How the Newark Police Department uses data integration to improve crime analysis and community engagement

KEY IDEAS:

• The Newark Police Department in California struggled with fragmented crime data stored in siloed data sources.
• These data silos hindered Newark PD’s ability to analyze crime trends, create prevention strategies, and share insights with community groups.
• The agency implemented Peregrine to integrate its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, records management system (RMS), and other data sources.
• With unified data, Newark PD streamlined reporting, enhanced data-driven policing strategies, reduced manual analysis, and improved communication with the community.

💡 NEWARK POLICE DEPARTMENT (NPD) AT A GLANCE:

Location: Newark, California

Established: 1956

Population: 46,254

Sworn count: 59

Total personnel: 85

Sources: NewarkCA.gov, NPD, U.S. Census

NEWARK, Calif. — The Newark Police Department in California works diligently to engage with members of the community to share crime trends as well as prevention and intervention strategies. Spearheaded by command staff and Community Engagement Manager Jada Chiu, the department regularly meets with homeowners' associations and neighborhood watch groups to share updates on crime trends within specific neighborhoods relative to citywide trends and educate community members on potential solutions to mitigate crime.

However, like many law enforcement agencies, Newark PD struggled with fragmented crime data stored in multiple siloed systems. Prior to adopting a data integration solution, personnel spent dozens of hours manually collecting and analyzing crime data to share with community members. Those time-consuming reports were confusing to understand, hindering the agency’s ability to host meaningful discussions.

Newark PD sought a data integration solution to streamline reporting and strengthen community trust. After onboarding Peregrine, police personnel leveraged unified data to monitor trends, develop data-driven crime prevention strategies, and share digestible insights with the public. Keep reading to learn how data integration increased efficiency and transparency at Newark Police Department.

🧠 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why police agencies struggle with fragmented crime data and siloed systems
• How data silos hinder reporting, analysis, and community engagement
• How data integration solutions help personnel save time, improve analysis, and increase transparency with community groups

Why crime data is often fragmented across police systems

Police departments are inundated with data, and an agency’s information can “live” in multiple siloed systems. For example, data about a single individual can be stored in:

• A record management system (RMS)
• A citation system
• A warrant service system

In recent years, police departments have responded to new and varied challenges with new law enforcement technologies like body-worn cameras (BWC) and automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems. These new technologies collect data alongside decades-old legacy systems like computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems and RMS that are storing information but don’t empower most users to access it in a meaningful way — beyond running basic searches.

READ MORE → Breaking Down Silos to Connect Agencies, Communities, and Technologies

The introduction of additional data sources has created a problem for community engagement and crime prevention. Because departments are managing more data across more systems than ever before, they cannot easily provide information on crime trends or develop true, data-driven crime prevention strategies without a way to bring all that data together.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS: Departments often struggle with fragmented data stored in siloed police systems. Agencies rely on many kinds of law enforcement tech, including:

• Legacy RMS and CAD systems
• Modern police software solutions
• Hardware solutions like cameras, drones, and LPR systems

All of those solutions collect and store data differently, which makes it difficult to share data between systems without losing context. Data integration harmonizes disparate data sources, creating a common language and providing a unified view of incidents, individuals, and crime trends.

Newark PD’s ‘very manual’ process for collecting and analyzing crime data

Before Newark PD implemented Peregrine, Capt. Jolie Macias described data collection as “very manual.” The agency’s records and case management system included diverse information, such as:

• People records
• Vehicle records
• Use of force reports
• Known offenders
• Collision investigations
• Warrant information

However, personnel couldn’t search and collate the kind of information they needed to most effectively engage with the community and foster trust between the department and the people they serve.

CASE STUDY → San Pablo Police Department: Engaging the Community by Investing in Technology

To share information during community meetings, Newark PD personnel would “print out a spreadsheet of each incident and present data in lists. It was hard to collect and even more difficult for our community to understand,” Macias continued.

Macias, Chiu, and other members of the department would manually categorize incidents by:

• Location
• Type
• Time of day
• Other relevant variables

The process took dozens of hours — hours that should be spent serving and protecting.

Visualizing crime trends with integrated data

“Ultimately, we use Peregrine to better engage with our community and make better decisions on crime reduction strategies, like where to add cameras or automated license plate readers.” —Capt. Jolie Macias, Newark Police Department

After implementing Peregrine, Newark PD gained the ability to visualize citywide trends and share meaningful insights with the community.

“What’s so obvious to us now is how Peregrine makes the data we want to share crystal clear,” said Macias. “With Peregrine, we can easily collate reports with maps and real-time dashboards on crime trends in easily digestible formats for community groups and local government officials.”

READ MORE → Peregrine 101: Forging Community Relationships

Macias continued, “We also didn’t have access to up-to-date maps. We were relying on Google Maps or old maps from our [computer-aided dispatch system]. With Peregrine we can now see, as plain as day, where incidents are happening. We can make easy and clear recommendations to members of the community and give them awareness and education on crime trends.”

“Ultimately, we use Peregrine to better engage with our community and make better decisions on crime reduction strategies, like where to add cameras or automated license plate readers.”

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS: TOP BENEFITS OF INTEGRATING NEWARK PD’S CRIME DATA SYSTEMS

• Unifying previously siloed data sources to clarify top priorities
• Informing data-driven crime reduction strategies
• Mapping 911 data to identify where incidents occur
• Enhancing crime trend reports with maps and real-time dashboards
• Creating digestible, shareable insights to enhance community engagement

How data integration strengthens community engagement in policing

Community engagement is a crucial aspect of modern law enforcement. Public safety agencies of all sizes must be prepared to articulate the strategies and tactics the department is deploying to mitigate and prevent crime. To build true relationships with the communities they service, departments need more than spreadsheets — they need to be empowered with clear and accurate reports and visual aids that community members and elected officials can easily understand and digest.

After implementing Peregrine, Newark PD personnel gained immediate access to contextualized crime data that was easy to understand, report, and share with community members. Data integration solutions like Peregrine increase accountability, transparency, and trust. To learn how Peregrine can bolster your agency’s community relationships, contact us today.

Peregrine is built on AWS GovCloud.