Pflugerville Police Department receives award for online crime map - Austin American-Statesman

The Pflugerville Police Department has been recognized for its efforts to be transparent with the community about crime.

Measure Austin, an Austin-based nonprofit research and public education organization that uses data to address social disparities, awarded the department following the Police Department’s February launch of a new digital crime map.

The online map allows residents to view various crime incidents received by the Police Department. Searches can be sorted by date, location and type of crime.

Meme Styles, founder and president of Measure Austin, presented the award to Police Chief Jessica Robledo during a City Council regular meeting on March 13.

“Measure Austin seeks to change behaviors, laws and ordinances, particularly within the police and school system as it pertains to interactions with people of color,” she said. “The organization is data driven, getting way from just gut emotion and going toward holding people accountable through, quite literally, accounting, numbers and data.”

She said Measure Austin is innovative in that it encourages people of color to be the data collectors and storytellers because “far too often data feeds the narrative about marginalized communities.”

She said the Police Department moved in the right direction with its community crime map by becoming more data-driven and evidence-based.

“We were so excited to see the database that the Pflugerville Police Department started just recently in terms of using data in order to better understand where problems are happening in our community,” she said. “The beauty of Measure is that the data is owned by people who look like us. It’s our ability to tell our own stories through our own experiences, and so with that we advocate for transparency.”

During the council meeting, Chief Jessica Robledo said it is important to bring people to the table to discuss and address issues.

“It doesn’t matter what color your skin is because, I say this all the time, at the end of the day we are all pink on the inside and we bleed red,” she said. “As long as we’re not afraid and we have the courage to come to the table and have that critical discussion, we’re going to solve problems; we’re going to move that mountain and make great things happen here in Pflugerville.”

The Pflugerville crime data online is available at pflugervilletx.gov/crimemap.

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