The most frequent comment I get on my essays is: can you not meander so much at the beginning and just say what the thing is you are getting at? While there is not so much fun in that, it’s fishing in a river with no bends, I suppose it is a fair point. So, here’s the point of the day:
Having been police and written about what police do and what they can't do, this is spot on. Police are reacti, not proactive. Responding to the fallout of structures and systems already in place. And the competition of philosophy in departments and between agencies for what works what the role should be. Let's moneyball this. How policing has changed under militarization from community policing (my era). As in education, society might not like the answers of engaging in/building systems that marginalize, starve, oppress people into policing traps. Police won't like the answers and way forward either. There is an unrealized reality that police don't make us safe. Moneyball the answer for what does.
There's a certain undertone of Newtonian causation emerging in here, not in the author's precepts, but in the uses to which the data's lessons will be put over time. We're dealing with complexity, not linear, sequential, cause and effect. The data appropriately generates statements about conditions and influences that bend the probabilities and don't dictate inevitable outcomes, but it seems to me incomplete. But is the data you have the data you need? If what you find is what you're looking might what you miss be what you need? Without some complementary means by which to continuously explore the rich narratives of the events nourished in the culture people will settle for data-driven answers that answer the wrong questions.
In policing, when departments do a poor job and crime goes up or remains persistent, they get MORE money and resources. One of the few industries/professions where this is the case. The monopoly comment is dead on. Some of the stuff that the Newark Public Safety Collaborative and the Center for Policing Equity in St. Louis are doing with data-informed community engagement (and the democratization of crime data, place-based analytics, etc.) is promising and is one of the few efforts to make community groups, the business community, etc. CO-producers of public safety.
Possibly naive question from a non-specialist: how would you distinguish this proposal from the whole CompStat trend?
Her dress definitely waves.
Having been police and written about what police do and what they can't do, this is spot on. Police are reacti, not proactive. Responding to the fallout of structures and systems already in place. And the competition of philosophy in departments and between agencies for what works what the role should be. Let's moneyball this. How policing has changed under militarization from community policing (my era). As in education, society might not like the answers of engaging in/building systems that marginalize, starve, oppress people into policing traps. Police won't like the answers and way forward either. There is an unrealized reality that police don't make us safe. Moneyball the answer for what does.
Well, OK. But.....
There's a certain undertone of Newtonian causation emerging in here, not in the author's precepts, but in the uses to which the data's lessons will be put over time. We're dealing with complexity, not linear, sequential, cause and effect. The data appropriately generates statements about conditions and influences that bend the probabilities and don't dictate inevitable outcomes, but it seems to me incomplete. But is the data you have the data you need? If what you find is what you're looking might what you miss be what you need? Without some complementary means by which to continuously explore the rich narratives of the events nourished in the culture people will settle for data-driven answers that answer the wrong questions.
In policing, when departments do a poor job and crime goes up or remains persistent, they get MORE money and resources. One of the few industries/professions where this is the case. The monopoly comment is dead on. Some of the stuff that the Newark Public Safety Collaborative and the Center for Policing Equity in St. Louis are doing with data-informed community engagement (and the democratization of crime data, place-based analytics, etc.) is promising and is one of the few efforts to make community groups, the business community, etc. CO-producers of public safety.
The old TL:DR!