Data-Informed Community Engagement (DICE)

A prism serves as a good analogy for Data-Informed Community Engagement, or DICE.

DICE can be a strategy for community policing and spearheaded by a police department. It can also be a city’s violence reduction plan run out of City Hall or by a community partner.

The glass prism separates light into its component parts. Through the rainbow that emerges we see the full spectrum of colors and the role that each one of them plays in creating visible light. That is, we can observe visible light, but need a prism to see its component parts.
 
With DICE, we notice an emerging or persistent crime problem, and use risk terrain modeling (RTM) analysis to diagnose its contributing factors. Then we share this information with multiple stakeholders who coordinate their own existing resources to intervene by doing what they do best at the places that need them most.
 
While everyone’s initiatives may appear separate from one another, they combine to produce a deliberate and impactful response to crime problems throughout the city because they’re all acting on the same information to guide their plans and actions. The result is a comprehensive and sustainable crime prevention strategy, with policing just one part of the larger effort.
 
DICE can be a strategy for community policing and spearheaded by a police department. It can also be a city’s violence reduction plan run out of City Hall or by a community partner.
 
In his essay on the Quality Police blog, Joel Caplan discusses DICE in more detail. It introduces you to data analysis with risk terrain modeling and presents case studies that have made RTM actionable by sharing the burden of crime prevention and public safety with multiple local leaders.

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