In this episode Professor Stephen Goldsmith interviews Hilary Rau, Vice President of Policy and Community Engagement at the Center for Policing Equity.
In this episode Professor Stephen Goldsmith and Hilary Rau, Vice President of Policy and Community Engagement at the Center for Policing Equity, discuss what public safety means, how and why it's being redefined, and the role of data in reducing harm while improving quality of life. Rau also outlines the ways that community safety and trust can be enhanced through infrastructure and public health measures while decreasing surveillance and trauma.
Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa
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Steve Goldsmith:
Welcome back. This is Steven Goldsmith, Professor of Urban Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School for another one of our podcasts, looking at how do one uses data to change policy in the delivery of urban services. Today, we have a great conversation with Hilary Rau, Vice President of Policy and Community Engagement at the Center for Policing Equity. Hello, Hilary.
Hilary Rau:
Hello, thank you for having me.
Steve Goldsmith:
Hey, before we get to the business of your important work, give our listeners just a minute or two background about how you got to this center and what your background is in terms of expertise, please?
Hilary Rau:
Sure. I am an attorney by background. I was a civil rights litigator at the beginning of my career and eventually moved over into the public policy world as I became increasingly acquainted with the limitations of litigation as a tool to create systemic policy change. So I've been at the Center for Policing Equity for five years and have enjoyed in this work, having the opportunity to really dig into evidence informed, data driven approaches to identifying and addressing racial disparities in policing outcomes. CPE is a research and action organization, we were co-founded by Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, who is currently a professor of psychology and African American studies at Yale and Dr. Tracie Keesee, who spent three decades working in law enforcement. So we are a multidisciplinary organization that uses both practical on the ground knowledge and advanced science and data analytics to really dig into public safety problems that are of concern to both communities and to law enforcement. My specific work at CPE focuses on identifying actionable, evidence informed policy interventions that help to support the creation of more equitable public safety systems.
Steve Goldsmith:
So that was a mouthful, but I think I got it. And thank you. So let me think about what you just said more specifically. Well, I was a district attorney for a period of time and obviously a deputy mayor with some police responsibilities. In managing crime or a police department, of course, assumes that if you're going to manage with data, you've got the right data to drive performance. So if we thought about the data one should use for safety and law enforcement, what data would that be? And does it involve more than just crime data? I know you've been thinking more broadly about what would be the inputs to successful public safety policy. Could you talk to us a little bit about that? What data should a city look at?
Hilary Rau:
Definitely. So I think crime data is something that cities have been looking at increasingly to assess public safety need, but I think there's other really important sources of information. So one is calls for service data. What are people calling in and requesting police service about? And then it's important also to look at what police are doing in terms of contact. When are police stopping people? When are police using force? That data can help you to understand both where do disparities exist and also how well does police activity and police contact line up with the concerns that communities are calling in and seeking services regarding.
Steve Goldsmith:
Let's push on that a little bit. So if you thought about law enforcement by itself, as contrasted to crime at reduction more broadly, where would crime reduction and law enforcement lack? Where would they need more information? How would you think about more information? What things would you look at that were not just totally focused on crime reduction per se?
Hilary Rau:
I think that one thing that is important to think about is equity effects. Policing is not a harm-free intervention, policing can create trauma, policing can cause inconvenience or even more serious harms for people who are innocent, who've done nothing wrong and policing costs money. I think that when we are talking about increasing policing as a means to control crime, it's crucial to think about what are the harms that intervention is causing and are there less intrusive, more helpful ways to create that same public safety benefit. In terms of information that helps that it's important to be, again, looking at what are racial equity implications of policing? Are there racial disparities in who police are interacting with? And are those explained by poverty and crime or not? That's a key component of what the Center for Policing Equity does, we have a platform called the Justice Navigator, which is available at Justicenavigator.org.
