Conflict, Crime & Violence Indicators at a Local Level: Lessons on Common Indicators from the Kingston West Crime Observatory (KWCO)

1. CONFLICT, CRIME & VIOLENCE INDICATORS AT
A LOCAL LEVEL: LESSONS ON COMMON
INDICATORS FROM THE KINGSTON WEST
CRIME OBSERVATORY (KWCO)
Presented by
Tarik Weekes
The Violence Prevention Alliance- Jamaica
Geneva, June 2013

2. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION
 Objectives
 Background on Jamaica
 Defining: The Kingston West Crime Observatory
 Focus Areas of the KWCO
 Members of the KWCO
 Systems of/for Reporting and Sharing Data
 Visualizations ( Maps)
 Challenges
 Outcomes
 Impact
 Concluding Thoughts

3. OBJECTIVES
 To raise awareness of the work of the Kingston
West Crime Observatory
 To highlight the use of indicators and data by the
Kingston West Crime Observatory to inform
violence prevention programming.

6. THE KINGSTON WEST CRIME
OBSERVATORY- JAMAICA
 Operates within one police division based in Kingston
in Jamaica. An area of high levels of homicide with
police and community commited to solving the
problem of crime
 Meets once a month with members of the Jamaica
Constabulary Force, state ministries, non-
governmental organizations and groups within the
police division interested in violence prevention,
intrested in abuilding safe communities and
achieving crime reversals.
 Collects data from the police- serious crimes and
hospitals- violence related injuries, analyses and
shares with members of the Crime Observatory
Meeting Group.

7. DATA COLLECTION, VALIDATION &
ANALYSIS

Primary Indicators
•Number of Violence Related Injuries (VRIs) include: (
relationship)where (street/home) why(fight)
•Eg flight at a geographic location, with and acquataince on a
the street
•Number of Serious Crimes: Murder, Shooting, Rape, Robbery,
Carnal Abuse.
Other Indicators
• Ballistics data/ data on firearm usage increases/reduction
• Data from the Registrar General Department (RGD) on deaths
• Increases, decreases in violent incidents within schools
• Presence vs decline of involvement of gangs

8.  Members of the Kingston West Crime
Observatory include:
 The Jamaica Constabulary Force: Community Safety
Branch, Criminal Investigative Branch
 The National Housing Trust
 Community Development Organizations working n the
division
 The Ministry of Health
 The Ministry of National Security
 The Jamaica Fire Service
 The Peace Management Initiative
 Representative from the Town Council (KSAC)
 Social Development Fund
 Jamaica Council of Churches.
 IDPs

9. SYSTEMS OF/FOR REPORTING
 Police Personnel working in the Divisional
Intelligence Units (DIU) of the police division
attend the meeting and present a data report on
serious crimes committed, happening within the
month.
 Members of the group comment on data, forecast
based on the knowledge of community
stakeholders, police local knowledge and arrive at
conclusions for follow thru activities and
interventions.
 Hotspots maps are also used to get visualization
of crimes.
 Newsletters

13. CHALLENGES
 The inability of the parish hospitals due to capacity,
technology to use VRI data and access reports.
 Little use of lesson learned from KWCO in guiding
development of National Observatory.
 The absence of a Memorandum of Understanding that
would allow data to be shared within and across
ministries, and housed within a single space or
ministry.
 Cultural factors that prevent the proper collection of
data and sharing of data at the divisional level.
 Technological constraints with storing and reporting on
data especially at the hospital and the policy level.

14. OUTCOMES
 The use of VRIs total changed the complexion of
crime management at the community and
divisional level assisting in providing risk profiles
to guide development of the police in that division
with community policing and community safety
strategies. Also a better understanding of the
interplay between homicides and VRIs.
 Increase in data on violence against women and
children from hospital data.
 Increaased buy in of community members as a
major partner in reducing crime.
 Increased training and emphasis on use of GIS
by police officers at the DIU level.

15. IMPACT
 Increased emphasis by local authorities on the
need to harmonize all data and programmes
relevant to violence prevention programming.
 The Establishing of a National Crime
Observatory in the Ministry of National Security
which presently looks at homicides per 100000 as
an indicator. Capacity for further data capture to
include VRIs for instance is being worked on.
 Working relationship with the police and VPA/
Academicsto carry out joint operational reseach
eg gang mapping

16. CRIME OBSERVATORY
NEWSLETTER
WWW.VPAJAMAICA.COM

17. WAY FORWARD
 Need to use the University / Local Academics to
run a reseach arm of the Observatory, The roles
would include data quality control, training,
monitoring and evaluation.
 Need to develop rapid output from the
Observatory to meet the needs of the end users
on the ground, police at high command, divsional
level, station level and community council level