LTC 415-2016 Police Transparency through Data Initiative MIA/01BEACH
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
NO. LTC# 415-2016 LETTER TO COMMISSION
TO: Mayor Philip Levine and Members of the City Co mission
FROM: Jimmy L. Morales, City Manager
DATE: October 13, 2016
SUBJECT: Police Transparency through Data Initiative
On December 18, 2014 President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing
the Task Force on 21St Century Policing to better understand specific policing challenges
and help communities identify actions they can take to improve legitimacy among law
enforcement and the communities they serve. This letter to the Mayor and Commission
is provided as an update regarding the Police Department's on-going commitment to
implement national best practices, as outlined in the Task Force's recommendations.
One of the re-occurring themes the Task Force addressed in its final report was the need
for police agencies to build trust with their communities. While positive community
engagement between citizens and the Miami Beach Police Department is supported
through daily contacts, meetings, events, and social media platforms, etc., the task force
recommended additional steps, including open access to data. Accordingly, the White
House has launched the Police Data Initiative (PDI) that seeks to provide open access to
law enforcement data which has previously been difficult to find or in some instances, not
collected.
The Miami Beach Police Department is among the initial group of agencies throughout
the country and one of just three in South Florida that has committed to take action on
concrete deliverables on the Task Force recommendations in the area of data and
technology.
In the coming weeks, the Miami Beach Police Department will publish four initial datasets
consisting of calls for service, arrest data, employee demographics and internal affairs
case disposition statistics. The information will be available for public viewing, via the
City's website. Future datasets will include use-of-force statistics and officer-involved
shootings data. All datasets will be made available through a portal that allows for
downloading, analyzing and aggregation.
As previously noted, repairing police-community relations throughout the nation will
require a comprehensive, multi-dimensional strategy, of which, data and technology is an
important component. Having open access to data that has previously been unavailable
will serve as a critical step in re-establishing community trust and transparency.
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