Chicago police are using a data-driven approach called the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy to predict and prevent gun violence. The strategy involves analyzing statistics on criminal histories, social networks, and other factors to identify individuals most at risk of violence. Police then conduct visits to these individuals and their families to offer social services and warn of consequences in hopes of persuading them to abandon criminal activities and gun violence. An example visit described involved an officer and social services representatives meeting with a gang member and his family to discuss his risk of harm and options for changing his life. The program aims to curb violence through targeted outreach rather than broad crackdowns. Early results suggest shootings have declined since the program began.
Analysis of the Factors Affecting Violent Crime Rates in the USDr. Amarjeet Singh
The goal of this study is to analyze the factors affecting violent crime rates in the US. It is hypothesized that an increase in the gun ownership rate tends to increase violent crimes in the US. It is hypothesized that urban areas in the US tend to have more violent crimes than rural areas. An OLS regression model is formulated using cross-sectional data set across 50 states and the District of Columbia for the year 2019. The endogenous variable is the violent crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The independent variables used in the OLS regression model are population density per square mile, unemployment rate, percentage of the population living in poverty, and gun ownership rate. The four exogenous variables that are found to be statistically significant are gun ownership, unemployment rate, population density per square mile, and percentage of population living in property. An attempt is also made to formulate strategies that would help in reducing violent crime rates in the US.
Analysis of the Factors Affecting Violent Crime Rates in the USDr. Amarjeet Singh
The goal of this study is to analyze the factors affecting violent crime rates in the US. It is hypothesized that an increase in the gun ownership rate tends to increase violent crimes in the US. It is hypothesized that urban areas in the US tend to have more violent crimes than rural areas. An OLS regression model is formulated using cross-sectional data set across 50 states and the District of Columbia for the year 2019. The endogenous variable is the violent crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The independent variables used in the OLS regression model are population density per square mile, unemployment rate, percentage of the population living in poverty, and gun ownership rate. The four exogenous variables that are found to be statistically significant are gun ownership, unemployment rate, population density per square mile, and percentage of population living in property. An attempt is also made to formulate strategies that would help in reducing violent crime rates in the US.
Predictive Policing on Gun Violence Using Open DataPredPol, Inc
This presentation is an abstract of a 2013 whitepaper published by PredPol.
PredPol delivers the same predictive accuracy for gun violence using unique mathematical methods. A study of Chicago data shows that PredPol successfully predicts 50% of gun homicides by flagging in real-time only 10.3% of city locations. Knowing where and when gun homicides are most likely to occur empowers law enforcement to use their knowledge, skills and experience to disrupt gun crime before it happens.
The study uses open government data from Chicago and predictive crime analysis.
For the full whitepaper, visit predpol.com & request information.
PredPol: How Predictive Policing WorksPredPol, Inc
PredPol’s cloud-based predictive policing software enables law enforcement agencies to better prevent crime in their communities by generating predictions on the places and times that future crimes are most likely to occur.
PredPol’s technology has been helping law enforcement agencies to dramatically reduce crime in jurisdictions of all types and sizes, across the U.S. and overseas. Over the past year, Atlanta and Los Angeles have reduced specific crimes in targeted areas at rates ranging from nearly 20% to over 40%. Smaller jurisdictions, such as Norcross, Georgia, have seen nearly a 30% reduction in burglaries and robberies; in Alhambra, California, car burglaries have dropped 20% since the software technology was deployed.
Using advanced mathematics and computer learning, PredPol’s algorithms predict many types of crime, including property crimes, drug incidents, gang activity, and gun violence as well as traffic accidents.
Only three pieces of data are used to make predictions – type of crime, place of crime, and time of crime. No personal data is utilized in making these predictions.
Crime analysts and command staff using PredPol are 100% more effective than they are with traditional hotspot mapping at predicting where and when crimes are likely to occur. That means police have twice as many opportunities to deter and reduce crime.
Απομακρυσμένος Έλεγχος Συσκευών μέσω Διαδικτύου2gymevosm
Παρουσίαση της εργασίας "Απομακρυσμένος Έλεγχος Συσκευών μέσω Διαδικτύου" του μαθητή του 2ου Γυμνασίου Ευόσμου Γ. Κουγιουμτζή για το 8ο Μαθητικό Συνέδριο Πληροφορικής.
Planning for long-term care either for you or a family member is a task most of us are reluctant to consider. Long-term care may be needed at any age, but the possibility of an individual requiring some form of long-term care increases as we age. It is very important to make decisions regarding long-term care in advance of your need.
Predictive Policing on Gun Violence Using Open DataPredPol, Inc
This presentation is an abstract of a 2013 whitepaper published by PredPol.
