Using Police Data to Reduce Racial Disparities: A LEAP Webinar
A collaboration between the Center for Policing Equity and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.
In the video below, Chief Chris Burbank (Ret.) and Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff discuss how the Center for Policing Equity uses data to identify specific opportunities for policing agencies to reduce racial disparities. They provide examples of how their approach, first explained in a viral TED talk, is working on the ground.
One of the greatest challenges in public safety today is building trust and collaboration between police and the community. Police can improve trust in particular by reducing disparately high negative contacts in communities of color. The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) helps agencies identify specific drivers of these racial disparities by analyzing officer surveys and data on crime, police stops, and the use of force and comparing them with others in their National Justice Database. CPE then helps advise police on actions to reduce those disparities, from changing policies to improving training and community engagement. Chief Burbank and Dr. Goff discuss how insights from the National Justice Database have led to departmental changes and the creation of their Compstat For Justice (C4J) approach. Their work empowers police and communities to collaborate on next steps to reduce negative outcomes and racial disparities they can control. It demonstrates the importance of strong data collection to build public trust and safety.
Resource mentioned during the talk: Here is CPE’s Austin report, the best publicly available CPE case study. To skip to the results/recommendations, see page 14. (Note that this study is limited compared to most CPE analyses, because it is based largely on publicly available PDI data.)
The Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) is a nonprofit group of police, judges, prosecutors, and other justice system professionals who use their expertise to promote evidence-based solutions to public safety problems. To keep our speakers at the forefront of criminal justice reform, we need your help. Donate here.