And we look specifically at that question, if a city has stop data, use of force data, are there racial disparities in those data? And are those disparities explainable by poverty and crime? And we have yet to find a city where they work. It is usually the case that there is some degree of bad disparity that can be accounted for by factors that are not at all within police control, like poverty and crime. But there is always remaining a disparity that is not explainable by those factors that police departments have a responsibility to the community to engage with and seek to reduce.
Steve Goldsmith:
What would you advise a city to look at in terms of managing traffic stops? I mean, obviously one thing would be traffic stops by ethnicity of the person stopped, but if you dug into it a little more deeply, are there other things that should be examined?
Hilary Rau:
Definitely. I think traffic stops are a great example because traffic stops are the most common reason for police contact in the United States. Something like 20 million people are stopped by every year as drivers in a traffic stop. So certainly it's crucial to look at racial disparities in traffic stops. We know from national data sets and from data sets in states that are collecting good data on this topic, that there are large, pervasive disparities in who is being pulled over for traffic stops. But beyond that, it is important to look at the reasons for the stops. Oftentimes, you will see differences in terms of whether a stop was initiated for an equipment violation versus a moving violation versus suspected criminal activity. So those are important features to look at, search rates and search outcomes are important. We find in areas that collect this information that really a very small number of searches conducted at traffic stops reveal any kind of significant contraband.
So understanding the volume of police stops, the degree of harm that can cost public trust in law enforcement, particularly if there are disparities in that contact. And then what are you actually uncovering in terms of something that benefits public safety is really important? I think another piece to the traffic safety piece is that law enforcement is not the only way to further traffic safety or even the most evidence based way. There is a whole really robust body of public health literature that talks about proven ways to reduce traffic collisions and deaths that are based on infrastructure and safe cars and not based on enforcement.
So for example, longer yellow lights, traffic calming devices, road friction management, accident data is crucial to understanding these things. And if there are areas where you're seeing a particular influx of accidents, it may be that an infrastructure change is something that is a better solution to saving life than flooding an area with police officers. This is particularly the case because we know that there is a legacy in this country of inequitable investment in infrastructure based on race. That Black neighborhoods have too often been both over policed, but then left with less safe roads. So if we are looking at the harms, the outcomes that we're concerned about and what are the best ways to address those, then oftentimes the public health interventions are in fact, the more evidence based approach
Steve Goldsmith:
That was fascinating. Can I play this back in my mind for a second? So if only we were going to look at, you identified at risk intersections and for those that disproportionately fell into communities that had been under-invested, instead of sending officers to write tickets at those intersections, fix the intersection, improve the infrastructure, the data, the sensing. Have I got that right?
Hilary Rau:
Exactly.
Steve Goldsmith:
I'd have to confess, I never thought of that before as an equity issue, I thought about it as a safety issue, but I never connected the dots. That's really interesting. What is it that St. Louis is doing on policy with the center that you're particularly proud of?
Hilary Rau:
We have an ongoing relationship with the City of St. Louis to support their efforts to redesign public safety. This is work that they've been engaged in for a while and that they brought us into support. And we've been able to support that work through a variety of data analyses as well as community engagement support. With the data analysis piece, we looked at disparities in their stops and use of force, controlling for crime and poverty to see that the disparities were still there, they were. We did a calls for service analysis to determine what police were spending most of their time on and how well that aligned with police activity. We looked at police workload analysis and determined that poor and Blacker neighborhoods were more often dealing with slower response times compared to with wealthier and whiter neighborhoods.
And we found, looking at the reasons, that use of force incidents occurred, that calls that were based on proactive, officer initiated investigation, not in response to a particular crime, were responsible for an outsized portion of use of force incidents. So all of these insights, all of this information really speaks to the need for particular types of policy change. And we have an ongoing relationship with the city to develop really bespoke, customized policy interventions to address those specific problems. And all of that is possible because of good data collection and analysis that empowers city leaders and communities to speak to what kind of public safety they want to see and what solutions serve them.
