An Open Government Approach to Street Crime

A winning approach combines data-driven enforcement, public oversight, and community-oriented solutions.

Credit: Philip Myrtorp via Unsplash

By Joseph Foti

Sweden’s recent emergence as Europe’s gun violence capital is shocking. In 2023, youth homes for troubled children and young offenders had become recruiting grounds for violent gangs, resulting in an unprecedented crime wave. Sweden’s new government promised to tackle crime. To date, it has restricted immigration policies, introduced harsher sentences for gun crimes, and given police increased surveillance powers. The parliament has also considered increasing police-military cooperation around logistics, IT-forensics, bomb expertise, and analytics.

Only time will tell if this tough-on-crime approach meets the moment. What is clear, however, is that such approaches should maximize safety while protecting democratic values. The remainder of this piece looks at a set of approaches that may help design more effective remedies and ensure accountability.

Note: This piece focuses on so-called “street crime,” especially violent crime. For more information on white-collar crime, see our recent blog “Who is Behind Grand Corruption?”

Open Government Areas For Action

There are five areas where open government can improve government responses to crime: raising the cost of organized crime, data enhancement and transparency, surveillance oversight, sentencing and punishment, and community participation.

Raising the Cost of Organized Crime

Crime is not always a matter of a few bad actors. Sometimes, it is organized and even transnational. Raising the cost of organized crime means cracking down on smuggling, money laundering, and bribery that often help finance other illegal activities. Sweden’s national anti-corruption strategy actively recognizes that link and contains a number of reforms that get at the mix of corruption and organized crime. A number of financial and fiscal reforms follow, most of which have benefits well beyond curbing corruption.

• Financial transparency and reporting: Implement stricter financial regulations that require enhanced due diligence and reporting from banks and financial institutions, especially concerning transactions linked to high-risk sectors or regions. This includes mandatory reporting of suspicious activities, real-time transaction monitoring, and increased penalties for non-compliance. Special attention should be paid to how these crimes may be related to street-level crime, including trafficking and violent crime. Indeed, there is solid evidence that large amounts of money from state-related crime in Russia is now being used to commit further drug and gun crime in Western Europe. Similar connections have been made between Chinese criminal elements and Latin American drug gangs.
• Contract transparency: While much crime remains in the shadows, many criminal organizations also try to “go straight” by infiltrating the formal sector and businesses or bringing officials onto their payroll. Procurement transparency is particularly helpful in limiting their influence. This is especially true when that transparency is in open, public data formats and can be combined with beneficial ownership and political donation data.
• Specialized, transparent organized crime units: Create dedicated law enforcement units focused on investigating and prosecuting money laundering, racketeering, and bribery. These units should collaborate closely with other agencies and financial regulators, including cooperating with other levels of government. Such agencies should regularly and publicly report to elected officials on their work.
• Whistleblower and witness protections and incentives: Encourage the reporting of criminal behavior by offering robust protections and financial incentives to whistleblowers and tipsters. This can help uncover bribery and other illicit activities within organized crime groups, particularly in sectors where these crimes are most prevalent, such as public procurement and real estate. Additional protections for victims of crime are also important.

Data Enhancement and Transparency

Open data helps understand where and what type of crime is happening. However, data itself may be missing, inaccurate, or not useful for decision-making. Below is a short list of why crime-related data gaps persist.

• Missing data: In some countries, detailed data on crime is under-reported. This is especially true among populations that may under-report crime, including poorer communities and among women, both of whom are more often the targets of violence. Similarly, data on gender-based violence may be systematically underreported.
• Inaccurate data: Closely related is the fact that data may not reflect actual problems. An example is police systems in which police assign resources to the areas of the most frequent calls. This is often in “border” neighborhoods where different social classes mix and experience tensions, rather than where crime is actually happening.
• Less useful data: Data may not be easily accessed or used by communities for several reasons. It may not be digitized or available online, may be incomplete, or may not be interoperable with other data sets such as geospatial data or data across jurisdictions.

To fill these gaps, open government approaches might include the following.

