5 Things You Should Know about Public Safety Data in Pittsburgh
An Interview with Tara Matthews, I&P’s Senior Digital Services Analyst
The Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (WPRDC), in partnership with the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh, has published over 300 datasets since the partnership began, in a wide range of categories including geography, housing, health and transportation. Today, we’re talking about Public Safety Data.
There are currently ten datasets categorized under the umbrella term, “Public Safety and Justice.” They include:
- Police Arrest Data
- Police Incident Blotter Data
- Daily census from the Allegheny County Jail
- Data about how long officers spend in professional training each year
- How often officers engage in community outreach
- Dataset of police bureau litigation
- Police Firearm Seizures
Here are five pieces of information you should know about public safety data in Pittsburgh.
1. Police Incident Blotter Data
When I asked Tara Matthews, the Senior Digital Services Analyst with the city, what data she was most proud of releasing, she was quick to say ‘Police Incident Blotter Data.’ Releasing it had been a goal of hers for for a long time, but it took a while to get everything in order.
What is Police Incident Blotter Data and where can you find it? It is a record of the activity that takes place within the police department regularly. There are two different types of Police Blotter Data. There’s the archive, which houses verified incidents and is a more reliable source when looking for crime statistics. Then, there’s the 30-day compilation of the most recent Police Blotter incidents that can be released.
The Blotter Data is released in the form of an excel spreadsheet with the raw data accompanied by a “Data Dictionary” that explains what each of the columns represent. The best part of the data is the interactive map to help users visualize the facts. Users can click on the individual blue dots on the map to find out the date and time of the incident. Having this is as public information is an important step towards more transparency and helping people understand what police do on a daily basis in the city.
2. Police Firearm Seizure Data
Now the “Public Safety and Justice” list includes Police Firearm Seizure data, which came out early this year, after being in limbo for most of 2018. Police data usually contains sensitive information, so the city needs to be thoughtful when releasing it. Matthews and her team at the Department of I&P worked extensively with the Bureau of Police and Department of Law to determine the best way to make the firearm seizure data public.
Here is a link to the seizure data, which is organized in an Excel spreadsheet. It tells you on which block in the city the weapon was seized and other details about the location such as neighborhood, ward and police zone. It lists what kind of weapon it was, how many weapons there were and when they were seized. I found after briefly looking at the data that 71 percent of the seized firearms are pistols. With that information I might be able to cross-analyze it to figure out what time of year the most seizures of pistols occur.
People can manipulate this data in a number of different ways, depending on which pattern they are most interested in focusing on. This is a graph from the WPRDC, which shows the variations in firearm seizures by month and year.
3. Data Guides
Data guides should be your new best friend. With over 300 datasets on the WPRDC website, some are more user-friendly than others. Fortunately, there are many helpful user guides for data related to public safety and crime in the City of Pittsburgh. Below is a visualization of gun violence in Pittsburgh over six years. It shows the number of shootings and aggravated assaults as well as the most common time of day they take place. This table shows us that 77 percent of gun violence takes place after 5 pm and 36 percent of it takes place on the weekend. I might not have been able to figure that out by looking at the raw data.
The WPRDC also releases helpful visualizations like the one below to make it clear what kinds of crimes are occurring. The user has the option to pinpoint one specific neighborhood, a combination of neighborhoods or the whole city when picking which data to analyze. Users can also compare different years. The graphic below shows the difference in types of crime throughout the city from 2005 to 2015.
4. Public Safety Data is Sensitive
I went into my conversation with Matthews not knowing much about Open Data. I learned the three traits that make open data unique are that it needs to be: free, accessible and machine-readable. While this seems straightforward, it can quickly become blurry.
Matthews explained that her thoughts often gravitate towards the more philosophical data questions. Some people argue that data should be made public without caveats or restrictions and without thinking too much about how people use the data. But imagine you were the victim of a crime. You might not want your name in a public database outlining the details of the crime.
These are the kinds of considerations Matthews has to make when determining the best way to release data. Matthews said, “I really just work with what people ask for and I try to present it in the most neutral way possible. I don’t publish it with the intention of saying look how good the city is doing with crime.”
Public Safety data is unique because it is always directly related to people. It could be the personal information of individuals involved in specific cases. It could also be information related to ongoing investigations. Matthews explained that they often also have to think about how data users might match one data set with another one that is related. This might allow people to compile information about specific cases, putting confidentiality at risk.
So how do you protect the privacy of the people who are actually involved in the data set while providing data that is specific enough to actually be useful?Matthews calls this a balancing act to find the right combination of “appropriately de-identified” and “useful for analysis.” For the firearm seizure data, the incidents are not connected to individuals — instead they focus on location.
5. Public Safety Data is Powerful but Unpopular
The reality is that people can download datasets and use them however they like; that’s the nature of open data. But another issue is how few people are still aware that open data exists in the city. Tara Matthews just wants more people to know about it and utilize it. “ Whenever I get invited to speak somewhere, one of the first questions I have…I say ‘OK show of hands, how many of you know what the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center is?’ And there’s a few people that say yes. And plenty that say no.” That’s a problem. In order for the Data Center and the City to understand which data people are interested in, they need feedback from citizens.
Because of Pittsburgh’s Public Safety Data, we are a part of the Police Data Initiative, which was started by President Obama. It is a nationwide effort to make police data available so that we can identify patterns and work together to solve problems in this field. 130 Law Enforcement Agencies are a part of it, including Pittsburgh’s.
Matthews is excited for the data that will be released in 2019 as the database continues to grow and open data becomes a more popular concept around the world. The more people that understand the available data resources and build partnerships to utilize them, the more powerful the data is. Check out this series on how people in Pittsburgh are using the city’s data to combat issues such as the opioid epidemic, designing safer streets and identifying vacant lots.
Remember to save the date for the Inclusive Innovation Summit 2019 (March 28–30) — there will be a program about census data, as well as many other programs about how we can work together to shape the future of the city.
Digital Services is a central effort towards the Department of Innovation & Performance’s vision of ensuring that all city services are supported by digital tools, and includes our Open Data Initiative. Learn more about Pittsburgh’s Digital Services and keep up with the Inclusive Innovation Summit by following us on Instagram.
