Pinpoint By Mark43

Why is a data forensics computer program named after a tenacious hunting dog? Jay Koven, a PhD candidate at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering helped create the forensic visual analytics tool called Beagle. It has an incredibly powerful query language for the searches, but the language is very simple so that anybody can easily create very complex queries.  

How would you like your community to lower: overall crime by 34% violent crime by 53% youth recidivism by 50% runaway/missing children by 64% It starts by asking, what do you do besides arrest people? Harry Earle is Chief of the Gloucester Township Police Department in NJ. Earle has introduced a new model called the Third Gear Policing Model of Intervention.  Listen to learn more.   

South Carolina is regularly hit by hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters that can compromise or overwhelm traditional 911 phone service. The emergency dispatch center wanted to provide an alternate means of communication for the public. They decided to offer it via the Internet. James (Jim) Lake, Director at Charleston County Consolidated Dispatch Center in Charleston, SC, is a true tech forward 911 leader. Charleston County has rolled out a first of its kind website called 911HelpMe.com. Residents can use this website to contact emergency services when 911 call volume is too high, phone services otherwise unavailable, or an emergency situation makes it advisable. It's designed in such a way that during an emergency, administrative staff, who are not trained dispatchers, can easily and appropriately route the overflow from 911HelpMe.com.

I spoke with Dr. Howard Henderson of the Center for Justice Research. The center has a unique mission: To help the police and the community advance their relationship To understand how prosecutors make their better decisions. Understanding predictive bias and what algorithms can be used to predict future behavior. Examining the new notion of pretrial assessment to keep people out of the system but yet still maintain public safety. If you’re in the Houston area, join the free Big Data and Community Policing Workshop on 4/27/19. This podcast includes topics such as: How to Ease Community and Police Divides TV and Social Media Provide Bad Data for All Sides Changing Police Culture with New Messaging and Data Creating Alternatives to the Criminal Justice System Big Data and Community Policing Workshop on 4/27 in Houston

There’s a knock on your door. It’s George Washington and Ulysses S Grant. They want to give you practical, tactical advice. You’d listen, right? Behind them are the winning and losing generals of all of our wars. They also want to teach you how to become a better leader. This offer is so appealing that there is already a waiting list of police chiefs who want that experience. For the last 15 years, Mitch Sklar, Executive Director at NJ State Association of Chiefs of Police, and William “Pat” Schuber have designed a “staff ride” graduate-level program for law enforcement professionals from all over the country. While war tactics in a pitched shooting battle may seem far removed from our era of community policing, there are many lessons to apply to law enforcement.   If you’re interested in joining the October 2019 staff ride, check out Antietam Leadership Experience: a Staff Ride for Law Enforcement Leaders.

The future of public safety is in your hands. (Literally — the future is the smartphone in your hands.) Dale Stockton joined us on this episode of Pinpoint, to discuss the intersection of mobile devices and public safety. Dale has 32 years experience in the field as a law enforcement officer and retired as a police captain in Carlsbad, California. He’s the former Editor-in-Chief of Law Officer Magazine and founder of the Below100 officer safety initiative. And no, that’s not all: Dale also taught criminal justice for over 20 years, and now consults on large technology projects for agencies today. He has quite the resume — and quite the idea on where smartphones are taking law enforcement.

Some police department improve faster than others. Which programs provide the most impact? To understand how police departments can create a space for innovation to appear, we asked Chief Brandon del Pozo of the Burlington Vermont Police Department.

They say everything is bigger in Texas, except the police budgets. Houston, Texas is a policing challenge, to say the least. The city will soon be the third largest in the country. It has 500,000 more people than 20 years ago, but 300 fewer police officers. There are 20,000 registered gang members (and many more that are unregistered). The city’s truly under-resourced police department has learned how to operate very leanly. But since a new police chief arrived in late 2016, homicides are down 15% since last year. To understand how Houston is doing it, we asked Chief Art Acevedo of the Houston Police Department.

Leveraging data and analytics can be a powerful way to make communities safer. But police departments have to build a culture surrounding the use of data and analytics that involves the communities they are serving from day one. Jonathan Lewin is the Chief of the Chicago Police Department Bureau of Technical Services, and his department has seen an improvement in Chicago’s public safety since implementing their Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs).   The SDSCs are the result of a collaboration between the Chicago Police Department, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and the Los Angeles Police Department. The goal of these centers is to integrate the newest public safety technology and processes to provide better and more precise information on criminals and develop targeted intervention strategies that are informed by data.   Chief Lewin joined us on this episode of the podcast to talk about the use of data in engaging the community, embedding changes into the DNA of his police department, and protect

The role of a police officer in the United States is more complex than it has ever been. That’s because these officers are being asked to be more involved in their communities by focusing on engagement rather than enforcement.   Carmen Best is the Chief of the Seattle Police Department and she describes this approach as “holistic policing.”  Best has always felt a calling towards public service and she believes firmly that policing isn’t worth anything if it’s not about service to the community.   Best was enlisted in the Army for 3 years where she was committed to representing her country well.  The pillars of leadership she learned translated well into her current role as she learned how to leverage teamwork and camaraderie into establishing a good, fair, and safe society.   Best joined us for this episode of the podcast to talk about her department’s current initiatives, the idea of holistic policing, and the importance of transparency.  

In 1989, Peter Newsham started as a beat cop in the Washington, DC Police Department. He was on the front lines when, in 1991, Washington, DC, in addition to being the nation’s capital, was also its murder capital. In 1999, he saw the Justice Department take over the department after a pattern of excessive force. Today Newsham is the police chief. Under his watch, the city’s dramatic policing transformation is a national success story. Listen to this episode to see how the DC department went from the nation’s most challenging to a great model for change.

Welcome to the introductory episode of Pinpoint, a podcast from the public safety tech startup, Mark43. In this episode, podcast producer Keri Roberts interviews Mark43 co-founders Scott Crouch, Matt Polega, and Flo Mayr to give listeners a snapshot of what to expect from this exciting new podcast series.  We're going to bring you interviews with technology and data pioneers in public safety. You'll also be getting a behind the scenes look at how certain agencies are tackling challenges.  There are so many fantastic experts in this field. Everyone from police chiefs to researchers, and one of the best things we can do is help make sure that their voices, their opinions, and their expertise is heard and is easily available for law enforcement departments around the world.