Police Use of Force Data Analysis

Background

Police accountability and transparency are essential in building community trust and reducing incidents of police violence. Campaign Zero, a leading advocacy organization, collaborates closely with stakeholders to enact data-driven reforms. Through partnership with SUDS, Campaign Zero aimed to systematically analyze police use-of-force policies, civilian complaints, and officer protections detailed within union contracts across the largest police departments in the U.S.

Project Details

The SUDS team worked closely with Campaign Zero to leverage advanced analytical methods, machine learning, and visualization techniques to uncover patterns within policy documents and officer conduct data. The project specifically involved:

• Collecting extensive policy documentation from police departments nationwide and applying natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to efficiently categorize and analyze key policy themes, particularly focusing on use-of-force guidelines.
• Automating the tagging and classification of policy documents, significantly accelerating analysis and ensuring consistent, scalable insights.
• Examining police union contracts from the 100 largest U.S. departments to critically assess officer protection clauses that might influence accountability and transparency.
• Analyzing extensive datasets on police use-of-force incidents and civilian complaints sourced from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and public databases such as the OpenJustice Dashboard.
• Developing an accessible, interactive data visualization dashboard to communicate findings clearly and effectively to policymakers, activists, and the public.

Deliverables

• Structured Dataset: A comprehensive, machine-readable collection of categorized policy documents and union contract provisions.
• Automated Document Classification System: A robust NLP and machine learning pipeline capable of rapid and accurate tagging and categorization of police policy documents.
• Interactive Visualization Dashboard: A user-friendly platform providing detailed insights into police use-of-force practices, civilian complaint patterns, and officer protection clauses across major U.S. cities.
• Visual Reports and Analyses: Clear, data-driven visual summaries tailored for stakeholders and advocacy use, directly informing policy discussions and legislative reform efforts.

Outcomes

The insights and tools produced through this project greatly enhanced Campaign Zero’s capacity to advocate for meaningful police reform. The visualization dashboard provided clear evidence-based analysis to support transparency and accountability campaigns, empowering policymakers, activists, and communities with actionable insights. Ultimately, this collaboration contributed significantly toward Campaign Zero’s ongoing efforts to end police violence through informed, impactful policy change.