The challenge
Police departments want to build stronger relationships with their communities, built on trust and transparency. This can sometimes be a difficult task, and so agencies are looking for ways to effectively build stronger bridges with their community that create a more positive and safe place for everyone.
The solution
Axon assists with community engagement through a variety of tools that promote transparency and trust. Survey tools, streamlined community evidence collection and body-worn camera data can help communities feel heard and grant a collective sense of ownership in public safety. These tools can also benefit police officers, making them feel like an appreciated member of their community.
Make public safety a community-wide effort
Several tools help enable agencies to build bridges with their communities. These tools are useful before, during and after events or calls for service.
Our Community Connect Program, part of the Axon Fusus solution, is a collaboration between local agencies, residents, and business owners. It builds on community policing efforts and aims to integrate both city-owned and privately-owned cameras from voluntary participants to transform the way police officers can respond to, solve and deter crimes and emergencies. Each additional camera provides another set of real- time eyes that can be viewed through the Fusus platform when events occur.
“If you get a lot of these cameras going it increases safety for everyone. So that was a big selling point for us, we could be part of that network and work toward the greater good.”
– Caleb King, Business Owner - Shreveport, LA
During a call for service or emergency, police can wear Axon Body-Worn Cameras that promote transparency and respectful interactions. The footage can later be used as evidence or shared with the community. These connected cameras can also be live-streamed through Axon Respond and the Fusus platform for even more real-time awareness.
Community members have become an important source for digital evidence, but gathering that evidence has presented challenges in the past. Police can now leverage Community Request to collect digital evidence from the community in a way that is both fast and forensically sound. Officers can send community members upload links from Axon Evidence or from the Axon App, and when community members share the evidence it loads directly into the agency’s digital evidence management solution.
“In the past, officers asked me to share my photos via text. I didn’t really expect those to make it through into any kind of system. This time, I felt good when I received a link to an upload service because it seemed like my evidence would end up in the system.”
– Community Member, Seattle Washington
After the event, we provide several tools engaging with the community as well. For instance, My90 is a survey tool that streamlines feedback from the communities in which police officers serve. These surveys can be sent to the entire community, as a follow-up survey after a call for service or to police employees. Results are visible on a dashboard that provides actionable intelligence in a clear and concise way.
“Now, when you can join My90 results with the statistics we gather for crime data, you’ve got tremendous tools for making decisions about where to better allocate resources to help decrease crime and bolster community relations.”
– Captain Portalatin, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department
Speaking of dashboards, Axon Performance can contribute to agency transparency and community trust. Agency dashboards will demonstrate adherence to policy and expedite the body-worn camera video audit process.
Data from these dashboards can help guide policy and best practice, and can even be shared with the community. The feedback loop will help officers meet community needs more effectively, and in turn help build stronger community engagement and trust during future events.
Contact us to learn more about how Axon is helping police agencies and the communities they serve. axon.com/contact
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