• Public crime data platforms: Platforms that publish crime data in an open data format can be an important first step to solving the “missing data” issue. Such data should meet established standards for privacy (especially for victims), reviews for bias, and other considerations. Additional data can include police response and resolution. In many ways, Sweden may already be ahead of the game. It maintains a comprehensive public platform that provides regular data on crime rates. Beyond that, it publishes analysis and convenes experts on how to tackle the problem. Of course, it may take some time for the right approaches to bend the curve on crime rates. Other countries may look to this and other platforms when prioritizing data. For more information, the OGP Support Unit outlines detailed guidance on open law enforcement data in its Justice Policy series.
• Data oversight: Given that data is often incomplete or biased, public oversight by elected officials, journalists, academics, and legal professionals can help identify how such statistics can be improved and acted on in a human-rights enhancing way. For more information, see guidance from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
• Responsible use of predictive analytics: In some cases, data and predictive analytics can help identify where individuals or communities may be particularly vulnerable to gang recruitment. The use of algorithmic decision-making processes (whether by AI or another other approach) requires humans in the loop to ensure that outputs follow the law and match community values. The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee has a number of recommendations on the appropriate use of such systems.

Surveillance Oversight

Some governments have chosen to ramp up their surveillance on the ground. The degree to which this is appropriate is highly contentious. Regardless, there are better and worse ways to administer such programs to ensure their consistency with democratic values. For details, see OGP’s guidance on Democratic Oversight of Surveillance, which presents a variety of tools to address concerns.

• Public disclosure of surveillance policies: In some cases, surveillance is advanced illegally. In other cases, the existence of surveillance may be covert, often for legitimate reasons — to protect the innocent and investigations. Nonetheless, where such methods are employed, there is a need for rigorous, independent checks and balances. For example, governments should openly publish their surveillance policies, including the legal frameworks, guidelines, and oversight mechanisms that govern the use of surveillance technologies. This transparency allows the public to understand the scope and purpose of surveillance, reducing fears of unchecked governmental power.
• Annual reporting and data transparency: Governments can issue annual reports detailing the extent of surveillance activities, including the number of warrants issued, types of surveillance technologies used, and data on how often surveillance leads to arrests or prosecutions.

Sentencing and Punishment

Some approaches to crime revolve around changes to sentencing and punishment. These approaches may seek to strengthen consequences for certain crimes or lower recidivism rates. To prevent disproportionate outcomes, especially for vulnerable groups, such sentencing approaches should be regularly reviewed for fairness and effectiveness.

• Independent oversight bodies: Establish independent bodies to oversee law enforcement and judicial actions related to punishment, ensuring that these actions are fair, proportionate, and in line with human rights standards. These bodies should have the authority to investigate misconduct and recommend sanctions or policy changes.
• Public access to judicial proceedings: Ensure that trials, sentencing, and other judicial processes related to punishment are open to public scrutiny. This can be facilitated through publishing court records, live-streaming of trials, and making summaries of judicial decisions accessible, allowing citizens to hold the justice system accountable.

Community Participation

Community participation is vital in creating an environment where crime prevention is a shared responsibility. Nurturing relationships between law enforcement, social services, and local communities is essential to ensure that organized crime is not able to take over a community.

• Community safety councils or police-public partnerships: Establish local councils co-led by residents, law enforcement, social workers, and educators in crime prevention strategies. These councils can facilitate dialogue on community priorities and collaborate on creating alternatives to crime. In OGP action plans, this is the most popular type of commitment.
• Accountability tools: Additional accountability mechanisms, such as complaints tools, ombudsman’s offices, whistleblower measures, and hotlines can help members of the public who are concerned about public safety. Such approaches can lead toward better problem identification. They must, however, be balanced with standard operating procedures to prevent vexatious reporting or harassment-by-police, when people misuse complaint mechanisms to settle personal conflicts.

Conclusion

Open government approaches — enhancing data transparency, fostering community participation and accountability, and combating money laundering — can help ensure that communities are peaceful, safe places. This can be done while preserving and enhancing civil liberties when there is a commitment to inclusivity, transparency, and responsiveness to our most vulnerable citizens.