Parolestat Comes to Harlem

Last week the Harlem Community Justice Center hosted the monthly Parolestat meeting. Parolestat is the New York State Division of Parole’s version of Compstat (a.k.a Comstat), the now famous NYPD data driven management accountability strategy credited with helping to drive down crime in New York City.

In New York State Parole is organized by regions; within regions bureaus are the next organizational levels. Each bureau is headed by a bureau chief that supervises senior parole officers who in turn supervises Parole Officers in the field. Last week’s Parolestat meeting focused on the Metro 1 Region covering the Bronx and Manhattan. The meeting also examined the work of Facility Operations; Parole staff in correctional facilities that process inmate transfers, pre-pare inmates for release and schedule appearances before the Parole Board.

On the hot seat were Michael Falk, Regional Director for Metro One, and his team, including Deputy Regional Director William Ponder. Executive Director Mark Manthei and Director for Planning and Analysis Michael Buckman provided the heat. The audience included other senior parole officers, bureau chiefs and some Justice Center staff. Normally these meetings only involve the Region’s senior managers and one or two bureau chiefs presenting on individual cases. In this case the executive team wanted bureau chiefs in the Region to observe the meeting and get a sense of what is being tracked and why it matters.

The Parolestat data covered a range of areas providing a clear sense of the challenges faced by Parole. Categories covered included: parole violation processing benchmarks, including time to hearings and reasons for adjournments; the number of technical violations and outstanding warrants; the number of case conferences held; failures to report, a serious violation of Parole that requires a responses within 48 hours; and the number of parolees being released to shelters. Region leadership was grilled on their outcomes, how they responded to identified problems, and what corrective actions they were taking to address on-going problems.

Parolestat is helping the Division of Parole to achieve the goals of improved public safety and better outcomes for parolees. It serves as one more example of the application of modern management strategies designed to promote accountability and the efficient and effective use of government resources.

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Unique New Plan to Reverse Violence in Chicago

Earlier this month, Derrion Albert, a young honor role student in Chicago was beaten to death with a wooden plank, apparently after stepping into a massive fight between two groups of neighborhood youths. As we have reported previously on this blog, the murder rate in Chicago is quite high -- and Derrion's death has (unfortunately) provided even more of a galvanizing force to address and quell the violence.

The New York Times recently reported on a new initiative underway in Chicago to use statistics and probability to identify likely victims of gun violence. Funded by the federal government at a price tag of $30 million, this plan involves targeting the 10,000 young people at highest risk of becoming victims to the tide of gun violence in the city's south side. Having conducted a survey of 500 victims of violence, the Chicago Police Department has devised a system of predicting the characteristics of potential victims -- and then flooding their lives with adult attention, giving them paid jobs, and providing a community advocate on whom they could call any time of day or night.

As the Times article reports:

"The students at highest risk of violence, by statistics, are most likely to be black, male, without a stable living environment, in special education, skipping an average of 42 percent of school days at neighborhood and alternative schools, and having a record of in-school behavioral flare-ups that is about eight times higher than the average student.

Attacks have typically happened beyond a two-hour window from the start and end of school — that is, late at night or very early in the morning — and blocks away from school grounds, where neighborhood boundaries press against one another.

Within the three dozen or so schools where 80 percent of the victims in the study attended classes, the plan calls for a rethinking of the security philosophy so that policies favor mental health strategies and prevention over policing and punishment. And officials are becoming more strategic about providing safe passage to school by increasing police enforcement and by keeping tabs on gang and clique activities in real time as their turf wars hopscotch around school catchment areas."

There is, of course, some concern that 10,000 students will be consuming $30 million of resources; and some people from these communities beset with violence are skeptical that anything will work. But Ron Huberman, the new chief executive of the and a former police officer, is convinced that targeting small numbers of students will yield large-scale results.

What do you think? Does this kind of plan represent the best use of crime data in action? What are some of the potential consequences of this initiative -- and do you think it will bring the peace that Chicagoans are looking for?

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Here's another good article from the Chicago Tribune about the young people who were involved in Derrion Albert's death.

And here is a CNN report featuring short video clips of the beating. Please be forewarned: it is quite disturbing.

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New! National Reentry Resource Center Website

The Council of State Governments, in partnership with the Urban Institute, the Association of State Correctional Administrators, the American Probation and Parole Association, and a national advisory board; has just launched a great new reentry resource. Established under the Second Chance Act, the National Reentry Resource Center disseminates information about reentry issues and promotes best practices in the field.

