AVON AND SOMERSET CONSTABULARY
Fighting Crime with Data
We receive tens of thousands of calls every week. But our ability to successfully respond to each emergency depends on the data we have available and how quickly we can draw actionable insights from it.
But we soon realised that providing the tools for data analysis isn’t enough. Police officers need to feel confident handling data too.
Understanding, challenging and applying data means we can identify trends, which helps us spot risks.
We can focus information to make smarter decisions around critical situations. And we can monitor workloads – so we’re better placed to protect the community.
Armed with data literacy
While many officers already had some level of data knowledge, we realised we needed to create a competent, free-flowing data literate culture across the entire organization.Relevant data can be made available the moment it’s needed. We just needed to point officers in the right direction and equip them with the skills to effectively make the most of it.By dividing the county into smaller teams, we were able to provide more focused data literacy training. Our internal champions shared their data knowledge within their own teams. We were even able to use data generated from the project itself to identify those who needed extra help.
Relevant data can be made available the moment it’s needed. We just needed to point officers in the right direction.
Case closed
Democratizing data and improving data literacy skills has had a truly positive impact on the Avon and Somerset Police. We’ve improved productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.Not only have we reduced crime by sharing knowledge of known offenders, but by putting officers in the right place at the right time – we’ve prevented it from even happening.Our professional judgment is now better informed and we’re proud to say we set the standard for other police forces nationwide.
DATA HAS FOUND THE MISSING
Roughly 150 people go missing every week and many of these are children. By sharing data we now have a much more joined-up approach to tackling the problem.
DATA HAS SPED UP 999 RESPONSES
Monitoring call demands means we have better insight into the availability of officers. We’re now recognised nationally as one of the best performing forces.
DATA HELPS TO IDENTIFY HIGH RISK OFFENDERS
Data analysis helps us identify high risk offenders on a daily basis, enabling us to make better informed decisions around prioritising resources.
DATA IMPROVES POLICE OFFICER CONFIDENCE
Our officers and staff are now more confident making decisions and have more manageable workloads, enabling them to better serve the public.