Steve Goldsmith:
So if it's not a response to a community request and the officer makes an intervention on his or her own, it's more likely to lead to a disproportionate impact or inappropriate result than when an officer responds to a call for service. Is that right?
Hilary Rau:
What we found in St. Louis was that when officers were initiating investigative activity, that was more likely to lead to a use of force incident than when officers were responding to a call for service.
Steve Goldsmith:
Very interesting. We've talked a lot about public safety. What is public safety anyway? Is there a definition of public safety? Is there a measurement of public safety?
Hilary Rau:
That's a great question. I would say first that public safety has to be defined based on the community that we are trying to keep safe. You can't define public safety without talking to the people who we are trying to keep safe and asking them, what do they believe public safety is for them? What are they concerned about? What prevents them from feeling safe living their lives? I would say as my own reaction that I think that people are safe when they feel free to move about the world and move about their lives without fearing harm.
And that public safety under that definition both means that we are safe from traffic accidents, we are safe from violence, but also that Black and Brown people are safe from racial profiling. You're not safe if you are afraid to drive your car at night, if you are afraid to move about your life, because you are afraid that police officers may stop you or profile you. So public safety means looking for a world where all of those harms are addressed and people are able to fully participate in life and society.
Steve Goldsmith:
So if you were going to give recommendations to a city, we work with a large number of senior leaders from cities across the US, where would they start? What would you have them do as a place to begin? It's not like they're starting anew, but if they just looked at the issues we've raised here. I know it comes on a background and it depends on the city and the police department's quality and openness. But let's say a mayor, what would you have a mayor raise first with his or her police department as a way to improve public safety as contrasted to just law enforcement?
Hilary Rau:
Definitely. And I think that, that needs to be a data driven process and a community driven process. So I think the first steps are number one, talk to the community about what their concerns are, what their needs are, what they most want to see change, to feel more safe in their communities. And number two, to dig into the data, to first of all assess whether this city is keeping data that are sufficient to shed light on the questions that we've been talking about, which many cities do not. So if there's not sufficient data, then that step number one is to improve data collection so that there is enough information to make data driven decisions. And if you do have that data, then to analyze the data that you have, commit to regular analysis of the data that you have so you can track changes and interventions over time. And look to what findings emerge and that directs then what issues are best to focus on, because they will look different for every city and every community.
Steve Goldsmith:
That makes total sense. So just in conclusion, are you seeing progress? I know there's still a lot of anxiety and a fair amount of anger on both sides, but are we seeing progress? We've written some and talked some with others about more nuance in the discussion, somewhere between defund the police and reform the police, to between community engagement and alike. But are you seeing efforts where that chasm has come together a little bit around the issues of public safety?
Hilary Rau:
I think so. I think that even as you've seen police accountability, equity redesign, fall away from headlines somewhat, communities are still continuing to do this work. And there is often an area of commonality that relates precisely to these evidence driven ways of keeping people safe that are not police, because they do exist. Any police officer who you speak to will tell you that there are a lot of things police are asked to do that are not within their training, that are not within the time that they have in a day to address. And any community member who we talk to will often tell us, "There are real public safety issues we are concerned about that we want addressed, but we don't want them addressed in a way that increases surveillance or profiling or some of the harms that overly burdensome or intrusive or racially disparate policing can have."
So then this is where we look to examples in traffic of longer yellow lights, of traffic calming devices, of road friction management, these infrastructure based, public health based solutions that are supported by so much evidence and address the concerns and needs of a really diverse set of stakeholders. So I think that I am encouraged by the possibility of reaching alignment on some of these public health measures, as well as agreement about restricting some of the police behavior that is most harmful and that based on the data, least supports public safety.
Steve Goldsmith:
Very helpful. I appreciate very much your insights. We're speaking today with Hilary Rau, Vice President of Policy and Community Engagement at the Center for Policing Equity. And her excellent work and that of the center on looking at public safety in a broader sense. Thank you very much, Hilary.
Hilary Rau:
Thank you for having me.