PredPol delivers the same predictive accuracy for gun violence using unique mathematical methods. A study of Chicago data shows that PredPol successfully predicts 50% of gun homicides by flagging in real-time only 10.3% of city locations. Knowing where and when gun homicides are most likely to occur empowers law enforcement to use their knowledge, skills and experience to disrupt gun crime before it happens.
The study uses open government data from Chicago and predictive crime analysis.
For the full whitepaper, visit predpol.com & request information.
PredPol: How Predictive Policing WorksPredPol, Inc
PredPol’s cloud-based predictive policing software enables law enforcement agencies to better prevent crime in their communities by generating predictions on the places and times that future crimes are most likely to occur.
PredPol’s technology has been helping law enforcement agencies to dramatically reduce crime in jurisdictions of all types and sizes, across the U.S. and overseas. Over the past year, Atlanta and Los Angeles have reduced specific crimes in targeted areas at rates ranging from nearly 20% to over 40%. Smaller jurisdictions, such as Norcross, Georgia, have seen nearly a 30% reduction in burglaries and robberies; in Alhambra, California, car burglaries have dropped 20% since the software technology was deployed.
Using advanced mathematics and computer learning, PredPol’s algorithms predict many types of crime, including property crimes, drug incidents, gang activity, and gun violence as well as traffic accidents.
Only three pieces of data are used to make predictions – type of crime, place of crime, and time of crime. No personal data is utilized in making these predictions.
Crime analysts and command staff using PredPol are 100% more effective than they are with traditional hotspot mapping at predicting where and when crimes are likely to occur. That means police have twice as many opportunities to deter and reduce crime.
Απομακρυσμένος Έλεγχος Συσκευών μέσω Διαδικτύου2gymevosm
Παρουσίαση της εργασίας "Απομακρυσμένος Έλεγχος Συσκευών μέσω Διαδικτύου" του μαθητή του 2ου Γυμνασίου Ευόσμου Γ. Κουγιουμτζή για το 8ο Μαθητικό Συνέδριο Πληροφορικής.
Planning for long-term care either for you or a family member is a task most of us are reluctant to consider. Long-term care may be needed at any age, but the possibility of an individual requiring some form of long-term care increases as we age. It is very important to make decisions regarding long-term care in advance of your need.
CAMPANHA: COFPISNE EM AÇÃO PELA VIDA DA CHAPADA DIAMANTINAINPS / COFPISNE
A sociedade não tem culpa dos desastres provocados por ações humanas onde em muitos casos as decisões são tomadas apenas por um ser humano. Mas a conscientização deve partir de todos.
Precisamos pensar mais no meio ambiente, na sustentabilidade ambiental para que nossos descendentes não sofram tanto.
https://nyti.ms/2YBa4UG
Because reform won’t happen.
By Mariame Kaba
Ms. Kaba is an organizer against criminalization.
June 12, 2020
Congressional Democrats want to make it easier to identify and prosecute police misconduct; Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300
million. But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century.
Enough. We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police.
There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South
emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police
departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized
populations to protect the status quo.
So when you see a police officer pressing his knee into a black man’s neck until he dies, that’s the logical result of policing in America. When a
police officer brutalizes a black person, he is doing what he sees as his job.
Now two weeks of nationwide protests have led some to call for defunding the police, while others argue that doing so would make us less safe.
The first thing to point out is that police officers don’t do what you think they do. They spend most of their time responding to noise complaints,
issuing parking and traffic citations, and dealing with other noncriminal issues. We’ve been taught to think they “catch the bad guys; they
chase the bank robbers; they find the serial killers,” said Alex Vitale, the coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn
College, in an interview with Jacobin. But this is “a big myth,” he said. “The vast majority of police officers make one felony arrest a year. If
they make two, they’re cop of the month.”
We can’t simply change their job descriptions to focus on the worst of the worst criminals. That’s not what they are set up to do.
Second, a “safe” world is not one in which the police keep black and other marginalized people in check through threats of arrest,
incarceration, violence and death.
I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police
or simply to make them less violent — here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in
half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas,
Los Angeles and other cities.
History is instructive, not because it offers us a blueprint for how to act in the present but because it can help us ask better questions for the
future.
The Lexow Committee undertook the first major investigation into police misconduct in New York Cit ...
Chapter 1 Introduction The Linearity of Contemporary Criminal JustMorganLudwig40
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Linearity of Contemporary Criminal Justice Thought: Perspective, Context, and Direction
Chapter 18: Contemporary Police and Society, pp. 290-294
Godown, J. (2009, August). The CompStat process: Four principles for managing crime reduction. Police Chief Magazine, LXXVI(8). Retrieved from http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=1859&issue_id=82009
Unit Lesson
Throughout history, the American criminal justice system has experienced a myriad of challenges and changes along its evolutionary journey. Ever since the inception of our nation’s first police agency, law enforcement has been charged with the responsibility of instituting public policy and initiative that exhibits a clear perspective on how to detect, deter, and prevent crime.
