On the heels of Mayor Ed Murray’s state of the city address where he promised continued reforms related to bias-free policing, the Seattle Police Department released a Request for Proposal (RFP) yesterday for a new business intelligence computer system, accomplishing a key milestone on the road to compliance with the 2012 settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The RFP seeks vendors to bid on a contract to build the department’s Data Analytics Platform (DAP).
The DAP will consolidate and manage data provided by a variety of transactional systems related to police calls and incidents, citizen interactions, administrative processes, training, and workforce management that will provide SPD with enhanced analytical capabilities and reporting related to topics in a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
In August, U.S. District Judge James Robart granted the City an extension until March 1, 2015 to “get the job done right” in developing the RFP for the computer system. In the intervening time, Chief Kathleen O’Toole appointed Virginia Gleason, her Chief Strategic Advisor, to the lead the SPD team, working in partnership with the City, U.S. Department of Justice and Monitoring Team, to develop the RFP.
The team drew upon the previous work conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2013, which provided a high-level assessment of the department’s technology needs. In addition, the department contracted with the Gartner Group to perform a deeper examination of the department’s data and data sources from applications deemed critical to feed or support the DAP.
In addition to pulling together information together related to bias-free policing, the DAP will also consolidate other crime and performance data that will allow the department to extend its data-driven approach to crime reduction and organizational management.
During the development of the DAP, the department, the DOJ, and the Monitoring Team are moving forward with audits and data analysis to assess the progress of the department in compliance with the settlement agreement. The initial compliance assessments are moving forward even as vendors compete for the DAP development.
Proposals are due to the City by April 13th. The contract is expected to be awarded during the summer.