The Department of Public Safety recently launched a website dashboard aimed at providing the campus community and the public with comprehensive and accessible data related to service calls, police activity and campus crime statistics.
The DPS dashboard displays the total number of service calls logged by year and shows trends month by month. It also shows the type of service call, the location of reported crimes and how current trends compare to the month or year previous.
Image: A screenshot of service call information from the DPS dashboard on September 10.
The Clery Act, a federal consumer protection law, requires campus police departments to maintain a daily log of all reported crimes and provide students and staff with statistics, safety policies, procedures, emergency notifications and resources. While the DPS dashboard is not specifically required under the Clery Act, it fulfills an important role in communicating crime and safety information to the public. The dashboard draws data from the daily crime log and the DPS dispatch system to create an interactive, comprehensive report and present complex data in a meaningful way.
DPS Clery Compliance Supervisor Nathan Chester said that the feedback he has received on the dashboard has been positive.
“The goal was to increase accessibility to public safety data and demonstrate our commitment to transparency and community engagement,” Chester said. “The dashboard serves as a tool for students, employees and the larger community to make informed decisions about their personal safety.”