These perspectives set the foundation for the way our criminal justice system addresses the contemporary issues facing modern law enforcement in the 21st century. The evidentiary shift from traditional criminal justice practices to a more innovative, contemporary law enforcement strategy arose from research-based theory and practice. Three contemporary tools deserving a deeper level of explanation and analysis include the following elements:
evidence-based practices (EBP),
crime mapping, and
community and problem-oriented policing.
These tools are key to what is referred to as predictive policing. The premise behind predictive policing rests on the idea that society will be much safer if we do not wait to make an arrest after a crime has been committed, but rather, we prevent the crime in the first place (Maguire & Okada, 2015).
Evidence-based policing, simply stated, is the marriage between scientific research and taking that evidence and those results and putting them into practice with the use of guidelines and policy. This notion has been used in medicine when doctors use advanced training as it pertains to the scientific method and follow the most recent evidence available derived from research (Sherman, 1998). We see this firsthand with Berkeley Police Chief August Vollmer in the early 1970s when he began implementing a radical approach to practical policing with innovations such as the patrol car, profiling, and forensics to name a few.
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Contemporary Criminal Justice Theory and Practice
BCJ 4601, Criminal Justice Current Topics 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Crime mapping, such as that provided by the widely recognized program CompStat (computer statistics), is another innovation in contemporary criminal justice that has changed the way law enforcement approaches crime. Crime mapping has a long history dating back to the 1920s. According to Chamard (2006), the most well-known criminological maps came from Chicago sociologists, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, who constructed a choropleth map consisting of the residences of over 3,000 juvenile delinquents. Shaw and McKay used polygon shading to indicate t ...
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HOME BROWSE TOPICS BROWSE REPORTS USING CQR LIBRARIAN ACCOUNT WHAT WE DO
FULL REPORT
Introduction
Overview
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About the Author
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Police Under Scrutiny October 9, 2020 – Volume 30, Issue 36
Can law enforcement restore public trust?
By Christina L. Lyons
Introduction
Police officers fatally shoot an average of nearly 1,000 people annually in the United States, and
Blacks, Hispanics, the mentally ill and the poor are more likely to be stopped by police than whites.
Increasingly, violent encounters with minorities are being captured on camera and igniting racial
justice protests across the country. Many police unions and defense lawyers caution those viral
images distort reality and say that the vast majority of officers behave ethically. Lawmakers,
criminal justice experts and civil rights leaders disagree on whether laws should restrict police use
of force, or if some law enforcement funding should be diverted to other community resources that
could better handle citizens' disagreements or emergencies. Many Americans want police officers
to be held more accountable — particularly in court — when they injure or kill a suspect. But
officers and legal experts say officers must assess threats quickly in order to protect themselves
and others, and courts should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Police watch after tear gas is fired into a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators on May
31 in Santa Monica, Calif. The nation experienced a summer of protests over the killings of
Black Americans by police. (Getty Images/Mario Tama)
Go to top
Overview
In Minneapolis, police reforms seemingly came fast.
Beginning in 2016, the city revised officer training; promoted Assistant Chief Medaria Arradondo to
be the city's first Black police chief; held community meetings; toughened department policy on the
use of body cameras; and took other steps to address allegations that officers targeted minority
groups and used excessive force when making arrests.
“They were held up as a model of reform,” says David Muhammed, executive director of the
National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, a research group based in Oakland, Calif.
ISSUE TRACKER for Related Reports
Law Enforcement
Oct. 09, 2020 Police Under Scrutiny
Apr. 21, 2017 High-Tech Policing
Sep. 16, 2016 Jailing Debtors
Jun. 07, 2016 Crime and Police
Conduct
Dec. 12, 2014 Police Tactics
Apr. 06, 2012 Police Misconduct
Oct. 14, 2011 Eyewitness
Testimony
May 06, 2011 Business Ethics
Mar. 17, 2000 Policing the Police
Nov. 24, 1995 Police Corruption
Sep. 06, 1991 Police Brutality
Apr. 19, 1974 Police Innovation
Sep. 02, 1966 Police Reforms
Jan. 12, 1954 Federal Police
Activity
Apr. 01, 1932 Proposed
Expansions of
Federal Police
Activity
B ...
According to the 2014 Internet Crime Report published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and conducted by the National White Collar Crime Center, the United States is the world’s leading country in terms of cybercrime-related reports. The survey revealed that of the 269,422 reported cases, 123,684 involved a monetary loss averaging at $2,971 each.
