COMPASS & Kerlikowske, Obama's Drug Czar

Woke up today feeling a lot better and was suprised to find 8 comments waiting to be moderated. That was awesome and makes me feel pretty good. Had a dream that Obama announced it on TV that, "We are now a communitarian nation." Dream on, huh?

This whole Kerlikowske appointment is still worth looking into. He's now in a position to take the global community policing program to new heights, and we know Obama already promised 80,000 more community police to America. He will be leading a vamped up drug war on the Mexican border which is so screwed up all his "innovative" ideas will be welcomed by the locals. Leaving the border towns defenseless against the criminals was the "thesis." American militias were the "anti-thesis," and Kerlikowske is the communitarian "synthesis." Works like a charm.

Starting an article, I decided this is too important now to not put something out there. Here's a few places I found to get me motivated:

Here's an article in the Seattle Times that has Kerlikoske opposing the datagathering by police at random stops that I testified at the public hearing about. In February 2001, this proposal appeared to be Kerlikowske's idea. Look at how he eventually opposed it:

• "The ramifications are immense and doing this without a plan in place is very dangerous."
— Opposing a proposal to have police officers to fill out forms every time they pull a motorist over, intended to identify incidents of racial profiling. The lack of a system to analyze the data, Kerlikowske maintained, would make it is easy to manipulate it to be used against police. Seattle Times, June 15, 2002

Without a plan? Lack of a system?

Here's what Time has to say about Kerlikowske's tenure at COPS:

• Took a job as a community-policing administrator in 1998 under President Clinton in the Justice Department. He reportedly has a relationship with Eric Holder, the current Attorney General.

Not one word about COMPASS in this Times' article. News you can count on, eh?

Here's a left wing Seattle site that follows right wing talk radio telling us the right wing is gonna have a hey day with Kerlikowske. Nothing about COMPASS here either:

http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2009/02/chief-kerlikowske-to-become-right-wing-talk-media-target.html

A keyword search for "Kerlikowske COMPASS" brings up nothing about the DoJ program. So I went to my ACL COMPASS page and took thei first link I have to COMPASS at NIJ. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/. Nothing about COMPASS there. But a keyword search off that page goes to 54 documents about COMPASS, the first being a pdf Solicitation for a Seattle COMPASS Research Partner in January 2000. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/fy00-compass-seattle.pdf:

Page 1
Solicitation for a Research Partner for the Seattle COMPASS (Community Mapping, Analysis, and Planning for Safety Strategies) Initiative
Due Date: January 7, 2000
Funding Amount: $275,000 for two years

In recent years we have observed a shift in local juvenile and criminal justice policy development toward a more collaborative, strategic approach that relies on analyzing the nature of public safety problems to develop strategic interventions to reduce them. This approach is supported by timely, accurate, multi-disciplinary, automated data with a geographic reference. Jurisdictions that have developed such data systems, analytic capacity, and collaborative partnerships have experienced great success in reducing crime and addressing public safety problems. In the interest of promoting this approach for the development of juvenile and criminal
justice policy and practice, the National Institute of Justice, in partnership with the Office of Justice Programs, has launched a new initiative called COMPASS. COMPASS has four components: (1) a collaborative policy group spanning a broad array of city agencies and community interests; (2) a comprehensive data infrastructure that will house a broad set of data collected from a variety of sources (crime incident, public safety, demographic, social and environmental data); (3) strategic analysis of data both spatially and temporally through the use of a user-friendly information system; (4) a research partner (or consortium of partners) to assist in the analysis of data, the development of interventions, and to provide on-going feedback on the outcomes and impacts of interventions.

Building a Collaborative Effort
The COMPASS initiative will be managed by a local team housed in the Seattle Mayor's office. This team will be responsible for convening six existing groups of policy makers that will serve as the Interagency Leadership Committee and also convening an Interagency Technical Team who will serve as primary developers of the data warehouse that will be assembled during the first year of the initiative. This group includes the following representatives: mayor, chief of police, prosecuting attorney, US attorney, Administrative Judge of the Criminal Court, representatives of Juvenile and Adult Corrections, Pretrial Services Agency, Probation, and Parole, Defense Bar, Social Service Agencies, School Officials, local research partner(s), COMPASS staff, and National Institute of Justice (NIJ) staff.

