Police Misconduct Trending Data: 04/09-07/09

It’s a bit too early on in the project to really glean anything too useful from the trending data I’ve gathered so far through this project. However, I’ve decided to put it out there anyway for people to see for themselves, in the spirit of transparency as it were.

Also, if you want to view the actual monthly reports please refer to the Police Misconduct Statistics item in the top menu bar for a list of links by month/quarter.

First, let’s look at the reporting totals for each month so far:

As you can see, given the limited data set the average and the median for the 4 month range are pretty close to each other and the range is about +/-36 reports per month. To get a better look at how consistent the numbers are and if there is any trend worth mentioning we obviously need more data points. But, as far as I can tell, there is a lot less deviation from month to month than I expected to see when I started the project.

Now let’s look at the Daily averages:

For the daily averages we see that the deviation right now is about +/-1.5 with both the average and mean daily average at just over 15 reports per day. Fatalities also don’t show too much of a deviation with about 47 (+/-7.5) deaths per month attributed to alleged cases of misconduct.

However, the monthly “by type” tracking data does appear to show some shifting trends in the types of prevalent misconduct, I would really caution anyone from reading too much into that before we get more data in future months and get a better idea as to what the normal ranges are from month to month.

As I said, while it does appear as though theft/fraud reports against police officers are rising while non-firearm excessive force complaints are falling, the sample set is still too small to make any definitive statements as to whether that’s a trend or just the usual month-to-month fluctuations.

However, the tracking data for the Sexual Misconduct category appears to be closely related to the Sex Minor (sexual misconduct involving minors) category, this should be something to keep an eye on as the project continues.

I’m currently trying to find a way to capture some lost data we have for the current month that may well invalidate the month of August. Currently the reporting totals are about 50 reports under the average deviation because of a four day gap in reporting.

Hopefully I’ll figure out a way to find reports from those dates, but as it stands now I may have to exclude this month from the tracking data in the future, although I’ll still generate a monthly report for it. Entirely my fault for that loss of data, I apologise for that.

In any case, if there are any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions I’m always interested in hearing anything constructive that will help the project deliver more informative and accurate information.