2Crime Occurrence Evaluation PaperProfessor M. Callaha.docxlorainedeserre
2
Crime Occurrence Evaluation Paper
Professor M. Callahan
AJS/514
Grace Acevedo
October 28, 2019
Crime Occurrence Evaluation
Criminal Justice involves a set of interdisciplinary knowledge and integrated systematic actions to reach the awareness of a truth related to the criminal phenomenon, which includes the management of strategies that scrutinizes the role of the victim, the offender, and the crime as such, and the study of techniques aimed at countering, controlling and preventing criminal activity. This paper intends to interpret the occurrence of crime.
Current Trends in the Crime Rate
Based on FBI data, crime rates decreased by 3.9% during the past year and have continued to decrease. These include murder, robbery, burglary, vehicle thefts, larceny, and non-negligent manslaughter. With rape, the rate showed to have increased, subsequent in the last six years (https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/09/30/new-fbi-data-violent-crime-still-falling)
Social and Environmental Factors Influencing Crime Rate
Economic circumstances as poverty and lack of employment are issues that affect low income communities. Communities where abnormal behavior is ignored and/or stimulated result in criminal activities. The population holding firearms has exploded. Between 6% to 10% of teenagers in high school have access to guns carry guns to school, this escalating to committing violent crimes (https://phoenix.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781337514910/). The recruiting of children and teenagers in gangs is rising, drugs and substance abuse are major causes for violent crimes. Exposing children to violent video games is an issue affecting today’s generation by teaching violence and undermining law enforcement (https://phoenix.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781337514910/).
Factors that contribute to Criminal Behavior and Crime Rate
Family relationships lead to criminal behavior. The lack of attention from parents to children, a household composed of one parent, child abuse, exposure to drugs and alcohol, and prostitution are some situations that push children and teenagers to seek support from other sources where bad influences can trigger delinquency.
Antisocial behavior leads to engage in delinquent acts. Risk-taking is another factor in committing delinquent activities and is most seen between the ages of 11 to 21. During this period, behaviors such as careless driving, substance use, unprotected sex, eating disorders, homicidal and suicidal behaviors, and dangerous sports are characteristics of risk-taking that lead to criminal behavior.
Investigating Crime Occurrence through Research and Theory Development
Social structure theories state that criminality is a product of social forces which include traditions, responsibilities, laws, morality, and religious beliefs (Calderon, M.). These theories are social disorganization, social change, conflict, and lack of social consensus as root causes of crime. The “broken window” theory focuses on ...
3Victimization inthe United StatesAn OverviewCHAPTE.docxtamicawaysmith
3
Victimization in
the United States:
An Overview
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Crime in the Streets: The Big Picture
The Use and Abuse of Statistics
Making Sense of Statistics
The Two Official Sources of Victimization Data
A First Glance at the Big Picture: Estimates of the
Number of New Crime Victims per Year
A Second Glance at the Big Picture: Looking at the
FBI’s Crime Clock
Taking Another Glance at the Big Picture: Looking at
Victimization Rates
Focusing on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
Uniform Crime Report
Focusing on the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National
Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
Comparing the UCR and the NCVS
Tapping into the UCR and the NCVS to Fill in the
Details of the Big Picture
Searching for Changes in the Big Picture: Detecting
Trends in Interpersonal Violence and Theft
Taking a Global View: Making International Comparisons
Putting Crime into Perspective: The Chances of Dying
Violently—or From Other Causes
Summary
Key Terms Defined in the Glossary
Questions for Discussion and Debate
Critical Thinking Questions
Suggested Research Projects
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
To find out what information about crime victims is
collected routinely by the federal government’s
Department of Justice.
To become familiar with the ways that victimologists
use this data to estimate how many people were
harmed by criminal activities and what injuries and
losses they suffered.
To become aware of the kinds of information about
victims that can be found in the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report.
continued
58
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CRIME IN THE STREETS: THE BIG
PICTURE
Victimologists gather and interpret data to answer
questions such as: How many people are harmed by
criminals each year? How rapidly are the ranks of
people who have suffered misfortunes growing?
And, a matter of particular concern, which groups
are targeted the most and the least often? Research-
ers want to find out where and when the majority
of crimes occur, whether predators on the prowl
intimidate and subjugate their prey with their bare
hands or use weapons, and if so, what kinds? Victi-
mologists also want to determine whether indivi-
duals are attacked by complete strangers or people
they know, and how these intended targets act
when confronted by assailants. What proportion
try to escape or fight back, how many are injured,
what percentage need to be hospitalized, and how
much money do they typically lose in an incident?
The answers to basic questions like these, when
taken together, constitute what can be termed the
big picture—an overview of what is really happen-
ing across the United States during the twenty-first
century. The big picture serves as an antidote to
impressions based on direct but limited personal
experiences, as well as self-serving reports circulated
by organizations with vested interests, misleading
media images, crude stereotypes, and widely held
myths. But putting toge ...
