The Urban Safety Program worked with the Detroit Police Department on developing crime-mapping tools for police officers. In 1999, an automated crime mapping system was implemented by the Crime Analysis Unit with the assistance of the Urban Safety Program. The system provides maps, updated daily, to police officers across the city. With funding from the Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Urban Safety Program trained 2,000 police officers and developed a crime-mapping training curriculum. In August 2001, the Detroit Police Department held its first data-driven, management accountability meeting. These meetings are patterned after New York City’s COMPSTAT process. This event marked a milestone in the use of crime mapping for management and accountability within the police department.  The Urban Safety Program has also assisted the Wayne County Sheriff and City of Inkster.

Evaluating Community Policing and Innovative Law Enforcement Strategies

The Urban Safety Program conducts research on "best practices" and model community policing programs. Several local programs are being evaluated. These include the Detroit Empowerment Zone Community Policing Program, Inkster Weed and Seed, Northwest Detroit Weed and Seed, and Highland Park Weed and Seed.

Taking Stock of Neighborhoods: A Next Generation Community Statistical System

Data-driven decision-making techniques are being increasingly used by government thanks to technologies like powerful databases and tools like computerized mapping. Accordingly, these high-tech tools can help us better understand neighborhoods and keep better track of their performance over time. We can view how one neighborhood compares to another, or to the community as a whole, or even to the national average. Explore this site and see how! This mapping-database system was developed by Dr. David Martin of WSU's Center for Urban Studies. The system uses geographic information systems (GIS) and database technologies. ESRI's ArcIMS and Macromedia's Coldfusion software link maps with databases that contain statistics for neighborhoods in Wayne County.