In April, the City of New Orleans took further steps in fulfilling its commitment to the White House Police Data Initiative by publishing its stop and search data (also known as field interview cards), body camera metadata and in-car camera metadata.
The Police Data Initiative launched in May 2015, and New Orleans was an inaugural participant along with 20 other police jurisdictions. The initiative was launched as recommendation of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing to “emphasize the opportunity for departments to better use data and technology to build community trust.”
NOPD Police Chief Michael Harrison committed to the following:
- adding response times to existing 911 calls for service data
- use of force data
- police recruitment data
- stop and search data
- body camera metadata
- in-car camera metadata
Open Data in Public Safety
Watch this webinar featuring New Orleans Chief Information Officer, Lamar Gardere, to learn more about the Police Data Initiative.
Six-Month Memo
Listen to former White House Innovation Fellow (and former New Orleans Director of Enterprise Information), Denice Ross, discuss the Police Data Initiative.
Calls for service data
In February, several new columns were added to the NOPD calls for service datasets (2011-2016). These columns allow for response time analysis, particularly when paired with the priority code of the call.
- TimeDispatch
- TimeArrive
- TimeClosed
- Priority
New Orleans has long been in the forefront of open calls for service data. The data analysis blog, Fivethirtyeight.com, published a December post titled, What Cities Share The Most Crime Data? and said that, “New Orleans is arguably the queen of open police data, at least in terms of the quantity of information it provides. New Orleans has placed its entire calls for service system online since 2011, offering the public a significant opportunity to evaluate its police force.”
Take a look at the data
Stop and search data
This month, with the help of the Enterprise Information Data Team, the police department published Stop and Search data along with a 2015 analysis through a visualization website called LiveStories. Field interview cards are collected when individuals are interviewed by NOPD Officers - including individuals stopped for questioning and complainants.
Take a look at the data
Body and in-car camera metadata
The Body and In-Car camera datasets are not captures of the videos themselves, but rather the information about when a camera was turned on and for how long. By tying the body-worn camera data to an item number in the calls for service data, we are able to provide the location for the recording.
Take a look at the data
Future Releases
In the coming months, the NOPD will release use of force and police recruitment data. The recruitment information resides in multiple systems, making it difficult to collect into a single view. NOPD is working on resolving this with the help of the City’s Information Technology and Innovation team and Civil Service.