1. CHICAGO
I
t was an unusual encounter from the
start. On a cold evening in February, Chi-
cago police officer Maria Peña knocked
on the door of a house in one of the city’s
most crime-ridden neighborhoods. She
wanted to talk to a leader of the Latin
Kings, a gang on the city’s South Side, as well as
his mother. Ms. Peña was not there to question
or arrest the man. She wanted to save his life.
The gang leader opened the door. “He was a
little wary to see me,” says Peña, commander of
the Chicago Police Department’s 10th District.
Nevertheless, his mother welcomed Peña and
several other local officials. She invited them
to sit around the kitchen table with her son, his
girlfriend, and a 6-year-old niece. The kitchen
was tidy, the atmosphere cordial. But the talk
turned blunt quickly.
“I looked at the mom and said, ‘Honestly,
do you want to bury your son?’ ” And, she told
her, it might not be just him. Peña recounted a
recent retaliation shooting in the neighborhood
in which an innocent bystander – a 10-month-
old girl – fell victim.
“Do you want your little granddaughter be-
ing the next victim?”
She urged the son to jettison his gang-re-
lated activities and offered a variety of social
services to help him do it.
Since then, Peña is not sure if the gang lead-
er changed his ways or whom he associates
with. What she does know is that he’s still alive
– and shootings related to the Latin Kings have
stopped, at least temporarily, in her district.
Peña was basing her warnings in part on
intelligence the police had gleaned from com-
puter algorithms. Her visit on that raw night
was part of a pioneering attempt by the Chi-
cago Police Department (CPD) to harness the
STORY BY MARK GUARINO / STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Chicago Police Cmdr. Maria Peña speaks to officers
before they head out on patrol in the 10th District,
where they have been engaging more with residents.
Chicago police officer Marco Gallegos waves at
two women, making sure they’re OK, as he patrols
a neighborhood on the city’s South Side (opposite
page).
VNEXT PAGE
IN CHICAGO, BIG DATA
WALKS THE BEAT.
HOW POLICE ARE TAPPING
ALGORITHMS TO CURB
VIOLENCE.
CAN MATH STOP MURDER?
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEEKLY | JULY 21, 2014 27
2. power of Big Data to stop crime before it
happens.
Armed with a plethora of statistics on
everything from gun violations to individual
parole and arrest histories, police here are
trying to create a national model that will
help them predict where shootings might
occur and who might be involved – both
victims and offenders. Then they use the
information to reach out to people in the
neighborhoods in the hope of preventing
the guns from ever being brandished.
“I don’t think the families always know
these guys are out there doing what they are
doing,” says Peña. “When you have these
kind of conversations with their families,
and the [gang members] see the hurt in their
mother’s eyes, I think that hurts them, be-
cause the family means everything to them.”
Chicago’s experiment is part of an
emerging new movement of preventive
policing that is sweeping through precinct
houses across the country and even around
the world. Cities from Los Angeles to Atlan-
ta, Seattle to Santa Cruz, Calif., are trying to
harness the power of math to curb various
forms of crime, whether it’s robbery, gun vi-
olence, or drug dealing. Authorities in Kent,
England, are using sophisticated computer
models to guide police, too.
But the CPD is pushing the science in
new directions. Beat cops and veteran pre-
cinct captains in the nation’s second largest
police force are teaming up with number
crunchers and leading university crime re-
searchers in their quest to better understand
gun violence and engage with neighborhood
residents.
Chicago’s initiative, though still nascent,
has shown some success so far. Since last
July, police have carried out 66 house calls
similar to the one Peña made. In only two
cases were gang members they visited later
involved in shootings – which is progress
for a city reeling from a national reputation
for bloodshed.
It’s also one reason the initiative here is
now being looked at by a number of police
departments in other cities, such as New
Orleans and Toronto. While no one sees
Big Data as the answer to crime – and the
program isn’t without controversy – people
here see it as a powerful new tool to combat
urban violence.
“Police in major American cities have
endured generations in which good
and serious people came to work ev-
ery day and felt they were not doing any
good in solving the violence issue...,”
says David Kennedy, director of the
Center for Crime Prevention and Control at
the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in
New York, who is involved in the Chicago
project. “Now, the fact that you can do good
and help people and possibly save lives is
transformational.”
Preventivepolicingmovescopwork one more
step from the era of batons to the era of
bits and bytes. In the 1970s and ’80s, many
cities dealt with a surging homicide problem
by trying to sweep it off the streets. Police
flooded besieged neighborhoods. They
made large numbers of arrests. Courts sent
the criminals to jail – often for substantial
periods of time.
Then came the era of community po-
licing, in which police were more rooted
in neighborhoods, both protecting and
interacting with residents. This approach
was less reactive, adding an element of
preventiveness to law enforcement. Now
comes preventive policing, which combines
enforcement, community engagement, and
analytics. It’s what Garry McCarthy, Chica-
go’s police superintendent, calls “commu-
nity policing almost on steroids.”
