The City of Westland has once again invested in cutting-edge technology to keep the community safe and promote police department accountability.
Police Chief Jeff Jedrusik said the department has entered into a partnership with Altovista Technology, a leader in law enforcement intelligence, to provide the Westland Police Department with a new intelligence risk management software program named Arx Alert.
Arx Alert is designed to help prevent problems from occurring within a police agency. The program allows for two configurable user dashboards, Jedrusik said.
The first is an internal dashboard which will provide data directly to the chief of police to help analyze department risk on factors such as police pursuits, use of force, officers' productivity and officers' behavior patterns.
The second dashboard will provide up-to-date transparency information about the police department to the public. The public dashboard will show the public crime rates, arrest data, citation data, citizen complaints, officer use of force and training data for all of the 81 sworn officers and 25 civilian employees in the department. This program is now completely accessible to the public at www.cityofwestland.com
“Altovista's proven Arx Alert technology seeks to modernize the way we do things through the application of A.I.-driven decision making, to give us greater supervision and effective accountability management of our police agency. We truly believe this partnership will improve community relations and help keep Westland safer,” commented Westland Mayor William R. Wild.
The Westland Police Department is one of the very first agencies in Southeast Michigan to have fully implemented and deployed this type of management and awareness platform, Wild noted.
“The Westland Police Department recognizes the need to maintain law enforcement transparency with our community and continues to build upon the concept,” commented Jedrusik. “We continue to strive towards ways to build community trust and confidence.”
The Westland Police Department began the mission back in 2014 when they committed to becoming a nationally accredited agency. This process required a complete police department and administrative policy review by CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies). Since 2014 the department has reviewed, modified and updated every single policy, procedure, process and review system within the police department. In 2016 and in every year to follow the department was awarded the gold standard accreditation for law enforcement excellence. This is a standard which has been achieved by fewer than 5 percent of all law enforcement agencies throughout the country and by fewer than 10 agencies within the entire State of Michigan.
In 2018 the Westland Police Department took the next step toward this transparency commitment with the implementation of the body worn camera system, becoming one of the first agencies in the State of Michigan to fully implement this technology for every police officer and every patrol car.
In July the City of Westland hosted the kick-off of a new partnership between Western Wayne County NAACP and the CWW called, Partners for Progress. The partnership serves as a communication forum and listening tour which was created to enhance opportunity for discussion between police agencies and the community members they serve.
“No one can ignore recent and highly publicized events involving African Americans and some law enforcement officers. Many police organizations, including ours, are taking a closer look at our use-of-force policies, training, and accountability systems,” Jedrusik concluded.
