The new tool allows the service to easily see information on shootings, break-ins, deaths, victims, arrests, and charges, it also charts month-to-month and year-to-year trends at the click of a button. Photo credit: Facebook/Hamilton Police Service
The Hamilton Police Service (HPS) analytics team has used software to create a new in-house tool that helps to track a number of different statistics.
The new tool, created using Power BI software, pulls HPS data and organizes it automatically into graphics and charts.
Allowing the service to easily see information on shootings, break-ins, deaths, victims, arrests, and charges, it also charts month-to-month and year-to-year trends at the click of a button.
In the past, any requests for statistics would have to be tediously prepared by an analyst, but the new dashboard, launched in spring 2022, instead allows analysts to focus on more in-depth matters.
At this point in time, the software is not available to the public, and not even available to most officers as the police command team and analysts are working on how to best roll out the dashboard for use by the whole organization.
The system also allows analysts to see crime trends in particular neighbourhoods, allowing for the strategic deployment of officers to certain areas for surveillance.
Currently, the only HPS data tool available for public use is the Community Crime Map. The tool, using LexisNexis Risk Solutions software, maps crimes such as break-ins and car thefts so that Hamiltonians can see what criminal activities have occurred in their area.
However, that data tool is limited to showing the public individual incidences on a map and does not include trends or charts. It also does not include more serious incidents such as shootings.
It remains unclear whether HPS will make the new software available for public use, but the service is reportedly in the process of planning a new open data strategy.
In the past, HPS has been criticized by journalists and the public for being hesitant and slow to share details about its operations.
The service currently limits itself to sharing press releases only about major incidents and usually a couple of hours after the original service call, sometimes leaving the public in the dark about what is going on in their community.
Meanwhile, Toronto Police Service (TPS) runs a Twitter account called “Toronto Police Operations” that regularly tweets out up-to-the-minute details about service calls.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
