Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) is a law enforcement operational model which combines data on the locations of crimes with data from traffic crashes to determine how to best place officers and other resources. This model is designed to not only reduce traffic accidents and crimes, but to enhance the presence of law enforcement in the community, putting officers in places where it is most helpful and reassuring for them to be seen. In addition, such targeted use of resources could lead to an overall cost savings for law enforcement departments in the long run.
It is generally accepted that highly visible traffic enforcement is an effective deterrent, and that crimes often involve motor vehicles. With these two facts in mind, DDACTS is designed to optimize the placement of officers to reduce crime and accidents based on real data. DDACTS uses data of a variety of types, including:
- Crime Data
- Crash Data
- Traffic Data
- Citizen Complaints
- Observed Dangerous Driving Behavior
- Information about Suspended or Revoked Licenses
- Information about Wanted Persons
Much of this data is coded for type of incident, location, time of day and day of the week. It is used to create integrated maps that overlay crash, traffic and crime data to help to identify hot spots within a community or jurisdiction. Further analysis may show causation factors, environmental influences and time patterns for crime and traffic accidents.
Once the maps are created and data is analyzed, agencies can then devise strategies to focus law enforcement countermeasures and activities on the hot spots that were identified. This could mean increasing patrols in target areas, stationing police to manage traffic at key times, installing new traffic management devices, putting in cameras and more.
This law enforcement operational model gets stronger the more it is used and analyzed. By meeting with officers, community members, administrative personnel and elected officials, agency leaders can learn what’s working and what isn’t to better fine tune their approach. This “Team” approach also helps to get stakeholders more invested in the program so that they can be counted on for support and continued data. It is also important to do ongoing assessments of reductions in crimes and crashes, cost savings and other results of using DDACTS.
Nobody can predict exactly where a crime or a traffic accident is going to occur, DDACTS, however, can at least point out those areas where there is a higher probability of such events happening, based on historical and current data, so there is a better chance of having an officer in the right place at the right time.
