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Memphis Police Department: A Case of

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Kurt Schiller

Mar 03, 2011

March 2011 Issue

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Memphis Police Department: A Case of


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Kurt Schiller

Mar 03, 2011

March 2011 Issue


Established in 1827 and currently employing more
than 3,500 officers along with several hundred civilian staff, the Memphis Police Department
(MPD) is tasked with preserving the public safety of the city of Memphis, Tenn. The
department's nine precincts currently serve a combined community of more than 683,000 people
and handle nearly 1 million calls each year.

(www.memphispolice.org)

Business Challenge
Data sharing and making effective use of information are two of the main challenges of modern
police work. When the Memphis Police Department began looking for ways to improve its fight
against violent crime, it recognized that simply deploying additional police officers was not the
answer. Instead, the department began looking for a more elegant and cost-effective solution.
With a wealth of statistical information already at its disposal, the MPD needed a way to sift
through the available data and discover insights that could guide the deployment of its large
force of uniformed officers.

Vendor of Choice: IBM


Founded in 1911, IBM provides hardware, software, consulting, and other services for a wide
variety of technology and business needs. In 2009, the company acquired SPSS, Inc., makers of
the eponymous statistical software package, and incorporated SPSS software into its information
management portfolio. Today, IBM SPSS is in use in numerous universities, 12 of the leading
global pharmaceutical companies, and all 50 U.S. state governments.

(www.ibm.com)

The Problem In-Depth


In 2005, police director Larry Godwin of the MPD became concerned about the city of
Memphis, which was experiencing an increase in violent criminal activity and, at the time,
ranked among the top 10 in the country in several categories of crime. Although the nation as a
whole was experiencing an increase in violent crime during the same period, it was particularly
pronounced in the city of Memphis. Something had to be done.

Although a typical response might be to hire and deploy more officers, such a process would be
expensive and time-consuming. Instead, it was decided that the best solution was one that took
advantage of the resources already at the disposal of the department, in particular, the broad
range of information available to its officers and analysts.

On police procedural dramas such as CSI and Law & Order, a whole universe of information
seems to be just a click away for the shows' heroic investigators. While it's true that modern law
enforcement agencies have a great deal of information to work with, the sheer amount of
information presents its own problems, and the process of turning that data into good police work
and effective decision making can be a lot more difficult than it looks on TV.

The situation was no different for the MPD. Poring over the available crime statistics was a slow
and labor-intensive process, to say nothing of incorporating other data sources such as census
information. What the department needed was a system that would allow its analysts to quickly
analyze new information and decide how best to respond to criminal activity, while also allowing
it to detect ongoing trends and uncover emerging ones quickly enough to make a difference.

According to John F. Williams, crime analysis unit manager for the MPD, the solution needed to
achieve two specific goals. "Number one: Reduce the crime rate within the Memphis area," he
says. "And number two: [Pinpoint] or show us where crimes were occurring to increase arrests
and stabilize the community."

To put together such a system, the department partnered with Richard Janikowski of the
University of Memphis's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. It was through
Janikowski's work with the university that the MPD ultimately began using IBM SPSS to
analyze crime data for the new initiative.

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Memphis PD: Keeping ahead of criminals by


finding the "hot spots"
Smarter Planet Leadership Series

Published on 06 May 2011

"You can have all the technology in the world, but if you don't have the leadership and the guts
to make some changes, you probably won't succeed." - Larry Godwin, Director of Police
Services, Memphis PD

Customer:
Memphis Police Department
Industry:
Government (US)

Deployment country:
United States

Solution:
Business Analytics, Business Continuity, Business Intelligence (US), Smarter Planet

Smarter Planet:
Leadership Series, Smarter Cities, Smarter Government, Smarter Public Safety

IBM Business Partner:


ESRI

Spotlight

In the six years since he's been Director of Police Services for Memphis, Larry Godwin has
proven a firm advocate for the merits of intelligent policing practices. Along the way, he's shown
that openness, accountability, and a willingness to listen and learn are an important foundation.

How Accomplished:
With traditional policing practices unable to thwart a rising rate of criminal activity and budgets
tight, the Memphis PD pioneered a way to focus their patrol resources more intelligently. By
recognizing crime trends as they are happening, MPD's predictive enforcement tool gives
precinct commanders the ability to change their tactics and redirect their patrol resources in a
way that both thwarts crimes before they happen and catches more criminals in the act.

