Over the past three years, Glen Pierce, Ph.D. of Northeastern University and David Lambert, Ph.D. of Roger Williams University, conducted an exhaustive study of the development of New Jersey’s crime gun intelligence capability in support of a National Institute of Justice grant (Grant # 2019-R2-CX-0066).
It is a story of the 15-year progression of experiences and leveraged capabilities that primarily focus on the New Jersey State Police as the protagonist but includes the contributions of many of its partners at the local, state, federal, and quasi-governmental (ie. Northern NJ Urban Area Security Initiative) levels.
The aim of the study was to summarize the 15-year evolution in a manner that could enable another agency - struggling with implementing crime gun intelligence practices – with a plan that they could not only replicate but do so in a hastened manner.
Having intimate familiarity with the New Jersey story I was excited to read this research paper, I hope you take the time to read it by clicking here:
To further encourage you to take the time to read this somewhat lengthy paper, the RF Factor team asked Dr. Pierce if he would provide 5 reasons as to why leaders in government, law enforcement, forensic labs, and District Attorney Offices, plus every citizen concerned about policing and the criminal justice system, should read this paper.
He provided the following:
Reason 1: For Justice to remain blind it must be intelligent, and evidence led.
Sir Robert Peel, father of modern policing once said that the police are the public and the public are the police. Maintaining public trust is paramount to effective policing. It requires that the law must be enforced without partiality or favor. In today's complex world, this requires a commitment for law enforcement to become more data-driven and intelligence/evidence-led. This research paper demonstrates New Jersey's commitment to intelligence-led policing (ILP) which began 15 years ago and was driven from the highest levels of state government on down.
Reason 2: It takes time to build an effective data infrastructure.
Crime analysis, forensic data collection and law enforcement analysis systems in the United States are typically decentralized, siloed, and underfunded which has limited their ability to support intelligence lead policing and the judicial system. This research describes how the New Jersey State Police (NJSP) engaged in a consistent effort to comprehensively collect, coordinate, and disseminate timely crime and forensic data needed to support ILP investigations and initiatives and prosecutorial and judicial decision-making. Currently, New Jersey is the only state with a statewide fatal and nonfatal shooting database. Equally important, NJSP has consistently provided law enforcement agencies, multi-agency task force initiatives, as well as prosecutors and judges with timely information and data to support their efforts.
Reason 3: Building an effective data infrastructure requires the right PEOPLE - the affected stakeholders to think, act together, and understand the benefits of collaboration across agencies and communities.
This research describes how over a 15-year period the NJSP facilitated the dissemination of crime intelligence across multiple communities by establishing the CorrStat program to reduce gun-related crime along the Route 21 Corridor, a region comprising less than five percent of the state but responsible for approximately 50% of the state’s homicides and gun crimes. Monthly CorrStat meetings are still attended by dozens of agencies and 100’s of law enforcement personnel. NJSP also implemented a statewide Ballistics Community of Interest and the RAIN (Rapid Assessment into NIBIN) protocol to support the comprehensive collection and timely processing of NIBIN evidence. Today, New Jersey law enforcement agencies collect a 40% higher level of NIBIN evidence per shooting incident than the overall average for agencies in the rest of the country.
Reason 4: Building an effective data infrastructure requires PROCESSES that are sustained through policies, regulations, clear guidelines, and the support and tools that law enforcement needs to acquire and disseminate comprehensive and accurate data needed to implement ILP and support other criminal justice functions.
There was consistent and fundamental support for the NJSP ILP commitment from the highest levels of State government. For example, early on the NJSP’s gun violence reduction initiatives received critical support from Governor Corzine’s 2007 Strategy for Safe Streets and Neighborhoods which mandated the timely and centralized reporting of all incidences of shootings, including any aggravated assaults and attempted murders.
The New Jersey Attorney General’s 2008 Directive on Crime Guns mandated the use of NCIC, ATF eTrace and NIBIN for all crime guns and ballistics evidence. These were further strengthened and institutionalized by New Jersey Public Law 2013, which codified key elements of the AG’s 2008 directive regarding the utilization and sharing of forensic firearms evidence and intelligence across law enforcement entities.
Later the RAIN initiative and protocol restructured and simplified the collection of forensic evidence in New Jersey. Most recently, to help ensure that the forensic and crime evidence being collected was available to criminal justice actors in the judicial system through New Jersey’s Gun Violence Reduction Task Force (GVRTF) created by an Attorney General Directive to extend the use of intelligence-driven data for precision prosecution. These policies and directives have provided guidance concerning law enforcement priorities and the authority needed to encourage active participation from actors in a highly decentralized system across a state law enforcement community of over 500 agencies.
Reason 5: Building an effective data infrastructure requires leveraging information technologies that can fundamentally increase law enforcement’s ability to acquire, manage, integrate, analyze, and disseminate relevant evidence and information on a time-critical basis.
The decentralized nature of policing in the United States (along with budget constraints) has made it difficult for law enforcement to utilize information technology, especially across geographic divisions fully. This research details how New Jersey has addressed this challenge through the Crime Analysis Precision Policing & Precision Prosecution Program (CAP5), a statewide initiative powered by the Backtrace technology based on the premise that the value of crime and forensic data is strengthened when it is integrated with other potentially relevant data sources and is available to law enforcement actors on a timely and user-friendly basis.
Equally important, CAP5 forms a ‘one-stop shopping’ that can quickly aggregate, filter, and display relevant crime and forensic information to officers and investigators who would otherwise need to visit multiple different systems to retrieve comparable information. Importantly, you can read how the data provided from CAP5 has increased dramatically validating its value amongst its user community. As a final observation, the CAP5 program continues to evolve which will help to strengthen institutional processes and practices.