In Chicago, the shift to a more num-
bers-based approach began with the ar-
rival of Mr. McCarthy, whom Mayor Rahm
Emanuel appointed superintendent three
years ago. A beefy “cop’s cop” as comfort-
able around numbers as he is doing roll call,
McCarthy came at an inauspicious time: The
city was dealing with the aftereffects of a
police torture scandal that was continuing
to siphon millions in settlement fees. The
police union was upset at budget cuts and
declining manpower, and Mr. Emanuel
was intent on shedding the label “murder
mayor,” the moniker critics gave him when
the number of homicides
spiked above 500 his first
year in office.
At the outset, McCarthy
represented something
different for Chicago: a
superintendent from out-
side the CPD ranks with a
background in crime statis-
tics. He had overseen the
highly touted CompStat
program in New York City,
which created a new way
of managing crime num-
bers and holding precinct
commanders accountable.
Later, while police superin-
tendent in Newark, N.J., he
saw homicides fall 28 per-
cent on his watch. Early in
his new role in Chicago,
McCarthy did something
unheard of in this city where top officials
operate with a tribal allegiance to each
other: He apologized for decades of racial
targeting by the police.
“What he said was, ‘I get it and I’m sorry
and we’re going to try to do better.’ No one
has said that,” says Andrew Papachristos,
a Yale University sociology professor who
grew up in Chicago. “McCarthy has moved
the culture of the police into a place that
keeps Chicago in the front, and not in the
middle, of the pack.”
At the core of Chicago’s new approach
is both collaboration between cops and ac-
ademics and the numbers they gather. Just
as the social network model is effective in
helping create a portrait of Facebook users
– their tastes, habits, and the people they
interact with – the data analysis in Chicago
is giving beat officers a more comprehen-
sive understanding of the neighborhoods
they police.
McCarthy says incorporating the sta-
tistics into preventive policing will move
Chicago away from targeting an entire
community to focusing on individuals most
likely to either cause, or fall victim to, gun
violence. In an interview, the superintendent
says that accountability is no longer just
the domain of district commanders: Beat
officers are now being trained to use data
to figure out where violence might erupt
and how to stop it.
“I see what we are doing in Chicago as
creating a model that is really going to a
whole other level of intelligence-based po-
licing,” he says. “It requires a new way of
thinking.”
The marquee program is the Chicago
Violence Reduction Strategy, a partnership
funded by the MacArthur Foundation and
led by John Jay College, with Yale Univer-
sity, the University of Chicago, and other
academic institutions playing major support
roles. Although currently used in only four
police districts on the city’s South Side, the
VFROM PREVIOUS PAGE
VNEXT PAGE
VNEXT PAGE
‘WE CAN SHOW [FAMILIES], WITH ALMOST
CERTAINTY, THE PROBABILITY OF THEIR
SON OR BROTHER OR GRANDSON BEING THE
NEXT GUNSHOT VICTIM BASED ON THEIR
SOCIAL NETWORK.’
– Chris Mallette, head of the Chicago Violence Reduction Strategy program at John Jay College
28 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEEKLY | JULY 21, 2014 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEEKLY | JULY 21, 2014 29
People walk through Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, a crime-ridden area, as a
police vehicle cruises by (opposite page).
David Kennedy, in his office at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NewYork
(left), helped develop a database about Chicago gangs.
ANN HERMES/STAFF
3. strategy is expected to spread.
Fashioning the program required under-
standing Chicago’s gang culture. Decades
ago, gangs here were large criminal organi-
zations that dominated expansive areas of
turf and fought for control of the drug trade.
Today, they are neighborhood factions that
control only a few blocks. According to the
Chicago Crime Commission, 70 to 100 gangs
now inhabit the city, encompassing about
100,000 members. Many have different
and changing reasons for existence, which
makes it hard for the beat cop to under-
stand, much less control, them.
Enter Mr. Kennedy and the digiteers. His
team helped the police create a database
that monitored which gangs were active,
which were quiet, which were fighting – and
with whom. “You can’t even understand
what is going on until you have that level
of specificity,” he says.
To get that information, John Jay re-
searchers interviewed key personnel across
the city – mainly beat cops – about what
they saw on the streets and built that into
the current CompStat system.
Many seasoned officers were reluctant
to cooperate. They didn’t understand why
they needed to be that granular about gang
activity, and many were more apt to trust
their instincts than a computer algorithm.
“Getting [the value of this] across can be
really hard, especially in a city like Chicago,
where you have four generations serving
in the same police district,” says Professor
Papachristos of Yale.
But he says views began to change when
the John Jay team returned with the results:
a systematic snapshot of gang factions that
could yield predictions of where violence
might break out next.