Leadership:
Leadership is: A willingness to try While Director Larry Godwin realized that the MPD's
existing practices weren't working to stem a steady rise in Memphis's crime rate, he realized that
there were no "silver bullet" solutions. His willingness to experiment and break cultural barriers
opened the door to solving the problem. "You can have all the technology in the world, but if
you don't have the leadership and the guts to make some changes, you probably won't succeed." -
Larry Godwin, Director of Police Services, Memphis Police Department

Lessons Learned:
Listening the key to buy-in While conceived at the top, the success of the predictive policing
initiative hung largely on getting patrol officers on the street to take ownership-and that meant a
willingness to listen and learn. "We involved officers throughout the process, communicated to
them the 'big picture' of what we're trying to achieve, and then showed them the results. This taps
into the fact that officers like to do something good and like when the department invests in its
people." - Larry Godwin

Benefits:
30% reduction in serious crime overall, including a 36.8% reduction in crime in one targeted
area; 15% reduction in violent crime; 4x increase in the share of cases solved in the MPD's
Felony Assault Unit (FAU), from 16 percent to nearly 70 percent; Overall improvement in the
ability to allocate police resource in a budget-constrained fiscal environment

Case Study

With piercing eyes and a square jaw, Larry Godwin, Memphis's Director of Police Services,
looks every bit a composite of the no nonsense, old-school cop that he is. As you ponder the
lingering aftereffect of his powerful handshake, you aren't at all surprised to hear he was a U.S.
Marine before spending 38 years on the force. After starting out undercover, Godwin went on to
work in just about every part of the Memphis PD, including uniform patrol, SWAT, homicide
and special operations, where he was Deputy Director before assuming his current job in 2004.
Since then, Godwin has made his mark and has proven adept at projecting his leadership, in
subtle yet powerful ways. For instance, one of his first actions as Director was to change a
uniform policy in which officers in the field wore blue shirts and leaders on the force wore white,
to a policy where all officers wear blue shirts. The clear message was that the Memphis PD
needs to operate as a team-shunning hierarchical thinking-and that every member of the force has
a role in fighting crime. This approach is, in part, a reflection of the "don't forget where you
came from" mindset that coming up through the ranks often produces. But in Godwin's case, it
also marks a progressive instinct that has led him to try new approaches in order to fight crime
more effectively.

Following your instincts


It was this instinct that led Godwin to convene what would become a landmark meeting of
Memphis's law-enforcement A-Team, with the purpose of stimulating fresh ideas on how to
reverse a rising tide of crime. In what might be called the "cafeteria summit," Godwin and key
members of the department's Organized Crime Unit (OCU) sat down with District Attorney
General Bill Gibbons (whose district included Memphis) and Dr.. Richard Janikowski, a
professor of Criminology at the University of Memphis. Over a sensibly priced meal served on
trays, Godwin sketched out a scenario of rising crime, frozen (or even shrinking) budgets and a
growing disenchantment among Memphis citizens-and was open to ideas. As Director of the
university's Center for Community Criminology and Research, ideas were Janikowski's
specialty. Over the decade before, he had been involved in a number of analytical initiatives into
better understanding crime patterns. Now, with the MPD requesting his input, Janikowski saw
the opportunity to put into practice the simple yet powerful principle that "If you focus police
resources intelligently by putting them in the right place, on the right day, at the right time-good
things are going to happen," says Janikowski. "You'll either deter criminal activity or you're
going to catch people."

A bold experiment yields big results


Godwin liked what he heard. So much so that he agreed to regularly share key crime data with
Janikowski and his colleagues-a gesture that goes against the deeply ingrained tendency for
police departments to hold their information close. Using this crime data, Janikowski's job was to
develop an analytical framework that would be used as the basis for a pilot program, the results
of which would shed light on which analytical and operational approaches worked and which
didn't. A few months later, that effort materialized into a three-day operation that proved to be
one of the most effective ever. By identifying hot spots at a granular level, MPD made some 70
arrests in just the first two hours-a number usually made on an average weekend-and went on to
make a total of 1,200, with crimes ranging from drugs to weapons charges to prostitution and
other "quality-of-life" offenses. It was a great start, but only a start. Godwin realized that over the
long-term, the success of the program would require not only predictive analytics capability but
also the adaptation of the department's operational processes to take full advantage of them.
Godwin further realized that moving from a pilot project to a systemic change in practices would
require broad buy-in, especially from patrol officers out on the street. It's not only a question of
communicating how predictive modeling can help our officers be more effective, says Godwin,
but also knowing how to listen to them and tap into their knowledge. "Nobody knows a ward
better than the patrolman who rides as many as six or seven days a week for eight to 10 hours a
day," says Godwin.

