required to record an option for each question in a data collection system. In other words, they should not be able to leave any option blank, but rather record “unknown” or “N/A,” so that it is clear when data is missing rather than when something simply didn’t happen.

3

Are officers held accountable for recording complete data?

Supervisors should review records to make sure that officers are completing them properly. This should happen regularly–for example, at the end of every shift. Departments should have clear procedures in place to check for data quality. A computer system can help with this checking, for example, by notifying supervisors when an officer has not submitted a stop data form by the end of their shift. Any errors discovered should be addressed immediately, and patterns of errors should be addressed systematically, including through re-training, policy changes, or disciplinary measures to prevent the same issue from happening again.

4

Has the department invested in the right data collection technology?

The computer systems used by police departments to record officer behavior are usually known as a Record Management System (RMS). The right RMS can make data much easier to collect and analyze. There is often a cost to update or upgrade RMS, but certain changes to these systems can have a big pay-off in data quality.

Communities can ask their department for the following qualities in an existing or new RMS system:

What happens after improving data?

It is worth noting that departments who already publish data and then make improvements to their data collection may see a large increase in the number of total stops or use of force incidents recorded. For example, a department may only collect data on vehicle stops when a citation or arrest occurs. A more comprehensive data collection policy would require officers to also record vehicle stops where no arrest or citation is made, and therefore would increase the total recorded number of stops the department makes. This leap in numbers may look concerning. It is important for communities and departments alike to understand that these new numbers likely are closer to the number of stops that took place before the new data collection practices, rather than indicating an actual large increase in stops. In other words, good data practices can uncover the truth of what is already happening.

Resources

Putting policing data to work

Why policing data matters to safety and equity, and how the Justice Navigator helps make policing data useful.

What if my department doesn't have a Justice Navigator assessment?

If your department doesn’t have a publicly available assessment, you can still use policing data to understand disparities and drive the reimagination of public safety.

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