In the movie, police are able to predict crimes before they happen, essentially reducing the crime rate to zero.
The Newton Police Department is nowhere near that goal, but with the help of analytical software, it’s one step closer.
The hope is that with this software, Newton officers can patrol more effectively and lower the city’s high crime rate.
“Crime is not random – there is a particular reason it happens where and when it does,” said Newton police Lt. Bryan Hall. “Technology and statistics are … to our benefit.”
Predictive policing, according to the National Institute of Justice, is the practice of using information, geospatial technologies and evidence-based intervention models to reduce crime and increase public safety.
Essentially, crime reports are fed into an analytical software, and based on certain variables, the software can predict where crimes are likely to happen. Patrol supervisors can then send officers to those areas to deter crime.
“It isn’t rocket science,” Hall said. “I’ve had police officers say, ‘I took your advice, went there, and nothing happened.’ That’s the point.
“We’re changing police culture, changing ideas. That’s really the goal.”
Cutting crime
That all sounds good in theory, but in Newton, it has been hard to use the software to its full potential, Hall said.One of the main reasons: Newton has a short-staffed department, and most of the time its officers don’t have time to do preventive police work, Hall said.
“There are times it’s all guys can do to respond to calls,” he said. “Our guys have the greatest intent in the world. They’re human beings, and they can only do so much.”
The Newton Police Department realized it had a crime problem in 2008, when its crime rate “started going through the roof,” Hall said. According to FBI statistics analyzed by the department, its per-capita violent crime rate is the third-highest in the state, behind Wichita and Leavenworth.
About two years ago, Hall was charged with overhauling technology for the department, and predictive analytics was part of that effort. Also included was an online reporting system for non-emergency crimes, GPS trackers and dashboard cameras for Newton patrol cars.
All of that was intended to aid the department, which, according to Hall, was staffed with only three officers 67.4 percent of time during day shifts in 2014. That level of staffing is the “emergency minimum,” Hall said. “Adequate” coverage for the city of roughly 20,000 is five officers per shift, he said.
Newton Police Chief Eric Murphy said the department is fully staffed for what it is budgeted for but that it is not enough.
“We need people in excess of that to meet our staffing numbers and to be able to implement proactive policing,” Hall said. “Right now, we’re completely reactive. We have guys that respond to calls, take reports, go back to the station and write reports.”
Hall said all of Newton’s officers have access to basic crime maps showing where previous crimes have occurred, but only he has access to the program that runs predictions.
In January, the department will likely give courses to its officers on how to use the software, Hall said.
Hall laughed when asked whether the department has been using the technology regularly since acquiring it.
“I’m not going to say that,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’ve got one guy that knows how to use it, and that’s me.
“To say (Newton) regularly (uses it), I would probably disagree, but we’re trying to.”
Wichita researching
Law enforcement agencies are divided as to whether such software is worth the investment.Capt. Doug Nolte said the Wichita Police Department has been aware of predictive analytics for the past five years, but other technologies, such as body cameras, have been higher priorities for the department.
“Here’s kind of the concern with it: Are you getting what you’re paying for?” Nolte said. “How accurate is it? Is it really predicting where crimes are going to be?”
In September, the Wichita Police Department sent out a request for proposals to different analytics providers and after receiving them, decided to pass on analytics, at least for now.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Nolte said. “That being said, our plan is to identify funding to move forward with it. We’re in the research phases of it.
“It’s not just a budgetary thing – it’s just understanding what it costs and how do we take that cost into our operating budget.”
In 2012, the Wichita Police Department hired crime analysts to study crime trends at each of the department’s four bureaus.
Those analysts do the same sort of work Newton’s software does, except those analysts are paid between $21 and $30 per hour for the work they do, according to a recent City of Wichita job posting.
The Wichita analysts have “honed their skills” over the past three years – so much so that Nolte said it has “evolved to more of a fine art.”
“We’re relying on them to do a good analysis on their own,” Nolte said. “We’re generating data from our records system, but rather than saying, ‘OK, computer, tell me where that next crime trend’s going to be,’ we’re relying on our crime analysts to put forth the effort to show who’s doing what, what bad guys are where.”
The Andover Police Department uses the same software as Newton does, and its chief of police said it has been beneficial for Andover residents.
The crime rate in Andover is so low that the police department doesn’t find much use for analytics, Chief Michael Keller said. Instead, it uses the software to show where crimes have happened in Andover, for the public to view.
“When your crime rate is significantly low, crime analysis just doesn’t come into play,” Keller said. “We like to have the information available to our community. You can look at the data online, and we like having that transparency available to our community.”
Though it may take time for the Newton Police Department to start seeing results from its analytical software, Hall said he thinks it will eventually pay dividends.
“We can identify things in the community that make it conducive for crime to occur, and we can attack that,” Hall said.
“We can prevent victimization, and that’s what we should be focusing on. Capturing bad guys catches news headlines, but that does nothing for the victim.”
©2015 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