"Showing our willingness to learn from their knowledge and experience is the best way to get
them to take ownership." To secure mayoral approval to move ahead with the program, Godwin
prepared a business case that resonated with the brutal budget realities that Memphis shares with
most major American cities-the need to confront a growing problem with fixed or shrinking
resources. It was widely acknowledged that the MPD needed to add another 500 patrol officers
to offset a growth in criminal activity, but that would take nearly 6 years to achieve. Godwin's
aim was to show how the intelligent alignment of police resources would effectively enable the
department to close the manpower gap now-a must in the eyes of Memphis's citizens. Under the
plan Godwin proposed, each precinct commander in the MPD would be given the resources (in
the form of overtime funding) and flexibility to make their own deployment decisions based on
intelligence provided by the solution. Most importantly, results would be rigorously measured
and commanders held accountable for their performance. It didn't take much selling, because a
few hours later, Godwin and the mayor were standing in front of the press touting the newly
approved program-which came to be known as Blue CRUSH-as a way to intelligently reduce
crime.

Policing smarter, not harder


Muscular connotations aside, Blue CRUSH (Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) is
really about gaining advantage through insight and agility. At the heart of it is a predictive model
that incorporates fresh crime data from sources that range from the MPD's records management
system to video cameras monitoring events on the street. In the realm of crime-fighting analytics,
there's a fine line between the "interesting" and the actionable. It is strength in the latter that
makes Blue CRUSH stand out from its predecessors. Blue CRUSH lays bare underlying crime
trends in the way that promotes an effective fast response, as well as a deeper understanding of
the longer-term factors (like abandoned housing) that affect crime trends. It happens at the
precinct level. Looking at multilayer maps that show crime hot spots, commanders can see not
only current activity levels, but also any shifts in such activities that may have resulted from
previous changes in policing deployment and tactics. At each weekly meeting, commanders go
over these results with their officers to judge what worked, what didn't and how to adjust tactics
in the coming week. They might see, for example, how burglaries are down in one ward, but up
another, or where thieves are stealing cars in one ward and dumping them in another. What's
striking, says Godwin, is the granularity. "We're catching this immediately and we're doing it
every day," he explains. "On short notice, we're able to shift officers to a particular ward, on a
particular day, right down to the shift level. It's a bit like a chess match and it's enabling us to
make arrests we never could have before."

Accountability the key to success


If there's an unsung hero in the MPD's success story, it's accountability. The experiences of other
departments in analytical police work-as well as the MPD's early efforts-had shown Godwin the
importance of rigorous and consistent reporting practices, employing common metrics, across
precincts. Godwin conveyed this message to the department in two ways. The first was his
decision to employ a standardized reporting template for all commanders, thus discouraging the
tendency to "cherry pick" results and obscure meaningful comparisons. Further reinforcing the
message (and removing all ambiguity) was Godwin's decision to rename the weekly sessions
TRAC (Tracking for Responsibility, Accountability and Credibility) meetings. The fact that
TRAC meetings are also a forum for precinct commanders to share their ideas-and, in many
cases, learn from each other's mistakes-is an outgrowth of the more open culture Godwin has
tried to engender. The results of Memphis's intelligent policing strategy speak loudly. Since Blue
CRUSH was rolled out citywide, it has produced a sharp and sustained impact on crime rates in
Memphis, including a more than 30 percent reduction in serious crime and a 15 percent reduction
in violent crime. One recent enforcement action-targeted to drug dealers in a specific Memphis
neighborhood-produced results reminiscent in scale of Blue CRUSH's very first pilot operation,
producing 50 arrests and leading to a 36.8 percent reduction in crime in the targeted area. In the
MPD's Felony Assault Unit (FAU), the department leveraged insights from Blue CRUSH to
optimize which types of cases its officers needed to focus on. As a result of the subsequent
realignment police resources, the FAU's conviction rate rose fourfold, from 16 percent to nearly
70 percent.

Memphis PD: The parameters of smarter law enforcement


Instrumented: Blue CRUSH relies on direct feeds from the MPD's records management system
and numerous other reports and sources.
Interconnected: Blue CRUSH integrates robust statistical modeling and analysis with GIS to
provide MPD with highly actionable information.
Intelligent: Granular tracking crime of crime patterns enables MPD to predict future crime hot
spots and direct police resources there proactively.