Whilesomeofficersstilldon’tembrace the new
approach, the results have been reason-
ably encouraging so far: Police data show
shooting incidents – both fatal and nonfatal
– dropped 24 percent in 2013 compared with
the year before. Murders fell 18 percent,
from 503 to 414.
Shooting incidents through June 30
of this year ticked up 5.5 percent, though
the number of murders dropped 5 percent
compared with last year, according to the
CPD. Still, crime remains stubborn: The city
experienced 82 shootings – and 14 deaths –
over the July 4th weekend alone.
The numbers overall, while not perfect,
reflect a tactical shift in how police respond
to shootings. In 2013, Papachristos and Yale
colleague Christopher Wilderman calculated
that, between 2006 and 2011, the homicide
rate of “a high-crime African American com-
munity in Chicago” was 55.2 per 10,000
people. That number was about four times
the citywide rate during the same period.
The old mind-set would suggest that
this neighborhood was a dangerous place
and that many people there were at risk
of being either a victim or perpetrator of a
crime. The traditional response might have
been to dispatch a large number of police
to the area, turning the neighborhood into
something of a battle zone.
But Papachristos and Mr. Wilderman’s
data showed that a very small percentage
of the population was probably causing all
the problems and a lighter, more targeted
police footprint would be more effective.
According to their research, arrest records
show that 85 percent of all gunshot homi-
cide victims had at least one previous arrest.
Victims and perpetrators of violence also
tend to know each other and operate within
the same social networks. Using both ar-
rest and homicide records, the researchers
found that the population of the community
that had been arrested during the five-year
period consisted of 24,110 people, about 30
percent of the total population.
Drilling down further, they calculated
that 41 percent of all gun homicide victims
were located within the social network of
arrestees. The percentage that those vic-
tims represented within the community as
a whole was 3,718 people, or only 4 percent
of the population.
“Crime is more concentrated within net-
works of people than actual places,” says
Papachristos. “So all of a sudden you’re
talking about 70 to 80 percent of shootings
taking place in networks that represent just
3 to 5 percent of the population. Those at
risk are a couple hundred people. You now
have a sense of who they are.”
Knowing the numbers is one thing. Getting
people to not pull out their guns is another.
Chicago police are taking several steps to
try to head off violence before it happens,
which may be the most difficult part of pre-
ventive policing.
They have expanded “call-ins,” group
meetings with repeat offenders on probation
or parole, during which they remind them
of the risks of committing another crime.
The city has stepped up foot and bicycle
patrols in 20 high-risk zones – ones that rep-
resent just 3 percent of city land but account
for 20 percent of gun violence. Authorities
have also put into place a system to solicit
feedback from crime victims about their
experience with the police.
“When you talk to the public, yes, they
want crime reduced, but they are more con-
cerned about fairness and respectfulness
with their interaction with police,” says
Dennis Rosenbaum, a criminologist at the
University of Illinois at Chicago who has
helped oversee the feedback program.
“When the public feels ... the police are
being fair in their authority and aren’t judg-
ing them on the basis of race, gender, and
ethnicity, they are much more likely to co-
operate, much more likely to provide them
with intelligence to solve crimes,” he adds.
The most recent and perhaps revolution-
ary development in the CPD’s outreach ef-
fort is the door-to-door campaign, such as
the one officer Peña was a part of.
Years ago, the scene would have been un-
imaginable: The doorbell rings at the home
of a gang member who has been arrested
multiple times. An officer says a district
commander wants to chat with the man
and his family. Can they come in?
Using a formula created by Papachris-
tos and his team, the police have drawn up
a “hot list” of people to visit who may be
most at risk of becoming either the next
offender or victim. It is based on an analysis
of individuals’ criminal histories, prison re-
cords, open court cases, and victims’ social
networks.
Police present the visit as an informa-
tion session and an opportunity for change.
Accompanying the district commander are
representatives from social agencies who
offer to connect the family with health-
care services, classes to earn a high school
equivalency certificate, or job-training and
placement programs.
The officer also conveys something more
sober: what the legal consequences would
be if a person with that kind of record – and
the police detail what the individual’s record
is – were to commit another crime.
“We just lay it out like that with them,
and close by saying the people of your
neighborhood do not want violence – put
down the gun,” says Cmdr. John Kenney,
executive director of the CPD’s Bureau of
Organizational Development, which runs
the custom notification program.
The visitors make sure the others around
the kitchen table hear about the individual’s
rap sheet, too, and what the consequences
of more criminal activity would be for him
and the family.
“It’s terrifying to the families,” says Chris
Mallette, executive director of the Chica-
go Violence Reduction Strategy program
at John Jay College. “We can show them,
with almost certainty, the probability of
their son or brother or grandson being the
next gunshot victim based on their social
network.”
Noteveryoneisenamoredofpreventive polic-
ing, however. Some doubt it will ever have a
meaningful effect on lowering gun violence.
