Public Safety

BNIA-JFI provided a variety of data and resources to Public Policy students at Johns Hopkins University in their analysis of the impacts of the national recession on Baltimore’s neighborhoods.  Results of the analyses were presented in a lecture series and covered by various media outlets.  The final reports are being published by Johns Hopkins University.

As the curtain closed on the March 10, 2012 performance of “Hurt Village” at the Signature Theatre at Pershing Square in New York, patrons were invited to participate in a panel discussion moderated by award-winning journalist Esther Armah, which included Yale University sociologist Elijah Anderson, CBANA director and University of Memphis sociologist Phyllis Betts, director Patricia McGregor and playwrite Katori Hall (The Mountaintop, Hoodoo Love, and most recently, Hurt Village).

This is an assessment of gangs and gang activity in the Chattanooga area. Using the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention (OJJDP) guide, the assessment draws upon census, crime, and educational data to determine the extent and nature of gang activity in the region. Focus groups and survey methodologies capture community perceptions of gangs. This will play an important role in the community's response to gangs and gang violence.

Public Health - Seattle & King County (PHSKC), the NNIP partner organization for the Seattle area, is collaborating with other local open data organizations to make data more accessible and understandable. One of these partners is Public Data Ferret, a project of the non-profit Public Eye Northwest, which works to advance digital civic literacy, voluntary government transparency, and civic engagement.

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development (CUPCD), based at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, is working with the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive (OLDA) at Ohio State University’s Ohio Education Research Center to understand how involvement in the foster care and juvenile justice systems affect high school graduation and early adult outcomes.

The Central Falls School District is the grantee with the Urban Institute and ProvPlan playing major roles in terms of project evaluation and data analysis.  The NIJ project will be a large-scale intervention ‑ in two school districts (CF and Westerly) and two charter schools (Blackstone Valley Prep and the Greene School) ‑ on how to make schools safer, primarily through the use of “restorative justice” case conferences, a process in which students, teachers, and families work together to resolve conflicts and repair any harm caused by misbehavior.  Central Falls has been a trailblazer in R

Researchers from UT Dallas are partnering with Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support and the Conference on Crimes Against Women (CCAW) in a planning grant to develop an institute and an educational curriculum to better serve victims of domestic violence across Texas. The 18-month grant brings together the Genesis team and UT Dallas’ Institute for Urban Policy Research (IUPR) to analyze all aspects of developing an Institute for Coordinated Community Response.

The White House Domestic Policy Council, in collaboration with the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation are sponsoring a discussion titled "Technology and Data Innovations for Transparency and Accountability in Policing."  They are bringing leaders from police departments and data/analytics offices around the country and are including technologists and local data intermediaris in the discussion.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Community Profiles

The Povery Center is embarking on a new project with First Suburbs Consortium, in which they'll be working with suburban communities and relevant Cuyahoga County departments to learn more about Cleveland’s inner-ring suburbs’ current code enforcement procedures.

The General Assembly of the United Nations has proclaimed the theme for the 2015-2024 decade: "People of African descent: recognition, justice, and development." As part of the events associated with the International Decade for People of African Descent, Sara Mokuria, Associate Director for Leadership Initiatives at the Institute for Urban Policy Research, will participate in a panel discussion at an upcoming United Nations event titled: "Confronting the Silence: Perspectives and Dialogue on Structural Racism against people of Afric

On November 5, 2015, Dr. Claudia Coulton presented the talk "Exploring the Impact of Foster Care and Juvenile Justice Involvement on Future Youth Outcomes" at the Mandel School as part of the Schubert Center for Child Studies' Conversation Series. This talk discussed a study on 9th graders in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District from 2005 to 2008.

The Data Center has partnered closely with the Vera Institute in tracking and reporting on the decline of the jail population in New Orleans.  The work was critical in paving the way for the MacArthur Safety and Justice grant received by the city of New Orleans.  Their essay titled "Criminal Justice: Changing Course on Incarceration" was published as part of the New Orleans Index at Ten volume.

DATA YOU CAN USE participated in the training, interviewing and mapping for Project Central Voice, a grant from the Diversity and Inclusion Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

Project Central Voice partnered with community researchers to interview more than 90 residents of the central city whose voices are seldom heard. They offered their insights about crime prevention and community organizing in the Northside CDBG neighborhoods and shared their results with community leaders at two public forums.

Thanks to CivTech St. Louis, residents can now easily access ticket information in St. Louis County. CivTech St. Louis is a partnership between Rise, a National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) partner, St. Louis County, Globalhack, and LaunchCode. Together they designed YourSTLCourts.com, a new website and text tool to help residents navigate the court system and ultimately, help prevent people going to jail for non-violent traffic offenses.

Data You Can Use is working with Amani neighborhood residents to build their capacity around neighborhood conditions, safety, and policing. They paired the analysis of crime trends and hot spots with a resident-conducted survey about public safety and police legitimacy. Unexpectedly, the survey found that residents felt secure with police presence in the neighborhood, were willing to call police to report crime, and overall, they were more concerned about traffic safety than violent crime.

In partnership with Microsoft and the USC Safe Communities Institute, the 

Project RETURN was a winner of the 2020 Data Dream Award from Data You Can Use, the Milwaukee NNIP partner. Project RETURN (Returning EX-incarcerated people to Urban Realities and Neighborhoods) exists to help men and women make a positive, permanent return to community, family and friends. The organization's leadership was aware that each year thousands of people who served time in Wisconsin's prison system were coming home to Milwaukee County.

The Urban Institute and the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative are collaborating on the Catalyst Grant Program that supports local communities in using data and technology to tackle racial injustice and inequity for communities of color and drive progress toward a more equitable justice system. Three National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) members are participating in the program.

More communities are considering new public safety strategies outside of only policing and they need to understand their city’s current spending on safety to inform that conversation. Usually the data is locked up in multiple PDFs and agency websites and difficult to comprehend as a whole.

In Baltimore, community efforts are often a cornerstone of ongoing programming or projects, and this often depends on the many community-based organizations (CBOs) throughout Baltimore. CBOs operate within a particular place and often have long-term expertise in a particular policy area and are led by members of the communities they serve.