When talking about crime reduction in Lethbridge a word heard often is ComStat, the system used to help determine hot spots and crime stats in the city.
Lethbridge Police Deputy Chief of Police Gerald Grobmeier explains the system is loosely based on the CompStat model the New York Police Service started to address their ever-extending crime rates.
“What they did was have a model where all the captains from the various precincts came together once a week and basically reported on the crime in their areas and they focused on individuals and hot spots,” Grobmeier says. “What they had to do was every week they had to come in and report all the activity they did with it. So that was the basic concept of it.”
He adds the NYPD found good results and the system then expanded into the United Kingdom with police there using a similar model. Grobmeier says when he was with the RCMP in the early 2000’s he had received training on crime reduction and what it looks like, so when he came to Lethbridge while there was already a model in place here it was one police where able to expand on and make something that works for Lethbridge.
He says the Lethbridge program focuses on four key areas, including hot spots which are areas in the city that have high reported crimes or crime trends, the individuals that are having the greatest effect on the crime severity index, problem locations where police are being called to a specific location a high number of times and the final pillar is individuals that are on various conditions.
“The principle concept is identifying areas and individuals. Then we can take that further. So once we’ve identified, for instance, person X is a drug dealer in Lethbridge dealing fentanyl, then we can take that further, and then we start mining our data to, okay, who does this person associate? Are there indications of where, when, and where this person is dealing, perhaps where the drugs are coming from?”
“So when [investigators] start their investigation, they’re already way ahead of the game, and they can start working on surveillance or different types of techniques to work that individual and then hopefully, you know, do a search warrant and get some drugs and lay some charges.”
Along with using AI for crime stats, LPS also uses AI to address the needs for employees’ mental health, not just the officers but civilian employees as well. Grobmeier explains it is important to intervene with our employees early on as these individuals can see a high amount of traumatic events.
“AI has helped along with our wellness coordinator, rank certain types of calls. And it works every day and it goes through all the files from every day.”
“When our wellness coordinator comes in, she can just go to this report and it has it all listed out and then shows those individuals that may be at higher levels of risk so we can intervene in them earlier.”
He adds this is an area that the LPS is happy about, with other areas AI is being used in an administrative way including summarizing long detailed reports. Officers also use it as a tool to take notes and create reports.
“It’s just taking some of that administrative burden and shrinking it. Now, in the police world, we can’t just take an AI report and submit it as is. We still have to verify everything because, at the end of the day, all the information that’s in any report has to be accurate.”
Grobmeier says that even though AI is being used, the data collected does not leave the LPS network. The data stays in Lethbridge in the internal system, which includes protective barriers.
