From hours to minutes: Harnessing data for community safety

“Peregrine is a game changer. It saves us on so many levels.”

Lt. Brian Simon

Newark PD, California

Public safety agencies, like other modern organizations, want to use data and information to make better decisions. But law enforcement faces unique challenges — they’re overwhelmed with data in siloed systems, from legacy technologies like computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and record management systems (RMS) to newer technologies like automated license plate readers (ALPRs), and everything in between.

These systems are generating more information than ever before, but agencies do not have a way to bring all their data together to quickly and efficiently get answers to their questions — until Peregrine.

Our customers use Peregrine to make better decisions in every moment that matters to drive better outcomes in their communities, like reducing violent crimes or improving calls for service for quality of life issues.

And the Newark, California Police Department is leveraging the power of Peregrine to supercharge the department’s ability to apply for federal and state grants, which provide vital resources to local public safety agencies across the country.

More money, more data

The Department of Justice’s 2023 budget includes billions of dollars for law enforcement and community safety. In states like California, there are hundreds of millions of dollars in additional grant funding available.

Applying for these grants rightly requires a lot of data — facts and data help ensure the dollars are being allocated to the agencies that truly need the grant funding to make a material difference in their community.

Without a data integration platform, public safety agencies do not have a way to bring all their data together to quickly and efficiently get answers to their questions. This fundamental problem exacerbates any challenge involving data, including both fighting crime and applying for grants.

One grant that is particularly important for Newark, PD is the Office of Traffic Safety’s (OTS) STEP (Selected Traffic Enforcement Programs) grants. These grants center on “enforcement and education programs focused on deterring unsafe roadway behaviors and promoting safe roadway habits” in order to mitigate “traffic violations that increase the risk for crashes.”

Lieutenant Brian Simon of Newark PD says the STEP grants are “exceptionally important for the safety of our officers and community.” They help fund overtime for police officers and integral equipment like better lighting at DUI checkpoints to ensure the safety of officers and motorists alike.

As Lt. Simon explains, “one of the requirements to receive this significant grant is to file a quarterly report based on a detailed query received from OTS. The report requires us to categorize our traffic collision, injury and fatality reports.”

Before using Peregrine, Lt. Simon and Newark PD’s records supervisor, who compile the report, would spend hours every quarter manually collating every traffic incident and reconciling that data into clear narratives for the grant application.

From hours to minutes

Newark prides itself on being a full-service agency. “The expectation is we can do everything other departments can with 60 sworn officers. Everyone’s time is critical — saving 8 hours of my time on compiling statistics is 8 hours I can spend elsewhere, on field training or other forward-looking programs,” says Lt. Simon.

With Peregrine, the process of pulling relevant data for grant applications goes from hours to minutes. And it’s so easy that anyone in the department can do it. Simon says it best: “Peregrine frees me up to do a lot more.”

“Peregrine, and the ability to do the kind of research and data-driven work the platform supports, has been a game changer for us. Honestly, it’s so easy to work with Peregrine. We explain what we’re looking for, and the team and platform can translate that and make it happen. It’s been exceptional.”

Peregrine has built internal, proprietary tools to make it easy to securely move, ​model, and link data between disparate source systems. If your team needs to ​use or connect data in a unique way, we don’t need new code or a massive data ​migration team of engineers to spend months building pipelines from scratch.

Today, Newark PD can easily apply for funding like STEP grants to better serve and protect their community and ensure all its sworn officers are focused on the highest value activities — not paperwork.

As Lt. Simon put it, “the Peregrine platform and team are what we were looking for.”

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