Crime Analysis, Mapping, and COMPSTAT Tools
The Urban Safety Program has worked with the Detroit Police Department on developing crime-mapping and analysis tools for police officers and executives. The focus of this research is on the development of tools that support the identification of crime hot spots, crime patterns and the analysis of trends.
In 1999, the Urban Safety Program designed an automated crime mapping system using ESRI's ArcExplorer software. the system was implemented by the police department's Crime Analysis Unit with the assistance of the Urban Safety Program. The system provides maps, updated daily, to police officers across the city. With funding from the Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Urban Safety Program trained 2,000 police officers and developed a crime-mapping training curriculum.
In August 2001, the Detroit Police Department held its first data-driven, management accountability meeting patterned after New York City’s COMPSTAT process. This event marked a milestone in the use of crime mapping for management and accountability within the police department.
In 2007-2008, the Urban Safety program completed an assessment of the Detroit Police Department's records management systems, crime analysis and mapping activities, and use of data for strategic and tactical policing. At present, the Urban Safety Program is demonstrating a web-based performance dashboard system that provides COMPSTAT-style statistical summaries for police districts, service areas and crime categories in Detroit. The system also features real-time crime mapping tools that use Google Earth software and powerful geocoding tools including resources available at USC's GIS Research Laboratory (http://gislab.usc.edu/).
The tools developed by CUS are being used to support place-based policing and crime prevention and the evaluation of federally-funded Weed and Seed programs in the city.
Evaluating Community Policing and Innovative Law Enforcement Strategies
The Urban Safety Program conducts research on "best practices" and model community policing programs. Several local programs have been evaluated. These include the Detroit Empowerment Zone Community Policing Program, the Inkster Weed and Seed Initiative, Northwest Detroit Operation Weed and Seed, and Highland Park Operation Weed and Seed. In 2007, Urban Safety began working with Hamtramck's Weed and Seed Initiative. In 2008, Urban Safety became the evaluator for the Southwest Detroit Weed and Seed Initiative.