How New Police Data Technology Addresses the Conference of Mayors Police Reforms
The 2020 Police Reform and Racial Justice report from the Conference of Mayors provides detailed recommendations on how to improve transparency and accountability. New police data technology aligns perfectly to help agencies embrace and achieve these important recommendations.
The 2020 Police Reform and Racial Justice report from the Conference of Mayors provides detailed recommendations on how to improve transparency and accountability. New police data technology aligns perfectly to help agencies embrace and achieve these important recommendations.
Six Recommendations to Improve Policing Outcomes
The August 2020 Report on Police Reform and Racial Justice is an evolution of earlier efforts made by the Conference of Mayors to address police reform. It is a summary of recommendations organized around the Principles of policing that the Conference has adopted.
At its heart, the report emphasizes that, “Public approval and acceptance are the basis of effective policing. The public and police must find common ground on which to trust each other.”
In order to establish this trust, there is a repeated concept mentioned for each recommendation throughout the report. Specifically, that agencies NEED:
- Policies
- A way to enforce the policies
- Data collection to prove policy enforcement and improvement
- To share the data externally with the community to show transparency and accountability
Really, this is a cycle of continuous improvement. As agencies are looking more closely at their outcomes, policies get adjusted and the cycle continues. The report states that, Superb policies are of little use if they are not enforced. “Public trust rests, in large part, on whether the public sees that their public servants are acting in accordance with those policies and are held accountable when they do not.”
The report goes on to say that, “Departments should also put their policies online and make them available to the public.“
Arx Software Enables Agencies to See, Analyze and Act for Police Reform
- SEE – We bring all your data together in one place for you to see critical department activity and community challenges on a single screen.
- ANALYZE – We provide clear and concise analysis of your data, ensuring you have the right information to execute your responsibilities.
- ACT – Through predictive-enabled analytics, we empower agencies to act with informed accountability and transparency.
Arx Community Provides External Transparency
Arx Community is an external-facing dashboard that provides citizens easy-to-understand charts and graphs revealing trends and demographics for:
- Citations
- Arrests
- Use of Force
- Pursuit
- Complaints
- Calls for Service
- Officer Training
- And more
Arx Alert Drives Internal Accountability
Arx Alert is an internal management and professional standards dashboard that provides supervisors a clear view of officer behavior to easily act on the critical data impacting your team. Supervisors can:
- Review and approve critical digital forms
- See team activity for traffic citations, arrests, calls for service and overtime
- Understand their team’s activity data according to demographics
- See alerts for possible behavior issues of officers
- Manage internal reviews and remediation efforts
How Arx Helps Fulfill the Recommendations from the Police Reform Report
Trust and Legitimacy
The report states that “Animating all of our recommendations is the fundamental principle of Trust and Legitimacy: that the public must have a reason to trust the police, as public approval and acceptance are the basis of effective policing.
The police serve the public interest and must earn public trust and legitimacy by acting as faithful guardians of the community who work to prevent crime and promote safety.”
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
Instant Legitimacy that Builds Trust
Arx Community is a simple way for agencies to show the community that they are beholden to them by making their data accessible to all. This provides immediate credibility in showing accountability for officer behavior and working to make improvements.
The Arx Community transparency dashboard also triggers discussion between law enforcement and the community on how they can work together to strengthen trust.
Redefining the Role of Local Police and Public Safety
This recommendation calls for agencies to assess their calls for service to better understand what resources are needed and how funds should be allocated. Once agencies understand their data, adopting co-responder models may present a better path for how critical police resources are utilized.
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
Clearer Understanding of Calls for Service
Arx Alert brings all your data together so you can better understand police activity. Reporting and analysis functions allow you to easily see the trends, demographics and nature of your calls for service so you can make better decisions for resource allocation. And you’ll have clear data that will help ensure community backing of those decisions.
Sanctity of Life
The report stresses that the core responsibility of an officer is “to protect all human life and physical safety and that use of force policies must clearly state this.”
This recommendation details the necessary elements in use of force policies and that appropriate training and enforcement of this policy is critical.
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
Proactive Addressment of At-Risk Behavior
Arx Alert helps agencies to enforce their use of force commitments with easy data collection and clear reporting. But it also goes a step beyond the recommendation with proactive alerting of behaviors which may signal potential issues. Supervisors can be alerted when an officer exhibits a certain number of questionable behaviors triggering review and remediation as needed—before inappropriate use of force happens.
Equality and Due Process
The report states very succinctly that “Police conduct must not vary on account of race, religion, national origin, immigration status, age, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or other status.”
In order to enforce this, the report recommends clear documentation of police activity relative to demographics and to appropriately address complaints of this nature.
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
All Police Activity Shown Relative to Demographics
Arx Alert presents a clear picture of police activity relative to citizen demographics. Citations, arrests, use of force, pursuits and complaints can all be evaluated by law enforcement leaders according to demographic breakdowns.
Arx Community provides this same information to the community you serve so that they can understand where bias may or may not be happening and work with the police to make improvements.
Community
This report calls for agencies to develop community policing plans and programs in lock-step with the community. It states, “Departments should work together with community leaders, including leaders of schools, unions, community centers, and religious groups, to identify common goals and challenges their communities are facing, all with the primary goal of ensuring public safety and decreasing crime.”
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
Shared Data Creates Community Alignment
Arx technologies put the data at the center of these conversations between the police and community leaders.
Having a common understanding of community issues and police performance allows for productive conversations. This provides the best foundation for developing programs that will drive desired changes.
Transparency and Accountability to Reinforce Constitutional Policing
The report stressed that “True police reform will not come about through improved policies and training alone. We must ensure that police fulfill their commitments to protect the residents they serve and that police build trust and legitimacy through transparency, engagement and accountability.”
The report goes on to suggest:
- Making policies publicly available
- Providing access to law enforcement data
- Utilizing technology that can enhance accountability
Their recommendation ends with the statement, “Transparency and more robust accountability mechanisms are necessary to improve police-community relations.”
How Arx Helps Agencies Achieve It
All Your Data in One System Makes Transparency and Accountability Simple
The most important thing that Arx does is brings all your data into one place. Law enforcement leaders only need to log into one system, Arx Alert, to ensure their officers are being held accountable.
And Arx Community provides clear transparency to the community for police performance.
When misconduct or serious incidents occur, Arx provides all the data to provide clear understanding to the community as to what happened.
Policing and law enforcement technology is complex, but when the data all comes to one place and is simple to access and understand, it makes true transparency and accountability achievable.
Arx is Rebuilding Community Trust and Improving Accountability
The Problem: Westland community leaders were making accusations of unfair policing practices.
The Solution: In just 6 weeks, Arx integrated Westland’s data and launched the Arx Community transparency dashboard to the public. Additionally, they are addressing performance issues with Arx Alert.
The Result: The community praised the Westland Police Department as “trailblazers” and the Chief of Police was awarded the Community Partner award from the local NAACP.
The Problem: The Detroit Police were facing a federal Consent Decree due to unnecessary use of force in arrests.
The Solution: Arx Alert Management Awareness Software was implemented to digitize all data and alert leaders to possible wellness or behavioral issues for proactive remediation.
The Result: Detroit saw significant reductions in use of force, lawsuits, payouts and citizen complaints. This allowed them to resolve the Consent Decrees and improve their image and community relationship.
