Data-Driven Decision Making

Chief Medrano has over thirty years experience in public service, including eleven years as a Police Chief and two years as a City Manager. He's been the President of both the California Police Chiefs Association and The Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Association, and recently served the Attorney General as the Chief of the Division of Law Enforcement (DLE) for the CA Department of Justice. I was able to sit down with him and chat about data-driven decision making in law enforcement and why it’s the direction that all agencies should be moving toward. The post that follows is a summary of our conversation.

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A Brief History

Crime reduction in law enforcement has evolved over the years. From hotspot policing, to Compstat, to predictive policing, the models for addressing crime have changed with the availability of more data. While all of these techniques have their pros and cons, it’s time for the next iteration of policing to emerge: data-driven decision making.

By integrating the best of the previous techniques and using the unprecedented amount of data that is now available to law enforcement, agencies can make better decisions on how to address crime. The key is taking all of the different systems that, right now, aren’t talking to each other and view them under one pane of glass to avoid the gaps that lead to misinformation.

It’s not that law enforcement doesn’t have enough data to make decisions; it’s that we have so much data but it’s not effectively integrated to fight crime