Beyond the numbers


Professor Janikowski is proud of his contribution to the MPD's results, as well as his ongoing
cooperation with the department. But he's also quick to point out that numbers are only a single
facet of the department's success story, and that the true impact of Blue CRUSH is seen on a
human level, in the improved safety and quality of life of the citizens of Memphis. "The 30
percent reduction in crime the MPD was able to achieve through intelligent policing is not just a
number," says Janikowski. "They are the hundreds of people who did not experience crimes,
who didn't have a gun put in their face or have their homes burglarized. That makes a big
difference in people's lives."

The Memphis Police Department's intelligent crime fighting solution is-


Software
IBM SPSS Statistics, ESRI ArcGIS

The Solution
SPSS is a comprehensive mathematical and statistical package that was originally developed at
University of Chicago in 1968. Acquired by IBM in 2009, the package comprises several
individual products and solutions, including IBM SPSS Data Collection, IBM SPSS Statistics,
IBM SPSS Modeler, and IBM SPSS Deployment. Taken as a whole, the package gives
organizations the ability to collect, analyze, and react to almost any type of data. The package
has seen widespread use in many industries and applications, including fraud investigation,
healthcare, government planning, and education.

The statistical package also has a history of involvement with police work. According to Bill
Haffey, technical director for the public sector at IBM, the company has worked with police
departments of various sizes to establish crime analysis programs similar to what the MPD was
looking for. These programs can draw data from a variety of sources, including raw crime data,
city event schedules, and holiday schedules, as well as more unusual sources of data such as
weather patterns.

The key to taking advantage of such a wide array of data sources is finding the connections
between them. According to Haffey, IBM SPSS excels at this task by being data-driven rather
than user-guided."In the discovery algorithms, the data-driven algorithms, you simply introduce
a number of various factors that you suspect might have some effect on the outcomes," says
Haffey. "The algorithms themselves will sort out the various relationships, the various causes
and effects that might be important."

This emphasis on data-driven analysis can have some surprising results. In Richmond, Va., one
of IBM's previous forays into crime analysis, data about the phases of the moon, was added into
the predictive model. "It was almost a joke, initially," says Haffey. "It turned out that the phases
of the moon were a critical portion of the model."

Another key feature of the package is the ability to create "business rules"-sets of criteria that
trigger specific behaviors in the package, such as indicating to a user the need for further
analysis. He uses the example of insurance claim investigation to illustrate their use.
"In the case of looking at insurance claims, obviously there are some very specific rules that a
claims investigator would want to follow," says Haffey. "One example of a very simple business
rule that you'd want to incorporate is if a car was totaled and yet there were no passenger injuries
reported. ... [That] would be one hard and fast rule that this particular claim should be
investigated."

Lastly, and most importantly, IBM SPSS can identify ongoing trends and use historical data and
other information to build statistical models that can predict future activity. That sort of
capability would be invaluable to the system the MPD was looking to create.

The Outcome
At the end of 2005, the decision was made to go ahead and provide the University of Memphis
with crime data for the city, which it could then analyze with IBM SPSS Statistics. Then in 2006,
an active pilot program called Blue CRUSH (Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) was
launched in one of the department's precincts, based on the university's work.

According to Williams, Blue CRUSH quickly demonstrated its efficiency. "We saw two things
occur," he says. "We saw the increase in good quality arrests for those offenders who were using
firearms to commit violent felonies. And also we saw a decrease in the overall crime in that
area."

Based on the success of the pilot program, several additional programs were launched, and in
2008 the MPD finished training its staff of 12 analysts in the use of IBM SPSS Statistics and
took over the operation of the program from the university. Blue CRUSH and IBM SPSS
Statistics are now vital parts of the MPD's Real Time Crime Center, which generates both
statistical and geographic data that helps the department track and combat crime more
effectively.

Williams provides a hypothetical example of the sort of trends Blue CRUSH can identify.
"We've got three robberies of individuals that are occurring in a particular area between 12 a.m.
and 2 a.m. That's pretty good stuff for a police officer. So we're able, through that, to place those
resources and have the officers in the areas where they're occurring," he says.

IBM SPSS Statistics also helps Blue CRUSH generate information packages that can be
distributed throughout the department, simplifying communication demands and the need to
distribute critical data. But most importantly, the MPD credits the initiative with a concrete
impact on the amount of crime, which has dropped nearly 30% since 2006.

"We found that the use of SPSS in our Blue CRUSH initiative has been more successful," says
Williams, "than any other saturation or zero tolerance policy in the history of the Memphis
Police Department."

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