The Manager's report back on report on providing publicly-accessible traffic stop, arrest, and citation police data on a new Procedural Justice Dashboard

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.

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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