Their goals:

• Provide a one-stop, interactive source of current, user-friendly reentry information.
• Identify, document, and promote evidence-based practices.
• Deliver individualized, targeted technical assistance to the Second Chance Act grantees.
• Advance the reentry field through training, distance learning, and knowledge development.

Why this is helping for you:

The site lists funding opportunities, has a searchable database of program examples, offers research on a number of different topics related to reentry, and provides information about how to start your own reentry initiative. Importantly, there is a set of resources just for people who are returning from prison, many of them created by partners of the Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force.

Check it out!

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Another Offspring of the Marriage Between Crime Data and the iPhone

"Warning: Stay alert. Do not get hurt."

That's what the iPhone said to me, in a very masculine voice, when I tried out the new application "Are You Safe? Sacramento." I had typed in an address recommended to me -- I don't live in Sacramento, otherwise the phone would have used GPS to identify my current location -- and discovered that, in that immediate vicinity, my "personal defcon" threat level was 2 (or orange, which is high), and that there had been 4 homicides, 27 assaults, 4 robberies, and 19 car thefts in this immediate vicinity in 2008. Additionally, I learned that a car had been stolen "about 0 ft. from here, on 05-22-2008. It occurred at 17:15, according to the record. If you are parking your vehicle you might want to think about finding a garage. You might be able to glean more context by examining the offense description: 10851(A)VC TAKE VEH W/O OWNER."

This, fine readers, is what is available to you if you live in Sacramento, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Milwaukee, or Indianapolis; you own an iPhone; and you are willing to pay $0.99. It is the union of publicly available crime data, GPS mapping, fancy application graphics (behold, the "threat meter"), and the long-standing human obsession with personal safety.

Its uses, according to the application makers, include:

• "Visiting and unfamiliar with the city?"
• "Debating whether to walk or take a cab?"
• "Headed to an area you haven't been to before?"
• "Not sure if you should park your car on the street?"

For outsiders to a neighborhood, it might be a helpful tool (likely, the people who have lived in the neighborhood for a while don't need a "threat meter" to tell them what crimes have been happening in the area recently). And to be fair, there's good reason to have as much data about any place as you can -- I wonder, however, whether there is an element of hysteria in this kind of thing. If this kind of technology takes root broadly, is it yet another way of stigmatizing neighborhoods that indeed have serious public safety concerns? Perhaps this application could be balanced with information about local block associations or dates for the next precinct community council meeting.

What are your thoughts about this kind of technology? Please comment!

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CrimeReports.com

We learned about a new website, CrimeReports.com, that aggregates crime reports from across the country and allows you to search for them in any locality. The idea is that local law enforcement agencies feed their data (likely also available on their own websites) to this site, allowing for open-source national sharing of crime data.

Although the site is still getting some agencies on board -- New York City, for example, has no crime data, although it is available on the NYPD website -- it seems like a great way to build knowledge, bring criminal justice agencies on board with Web 2.0 technologies, and create open-source sharing about crime patterns in places across the U.S.

If you click on the "Analytics" tab at the upper right, you'll be able to see exactly which localities provide data and even generate charts for various crime entities. The displays are dynamic so that you can break down "theft," for example, into more precise categories of crime. This is definitely a win for community-based organizations in need of crime data for grant-writing purposes as well.

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"Outbreaks Near Me"

You may have noticed that we're a little obsessed with technology, and especially the iPhone, at Rethinking Reentry.

It was hard to pass, therefore, on this story about a new iPhone application, called "Outbreaks Near Me." With all the hysteria about H1N1 (Swine Flu), this app provides users with a way of tracking outbreaks of the disease near them. Users can even upload "outbreak reports" with pictures and descriptions.

Creators at Children's Hospital Boston and the MIT Media Lab admit that the current version isn't able to weed out fake reports from real ones, but say that the tool has real potential if it is adopted among a wide swath of the population.

The thing we're pondering, of course, is whether this kind of application could have other uses, particularly in problem-solving justice. Putting aside the issue of access to technology for the moment (we are well aware that most reentrants don't have the means to acquire and maintain an expensive iPhone), of what use could this technology be in criminal justice circles?

• What if employers could post jobs to the application (a "jobs outbreak!") and reentrants could find open positions and (more importantly) find employers friendly to people with criminal records?
• What if parole officers could post their own reviews of local service providers for their colleagues to see? Or share information about a recent spate of relapses in a certain neighborhood for other law enforcement officials to be aware of?
• What if service providers could get real time information about reentrants who are new to the neighborhood (hmmm, we'd have to make sure this is legal ...) so that they could better target them for services and support?
• What if reentrants could post reviews of stores, service providers, faith institutions, or other community stakeholders who helped them out (a "good will outbreak!") and would be willing to help others returning to the community?

