Dev sprint 10: Agency perspective

What we did

18F has been tasked with improving the granularity of the CDE. This sprint we focused on defining the experience for an agency view while accounting for data limitations below the state level.

• Conducted 5 research sessions with potential consumers of the CDE to refine search and data visualization for the data agency perspective.
• Built a prototype to better understand law enforcement’s expectations when searching for an agency in the explorer.
• Continued developing the technical foundation for an agency-based perspective.
• Submitted all required documentation for the FBI’s ATO process.
• Implemented selected enhancements & bug fixes.

Participants

18F and members of the CJIS team conducted 5, 1 hour qualitative interviews with members of the law enforcement and UCR community.

What we learned

• The law enforcement personnel we spoke with reacted positively to the agency perspective.
• Although, law enforcement generally have access to more timely and detailed data they saw this as potentially useful for the chiefs, reporters and academics, legislators, smaller agencies without resources to visualize and analyze data, and the public.
• Although there will be variation between state and local data and UCR data, as long as it can be explained, it is expected and understood.
• “Everything we do is a snapshot of the day and the time of when we pull the numbers. We recognize that there will be movement there.”
• People who are familiar with NIBRS reporting know it can be confusing and appreciate our straight forward approach for the public.
• The CDE and an agency level perspective will hopefully reduce the number of basic requests to CJIS and law enforcement staff.
• It is unclear what is being returned by an agency-level search and needs refinement.
• NIBRS reporting agency are concerned when viewing the CDE that the NIBRS data they collect isn’t being leveraged by the CDE because the only see SRS crimes.
• There is confusion around the UCR transition to NIBRS and how SRS fits in.

Next steps

• Build the key components of the agency view (bar charts, tables, sparklines) & and start API integration
• Advance our understanding of how the agency perspective will be perceived by both law enforcement and the general public
• Coordinate with CJIS to begin pilot testing
• Allow users to request API keys & establish rate limiting to improve performance (proxy through api.data.gov)

Prototype tested

https://crime-data-prototypes.fr.cloud.gov/demos/agency-search/

https://crime-data-explorer-demo.fr.cloud.gov/