BJA FY 21 Smart Policing Initiative

Tulsa SPI Project: Testing Technology to Reduce Crime and Build Community Trust

The Tulsa Police Department is committed to reducing violent crime within the City of Tulsa as well as our partnering communities. The TPD is dedicated to fostering effective and consistent collaborations with the Northern District of Oklahoma United States Attorney’s Office, the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office, and the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office in order to increase public safety and trust. The TPD will create an innovative, data driven approach utilizing integrated intelligence from technology in order to reduce violent crime in identified Project Safe Neighborhood crime hot spots.

Although the COT is 47th in size, their violent crime rate continues to rank in the top 30 in the nation (FBI, 2019). In 2019, there were 987 violent crimes per every 100,000 residents in the COT, higher than Oklahoma City, Baton Rouge, or Chicago. Despite implementing the Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) in 2018 and removing some 1,543 guns from the streets in 2018 and 1,070 between January 1 and October 10, 2019, the TPD has experienced a 12% rise in aggravated assaults with firearms since 2017.

To enhance its’ ability to prevent violent crimes, the TPD will employ different innovative technologies (i.e., mobile safety and camera units and closed-circuit television (CCTV) in identified high risk areas and engage neighborhood groups. The Smart Policing Initiative grant will enable the Department to:

• Reduce the number of violent crimes in high risk areas
• Build community trust and police legitimacy
• Improve timeliness and sharing of public safety information
• Improve crime analysts’ capabilities to perform strategic analyses

The TPD Public Safety Analysis Unit will collaborate with a research partner to perform analyses on the problem’s underlying causes. The community will be engaged regularly through neighborhood meetings and surveys to track sentiment.  The TPD plans to use SPI project evaluation results to improve internal operations, demonstrate cost effectiveness of various police technology, support sustainment of effective components, and to share with outside stakeholders and the public.