GLOSSARY
A-E
Access to Information Request (ATIP) or Freedom of Information Request (FOI)
Allows Canadians to request information and access records from government institutions. Must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or any person or corporation residing in Canada to make a request.
CompStat
Based on a police management philosophy that describes “intelligence-led policing” as policing methods based in the analysis of geo-spatial data and statistics. CompStat is a system that works through a process of crime analysis-driven command and control meetings that hold police districts accountable to reducing crime in their area. It is designed specifically for police to complete timely crime analysis rather than simply reporting crime statistics.
CompStat was first developed and adopted in the 1990s by the New York City Police Department under William Bratton, whose initial approach mapped crime statistics along with other indicators of problems, such as the locations of crime victims and gun arrests. CompStat has been adopted by various police departments – Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Los Angeles, and Chicago – in addition to non-policing entities such as the US military during the Iraq War. In Los Angeles, Bratton’s LAPD worked with Esri to develop an application for CompStat meetings. Esri now offers out-of-the-box tools and “solutions” for CompStat.
Crime Analysis
The use of mapping, statistics, and other analytical methods to identify trends and patterns in criminal activity and social disorder. Esri’s ArcGIS markets itself as the industry standard for crime analysis technology across police departments and city governments. Esri also has a Solution – a ready-to-go configuration of ArcGIS called “Crime Analysis.”
CrimeView
A now-obsolete crime mapping dashboard created by The Omega Group. It is an ArcView GIS extension, which allowed law enforcement to track crime and make decisions through an easy-to-use interface for the mapping, analysis, and reporting of crime data. First developed in 1996 for the Indio Police Department in California, by the early 2000s, crime mapping had become part and parcel with many CompStat systems, and CrimeView became a popular product. As it became obsolete, some police forces dropped their ArcGIS licenses and others chose to go deeper with Esri.
Enterprise License Agreement
An Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) is a contract that provides access to Esri’s ArcGIS software, services, maintenance, and training. They are different from typical license agreements, which require an entity to purchase individual licenses for individual products. ELAs instead provide immediate access to a wide variety of Esri products and services, allowing Cities (and police departments) to expand the ways they use and deploy Esri products. The ELAs that we found were three- to five-year agreements between City governments or police departments) and Esri that allowed the City to pay in annual installments. ELAs are typically accompanied by an Advantage Plan, which includes training, consultation, and planning services.
F-J
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Provides the public the right to request access to information and records from any US federal agency. You need not be a US citizen to make a FOIA request.
Fusion Center
There are 80 fusion centers established across state and urban areas in the US by the Department of Homeland Security. These are information gathering and sharing hubs. Fusion centers are state owned and operated for the purpose of a flow of data collection and analysis between federal and local/tribal governments, healthcare and the private sector. They were established specifically to respond to criminal, hazards, and terrorist activity, in the wake of attacks on the US World Trade Center and Pentagon in September 2001. Fusion centers are criticized for civil liberties, privacy infringement, as well as for being ineffective. Esri markets its geovisualization and crime analysis technology for use in fusion centers.
Hot Spot Policing
Police agencies use geospatial analysis to identify geographic areas where they predict crime is more likely to occur and concentrate their efforts in these locations. Hot spot policing is a crime reduction strategy that relies on geospatial analysis for identifying hot spots and allocating police resources accordingly. The high-profile police murders of Tyre Nichols by Memphis Police SCORPION unit and Breonna Taylor by Louisville Police are both examples of how this policing strategy can be linked with police violence.
K-O
License Agreement
A legal contract between Esri (or another technology vendor) and potential users of Esri products to provide licenses for Esri products such as ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Insight, and more.The agreement allows the licensee (such as a city government or police department) to download and install Esri products. When conducting public records requests, we asked for license agreements to track which police departments use Esri products. An example of an Agreement can be found here.
P-T
Predictive Policing
Predictive policing, like CompStat, is a form of intelligence-led policing that relies on geospatial analysis. Police departments use software programs and computation to identify risky populations, people, and neighborhoods using algorithms and geospatial analysis. The theory is that criminal offenses occur in spatial and temporal clusters, and can be predicted. The most widely-known predictive policing program is PredPol, produced by the company Geolitica. Predictive policing is a technique that Ruha Benjamin calls a crime production algorithm because police who patrol an area where they predict they will find crime, will find crime: a self-fulfilling prophecy. Predictive policing is widely criticized for reproducing the racial profiling that shapes the data that feeds predictive algorithms. Evidence of the effectiveness of predictive policing is inconclusive. While Esri largely scrubbed “predictive policing” from its website and algorithms in 2020, the company provided webinars, trainings, and tools for predictive policing. Nowadays, Esri often packages its predictive policing tools and capabilities as means of measuring risk. Other companies that offer predictive policing analysis tools to police forces also rely on Esri’s ArcGIS.
Public Records Request
This is the general term for requests for information on the public record. Public entities are required by state, provincial, and federal laws to keep records and share these with members of the public in a timely manner upon request. All Canadian and US cities have procedures you can follow to request records and information about the activities of those cities and their police departments and other agencies. Some cities also have searchable databases of public records, such as contracts and city ordinances. Most police departments also have a public records request process, though this is most often focused on arrests and other police activity.
Surveillance Tech
Surveillance Technologies encompasses a broad array of programs and tools for gathering and organizing information about people and public spaces. Companies develop and sell surveillance tech to police forces, and these are integrated into “intelligence-led policing” techniques. Police use surveillance techthat rely on sensors and cameras to detect activity in public spaces. These technologies incorporate algorithms and AI to read license plates, recognize faces, distinguish gun shot sounds, and more. Increasingly, our own devices such as smart phones and smart watches are incorporated as surveillance tech, as these transmit location information that police can access. Other companies collect data on individuals, scraped from social media and public records, selling access to this data to police forces.