Any of these ideas would make the process of return certainly more efficient, and with the possibility of pictures and video, perhaps enriching for the technology consumer.

As always, if you have any ideas, we'd love to hear about them! How might this technology be useful in your criminal justice pursuits?

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Looking at the Hyper-Local

One of the most amazing aspects of reentry in Upper Manhattan is how locally specific it is. There are extremely high concentrations of people returning to very small local areas in Harlem -- and this is generally the nature of criminal justice problems in urban areas.

Looking at the broader global context, Swedish public health professor and doctor Hans Rosling has put together a fascinating dataset displaying this same pattern in development. Arguing against the traditional perspective that there are "developed" and then "developing" nations, Rosling uses his data to describe extreme variations among so-called "developing nations." [See also his website to see more displays of world development data compellingly presented.]

The video below -- humorous and dynamic -- shows a presentation he gave through TED at the US Department of State this summer. His visual displays of development over time speak very clearly to the idea that all global phenomena have very specific local manifestations. An interesting idea to ponder in Upper Manhattan as well.

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National Forum on Criminal Justice & Public Safety

This week I am blogging from the National Forum on Criminal Justice & Public Safety in Bellevue, Washington. The Forum brings together a broad range of attendees from law enforcement, probation and parole, counterterrorism, private information management firms and non-profits. Forum partners include the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), the IJIS Institute, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).


Regional Priorities

On Monday, a morning session I attended focused on regional criminal justice priorities. Tom O’Reilly, Senior Policy Advisor for Information Sharing Initiatives at BJA, facilitated the northeast regional priorities session. There were a range of concerns raised in the session that NCJA will report, along with feedback from the other regions, to BJA leadership that will be used to shape policy priorities.

While many important concerns were raised, the northeast regional top priorities identified included: the need for enhanced data sharing/technology, increased resources for law enforcement/ problem-solving manpower, offender reentry, inner-city violent gangs, and illegal prescription drug markets.

Mortgage Fraud

In the afternoon I facilitated a panel on mortgage fraud. My panel included Ann Fulmer, former prosecutor and current Vice President of Business Relations at Interthinx a risk management firm specializing in loan risk mitigation for the financial services industry; Chief Brad Ramos of the Indio California Police Department; Glenn Theobald, Chief Legal Counsel for the Miami-Dade Police Dept. Glenn chairs the Mayor’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force, an innovative strategy begun in Miami-Dade that is now a national model; and, Abed Hammoud, Lead Prosecutor in Wayne County, MI. Abed is a national expert on the prosecution of mortgage fraud.

BJA, under the leadership of Jim Birch III and Attorney General Eric Holder, is working to help jurisdictions address mortgage fraud. In January 2009, BJA brought together several jurisdictions for a two-day focus group to explore the impacts and collaborative responses to mortgage fraud and vacant and abandoned properties. To learn more click here.

Christopher Watler, Task Force Coordinator

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RR Contest: Reentry and the "Sixth Sense"

Technology geniuses at the MIT Media Lab have created a device they call the "Sixth Sense."

Put down your iPhones, your Kindles, and all other tech gadgets you think put you ahead of the curve. This tool is really something different. Watch the video.

It is a "wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information," according to Pranav Mistry, its creator.

That description doesn't really do justice to what this thing can do: it's worn on the body and combines a camera, projector, and wireless internet, with the ability to detect the motions or gestures made by the person wearing it. It can project onto any surface using the built-in projector and simultaneously get information from the web about the object being seen and project that information back on the object in appropriate manner. Essentially, it's nuts.

Here are some examples of what the Sixth Sense can do: pick up a book at the bookstore, place it in front of the camera, and immediately, the device scans the book title and projects back onto the book a complete review from Amazon.com.

Want to know what time it is? Hold up your arm, direct the camera at your wrist, draw the shape of a watch, and the projector projects the time onto your arm.

Want to take a picture of something, but don't have your camera with you? Hold up your fingers in the shape of a square box, and the device will recognize that motion as a signal to take a picture of what's inside the box. Then you can go home, project all of your pictures onto the wall and sort them out into categories.

Curious about the person standing in front of you? Direct the camera in their direction, the internet will pull up a list of tags associated with their name on the web, and the projector will project that information back onto the person.

Again, we urge you to watch the video.

OK, so the question we're posing is this: What does this mean for reentry and criminal justice? THAT is what we'd like to hear from you about. The best idea for how this tool could be applied to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety (judged completely subjectively by our own internal panel of people who write for this blog) will win its own blog feature. Have at it!

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