Regarded as one of the most successful technology-led initiatives in a public service delivery setting, Big Data and CompStat served as a revolutionary remedy holding back the escalating crime rate in New York City and helping the police adopt a preventive and proactive approach. With its recent shift to Web 2.0, strategic plan to include the police officials and general public in integrating the features of social media and Big Data should be prepared. The plan aims to increase public accountability towards crime reduction and helps establish collaborative ties between the public and the police in making the city crime-free zone.
Issues
The new policy adoption and the introduction of information digitization by the NYPD officials gave a ray of hope to the city in reducing the escalating crime rate. Emerging from the transit department initiative at that time, it was supposed that curbing small crimes can help reduce and prevent serious cases. Further, with the help of Big Data, CompStat and its subsequent integration, NYPD planned to spot crime before it took place. Duplicating the successful version of NYPD’s resource allocation and digitization mechanism, the Fire Department too was planned to be revamped in its strategy and action. However, the data it had to get from different city agencies was in different formats and often kept in silo by respective agencies to protect from unauthorized access and privacy and confidentiality breaches. This made NYPD rethink its strategy with respect to the use of Big Data and make it more useful in preventing crime. This brought them to suggestions in which the digitized system should be integrated with social media tools where public will inform the police of suspected people and events. NYPD should prepare a strategic plan to execute this change at operational level and redefine the roles and responsibilities of police officials in maintain contacts over social media tools, mapping the locational figures received from these tools and integrating the information in a way that could help take better decisions and analytics. It would be important to secure the confidence of general public from threats and risks in reporting suspected events and people.
William Bratton, at the time he presided as the Police Commissioner, witnessed an alarming crime rate in the city. As a transit officer, he had succeeded in limiting subway crime by executing the concept that preventing general disorder can help minimize serious crimes. Hence, as the Police Chief, his objective was to make the city securer and safer for people in which he applied his learning from his previous job and started mapping and cracking minor cases of crime which could result in heinous ones.
CompStat served as the desired and the essential tool which could bring NYPD’s goal to reality. Garnering more flexibility and empowerment to the police officials, maps were the cornerstone of CompStat efficiency which allowed NYPD to project suspected crime incidents based on recent events and appoint cops to help prevent those projected events. Along with decentralized accountability, the strengths of CompStat were effective resource deployment, accurate intelligence coupled with timely response and unwavering follow-up and control mechanism. Successful performance management system also exhibits key features of meticulous planning, execution and continuous monitoring followed by control and correction procedure which helps real-time improvement. These factors were present in the CompStat concept which contributed towards its success.
CompStat, in this light, has evolved as a savior and panacea for solving cases that require intelligence. While crime rates can only be reduced through human interventions, CompStat has made it possible to prevent the occurrence of crime by making the department proactive and its evolution has been significant in the way public can be a part of it. Technology, in the form of Big Data, has created a platform where people can share their ideas and help each other in making the community and the society a better place to live. With such advancements, the society benefits as a whole and transparency in working increases. Accountability also enhances and collaborative working becomes possible which can curb even alarming rates in crime or other fields.
For the next 5 years or so, NYPD should strive to streamline its digital revolution so far and set a target to make its employees and officials better off with the use of Big Data, CompStat, analytics and social media. Training in terms of computer education, mapping, using the internet and other related tasks should be set at priority levels so that everyone is equipped with the know-how and expertise to work with the advanced levels of Big Data and Web 2.0 technology.
Options
Educate and train the NYPD staff to get well-acquainted with the nuances of internet and computer and information technology to be able to use gadgets, social media, interface and also apply analytical skills to determine how crime can be reported and prevented by using information from these tools. However, it will also entail educating the general public about the ethical and right use of social media.
Collaborate with other city agencies in New York to get hands upon reliable and valuable data that may be lying in other formats. Such data can help NYPD and other related segments to curb criminal happenings. Integrating the platforms of such agencies with social media and spreading awareness for training of staff at these agencies would help make the police and other public service officials adept at helping the society.
Implementation
Call a meeting this week, asking all officials from the public agencies to join and attend. Hire a training and consultation firm to train and coach these officials on the use and benefits of information technology. The government should be contacted to fund the resource allocation in terms of update of software and helping the staff acquire the required gadgets. In 6 months’ time, prototyping of the new social media strategy should be implemented to see public response and NYPD reactions. Continuous monitoring and improvement should proceed in a year’s time. In 5 years, the prototype should be duplicated to every city agency with social media accounts of every employee, robust database and analytics attached to these to get real-time information to curtail the occurrence of crime in the city.
