The Metro Nashville Police Department has launched a data dashboard to share information about crime and policing.
Police Chief John Drake says the goal is to increase transparency and inform the community.
“These first-ever MNPD data dashboards enhance the police department’s transparency and present timely information in an easy-to-understand format that can be accessed on a desktop computer, a tablet or a smartphone on the go,” he said in a statement.
The new public website includes graphs and maps that show where crime occurs, as well as how different groups are affected. It also outlines the demographic breakdown of the department, by race and gender.
The datasets reflect national trends in racial disparities.
As is the case in many cities, the charts show Black people are overrepresented as both victims and suspects of crime. While they comprise about 28% of the city’s population, they made up 64% of suspects and 37% of victims in this year, according to the data portal.
Black Nashvillians are also more likely to be subjected to police use-of-force. They accounted for 60% of use of force incidents in the last half decade. Vehicle stops data show they were more likely to be pulled over, as well — a pattern highlighted in both the Driving While Black and Policing Project reports.
More: Nashville Police Report Major Drop In Traffic Stops Following Accusations Of Racial Bias
But Black people are still largely underrepresented within the ranks of the department.
More than 80% of Nashville police officers are white, compared to just over 60% of the city. The gap is even larger among the upper ranks. Only 10% of sergeants, 4.7% of lieutenants and 16.7% of positions captains and above are Black.
Women are also lacking within the department, particularly in top-level positions. They hold just 6.7% of sergeant spots, 1.6% of lieutenant ranks, and 11.1% of positions captain and above.
Chief Drake has pledged to diversify the department and has promoted several women and people of color since taking the helm last year. But the data portal shows that 79.6% of recruits in the academy this year were white and 80.6% were male.
You can click through the entire police data dashboard on your own at https://www.nashville.gov/departments/police/data-dashboard.
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