Others worry that it is just a distraction from
what is ultimately needed to improve some
inner-city neighborhoods.
“Much like any other program in Chi-
cago, they are not dealing with the crux of
the problem, which is poverty,” says Tracy
Siska, executive director of the Chicago Jus-
tice Project, a nonprofit group. Police may
offer counseling and social services during
interventions, but Mr. Siska says those are
hollow choices.
“You are not getting a guy out of a gang
until you bring him a job,” he says. “I think
[house calls] are a decent idea, and in the
short term, they may have an impact. But
it’ll only become long term if you can get
those people out of those lifestyles.”
Johnny Outlaw believes they need jobs,
VFROM PREVIOUS PAGE
VNEXT PAGE
VNEXT PAGE
‘[GANG MEMBERS] SAY, “I’M TIRED OF SHOOTING
PEOPLE, I’M TIRED OF ROBBING PEOPLE. I WANT TO DO
SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE.” I SAY, “IF YOU WORK WITH
ME, WE’LL FIND YOU A JOB. BUT YOU NEED TO PUT
DOWN THAT GUN.” ’
– Johnny Outlaw, who provides legal services and helps offenders find jobs
30 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEEKLY | JULY 21, 2014 | JULY 21, 2014 31
From top: Chicago resident Sean Channell, who
says crime has gotten worse since he moved to
Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood in 1970, wears
aT-shirt that reads‘Stop the killings.’ Chicago
police detain and handcuff a man in Roseland.
He was eventually released.Young men play in
a basketball tournament sponsored by Kids Off
The Block, a Chicago nonprofit that offers youths
alternatives to gangs and drugs.
4. too, but thinks the new police initiative is a
definite step in the right direction. He leads
an effort to find work for repeat offenders
and provide them with legal services. In
private, many gang members tell him that
they want to put down their guns but either
are afraid of retaliation or don’t know how
to go straight. Mr. Outlaw says that he’s
had “top-flight gangbangers” break down
sobbing in his office – “physical tears out
of these cats” – because they feel they’re
out of options.
“They say, ‘I’m tired of shooting people,
I’m tired of robbing people. I want to do
something with my life.’ I say, ‘If you work
with me, we’ll find you a job. But you need
to put down that gun,’ ” he says.
They show up at Outlaw’s match-
book-sized office at Teamwork Englewood,
a nonprofit that partners with the CPD, on
the campus of Kennedy-King College. Out-
law has gone out with Chicago police on
some of their house visits, wearing a bul-
letproof vest over one of his natty suits. He
has transitioned gang members into jobs
ranging from manual labor at warehouses
to driving trucks cross-country.
Others fault Big Data policing for putting
a new face on an old problem: profiling.
Critics argue that a person’s past shouldn’t
define what he will do in the future – that a
person shouldn’t be stigmatized or singled
out for his or her rap sheet.
But police here refute those arguments.
“Profiling is stopping someone because of
their race or color or creed,” says McCarthy.
“We’re doing an empirical analysis using a
scientific formula, which is quite the oppo-
site of profiling.”
In fact, he says, the Big Data approach
shows that the vast majority of people in
troubled neighborhoods are not doing any-
thing nefarious, prompting police to view
‘I SEE WHAT WE ARE DOING IN CHICAGO
AS CREATING A MODEL THAT IS REALLY
GOING TO A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL OF
INTELLIGENCE-BASED POLICING. IT
REQUIRES A NEW WAY OF THINKING.’
– Garry McCarthy, Chicago’s police superintendent
VFROM PREVIOUS PAGE
CORRECTION
The location of the University of Virginia
was incorrectly identified in the July 7 & 14
cover story about makerspaces. The correct
location is Charlottesville.
the communities as less of a threat.
“What it should be teaching us is ev-
erybody in Chicago is not a criminal,” says
McCarthy. “If 5 percent of the community is
responsible for violent crime, then 95 per-
cent of the individuals are good people, and
that provides a larger understanding of the
community, which often goes unsaid.”
In the end, the effectiveness of the new
wave of policing will likely hinge on one
thing: whether it reduces crime. While some
of the initial results are promising, many say
it’s too early to determine how much – or
even whether – it will reduce violence. But
what is certain is that Chicago will provide
one of the nation’s premier tests of how well
the new science of policing works.
Already, it’s got the department thinking
more creatively about preventive law en-
forcement. It’s changing police perceptions
of neighborhoods. McCarthy, for one, has no
doubts about what the denouement will be.
“I think this is what every police depart-
ment in the country needs,” he says. “This
can be used anywhere and can really move
the scale.” r
32 THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR WEEKLY | JULY 21, 2014
Chicago police officer Marco Gallegos walks
through Chicago’s LittleVillage neighborhood,
where he often checks in on local businesses.