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A communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 23-07, regarding report on providing publicly-accessible traffic stop, arrest, and citation police data on a new Procedural Justice Dashboard
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125 SIXTH STREET, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02142
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Yi-An Huang
City Manager
Christine Elow
Police Commissioner
To:
City Manager, Yi-An Huang
From:
Police Commissioner, Christine Elow
Date:
May 4, 2023
Ref.:
Awaiting Report 23-7– Dashboard
The purpose of this response is to address Awaiting Report 23-7 whereby the City Manager is hereby
requested to direct Police Commissioner Elow to report on providing publicly-accessible traffic stop, arrest,
and citation police data on a new Procedural Justice Dashboard as soon as possible.
The Office of Procedural Justice in the Cambridge Police Department was originally created in 2018 to
focus on proactively monitoring data relating to police-citizen interactions for indications of possible racial
profiling and racially-biased policing as well as assessing the Department’s compliance with statutes,
ordinances, and regulations aimed at mandating accountability. As part of the Office, a Procedural Justice
“Dashboard” was to be created to take police transparency to an unprecedented level by providing updates
as to differences in how the Department treats the Public. To support this commitment, the City contracted
with a cloud-based record management system in 2020 to publish the desired product. However, there
were several implementation issues with the record management system and the vendor was not ultimately
able to satisfy what the department needed for an online dashboard in order to best serve the community.
However, in keeping with the department’s commitment to publishing a public-facing dashboard, the
Cambridge Police and Public Safety Information Technology partnered and utilized data from its legacy
existing record management system to develop an internal dashboard that takes a deeper dive into race
and transparency.
In its initial phase, the dashboard will include the following information and features that will allow users to:
•
Review enhanced data on CPD-related arrests, citations, and summons (see sample screenshot
below)
•
Filter arrest, citation, and summons data by race, ethnicity, gender, neighborhood, and time.
•
Evaluate data beginning in 2010 through the present month.
•
Read an overview from Commissioner Christine Elow.
•
Read detailed explanations associated with each data set.
•
Download CPD guidelines, policies, and reports associated with each data set.
•
Review the terms and definitions featured in the dashboard.
•
Share feedback to improve the dashboard.
ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO
125 SIXTH STREET, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02142
The dashboard will initially be updated automatically every quarter on the 15th of each month, pulling in
the previous three months of vetted data. The long-term goal is for the dashboard to evolve into a more
dynamic and robust website with additional features, data, and information.
In support of the Procedural Justice Dashboard rollout, the Cambridge Police has entered into a strategic
relationship agreement with the Center for Policing Equity, a non-profit organization located in California.
Through smart data collection and analysis, the Center for Policing Equity will help facilitate a community-
centered process to identify potential drivers and risks for policing inequities and reimagine the delivery of
public safety services. They will help the Cambridge Police identify or address any potential vulnerabilities
or biases from the data featured in the dashboard, and evaluate and/or develop strategies that will assist
the department in creating or refining equitable police practices. They will also play a valuable role in
engaging community stakeholders in any change-making processes and help provide further context for the
data featured on the dashboard. The City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department will not incur
any costs associated with this strategic relationship agreement.
The expected public release date for the dashboard is August 15, 2023. In advance of that date, CPD and
PSIT will continue to work together to make final modifications and ensure the integrity from the latest
extracted data (through June 30, 2023). Additionally, members of the CPD will be hosting overview
sessions with employees and partners to help them understand what is expected from the forthcoming
publicly available data.
This is another step in our continued journey as a premiere 21st Century Police Department and we look
forward to sharing additional updates as we prepare for the public release of this dashboard.
Respectfully,
Christine Elow
Police Commissioner