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Fact Sheet

5 Things You Need to Know About Open Data in Policing

Publication Date

April 2015

Author(s)

National Policing Institute

Abstract

Within the mix of government agencies experimenting with open data are a growing number of law enforcement agencies. Several major city and county law enforcement agencies are making available historical and current calls for service data, location data for public safety facilities, and even incident data, after being stripped of personal identifiers. Federal agencies are releasing summary case and statistical data in the law enforcement and criminal justice domains. As a result, citizens, web and mobile app developers, researchers, and advocacy organizations can perform analysis of individual and combined data sets using various visualization tools and can map the data as well, if the data is geocoded. Law enforcement leaders should understand the benefits of open data to the communities they serve and to their agencies as well. This brief discusses five things you need to know about open data in policing.

Recommended Citation

National Policing Institute. (2015). 5 things you need to know about open data in policing. https://www.policinginstitute.org/publication/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-open-data-policing/