The Dallas Office of Integrated Public Safety Solutions (IPS) presented its Data Informed Community Engagement (DICE) Plan to the Dallas City Council’s Public Safety Committee last week alongside the Dallas Police Department.
IPS Director Kevin Oden sat for a phone interview with The Dallas Express to explain how the plan is meant to reduce crime throughout Dallas.
Oden explained the purpose of DICE and how it cross-references property types and criminal incidents to predict where crime might occur. These predictions are used to inform the City’s preventative efforts.
“It is a way of looking at criminal incidents that ties criminal incidents to property types, and it assesses risks based on what types of property types are in the city and assigns risk types.”
“You may be in part of the city where there’s been gun violence around convenient stores, so we’ll evaluate that score and engage with different types of models to mitigate risk.”
When asked why IPS waited until April to unveil the plan, Oden explained that his office began working on the DICE plan last fall and waited until it showed results to present it to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
“We really started soft testing the interventions within DICE going back to November of last year. The plan itself has been written and executed by my team and some partner departments who helped us out. Once we got to the first quarter of this year, the plan had been tested and been successful.”
According to Oden, the program targeted 102 properties in the first quarter of 2023. He credited the plan for a drop in violent crime at the targeted properties.
“The calls for service at the 102 properties were down 7% and violent crime was down 17% compared to the previous year’s time.”
Oden emphasized the quality-of-life improvements and beautification projects his department has undertaken, asserting that these initiatives play a key role in preventing crime.
“A large component of what we do is inspections and improving what properties look like,” said Oden. “If a property owner does not care what happens to their property, they must not care what happens on their property. If we make [buildings] look cared for, it mitigates risk and improves the quality of life of the property owners.”
“Dilapidated properties increase risk behavior,” he added.
Despite the specific reductions cited by IPS, however, violent crime in Dallas has continued to creep back up in 2023. As of April 17, total reports of violent crime in the city had risen 1.6% compared to March. This change was driven in part by a more than 55% spike in rape incidents, a more than 16% jump in individual robberies, and a 7.56% rise in non-family aggravated assaults, according to the City’s daily violent crime report.
Oden also expounded on the program’s early successes with community engagement. He expressed excitement that residential areas that used to distrust his department are now proactively engaging with the DICE program.
“I think that in some areas of the city, I’ll use the northwest, near Webb Chapel and Lombardi, that’s an area that traditionally doesn’t use the 311 system. There’s anecdotal fears from apartment residents that they’ll face retaliation, but by being proactive now the residents come to us and we hold the property owner accountable.”
In one instance, DICE’s community engagement helped the Dallas Police Department catch an alleged shooter who attacked one of DICE’s targeted properties.
“We got the property owner to install some new cameras, and they captured a shooting at an adjacent property, and an arrest was able to be made, and that may not have happened as quickly or even at all if the camera wasn’t installed.”
Community engagement is ultimately vital to the program’s success. Oden says that the project will not work to its full potential without community involvement.
“If there are places in the city where residents feel that high-risk activity is taking place, [they] can help us fill in the context. Residents generally know the why. We may have the data, but if you marry that up with the why you can generally make quick interventions.”