The Interagency Leadership Committee will be the primary users of the data center. In concert with the local research partner, this committee will analyze the data to identify public safety problems and develop hypotheses about their causes. This analysis will then guide the development of strategies to address local public safety problems. This committee, with the assistance of their research partner, will then monitor the

Page 2
implementation of initiatives, and routinely observe various indicators to determine the impact of the intervention on public safety problems.

Development of a Data Center
One of the core elements of the COMPASS initiative is the creation of a data
infrastructure which contains information from a variety of sources. These data will
include extant social indicator data (e.g., employment statistics; housing information; land use data; school data; hospital records; asset mapping) and a host of safety information (e.g., incident-based crime data; arrest statistics; calls for service; court and corrections data; victimization surveys; and fear of crime data). Additional information on community risk and protective factors will be developed through special surveys administered at the local level. The exact structure of the data infrastructure will be determined by the local COMPASS team. Several models are possible. The data infrastructure may be developed to enable each participating agency to access the shared data from the system via a secure intranet (or internet) environment. It could also be structured so that the research partners acts as a liaison between the system and its users, providing analysis of data to the partner agencies. Other models will also be considered by the data contractor and the local COMPASS team.

Strategic Analysis of Data
The analytic strength of COMPASS lies in the wealth of data and the ability to analyze relationships among key indicators. One analytic tool with which this is done is GIS (Geographic Information Systems), which can be used to analyze and visualize the incidence of crime and other factors spatially. GIS can also be used to develop and test models of hypothesized relationships among factors. For example, are youth shoplifting after school? Are the assaults concentrated around bars at night or around schools at the time of students' dismissal? Are drug dealers selling in front of a poorly lighted public housing project? Examination of these types of relationships will permit development of data-driven problem-solving strategies that can be implemented in a targeted fashion. GIS can also be used to assess the impact of interventions over time as well as investigation unanticipated outcomes (e.g., identifying crime displacement).

Research and Evaluation Support
As indicated above, the research partner (or consortium of partners) represents a key participant in the COMPASS initiative. As such, we envision several different functions for the local researcher partner(s) including (1) assisting in the strategic development of the local data infrastructure; (2) analyzing data to identify public safety problems; (3) informing the development of interventions to address crime problems with relevant research on ‘what works', best practices, and promising approaches; (4)documenting the process of the Seattle COMPASS initiative; and, (5) providing on-going feedback on the impact of interventions.

Page 3
1) Provide input to the strategic development of local data infrastructure. A separate data contractor will be responsible for the technical development of the data warehouse including such items as: (1) assessing data/information needs; (2) conducting a data resources survey; (3)creating a database design; and, (4) ensuring security. The role of the research partner(s) is to provide input to ensure that data sources fulfill the ultimate purpose of COMPASS (using diverse data to identify and understand complex public safety problems and to develop collaborative interventions that address these problems). Therefore, it will be critical for the research partner(s) to ensure that the data structure support cross-disciplinary problem identification, interventions, and outcome analysis. Further, the research partner(s) will be responsible for working with the data contractor to ensure that the resulting data infrastructure is created in such a way to allow for the
development of solutions to complex methodological problems such as: combining data sources, creating a common unit of analysis, defining temporal ordering, and developing comparison groups. The research partner will be responsible for working with the data contractor to develop a data base that combines information from a variety of sources into a single analytic structure capable of being manipulated by standard analytic techniques (e.g., SPSS, SAS, Archview).

In addition, while most of the data that will be used to develop the COMPASS data
infrastructure will come from participating agencies and existing databases, we do expect the research partner(s) to identify and develop new data for the system possibly including community surveys on local victimization, neighborhood fear levels, community risk and protective factors, community satisfaction, community attitudes, formal and informal interviews with local criminal justice actors, etc. The research partner(s) will be responsible for identifying these critical missing data sources and developing and administering local surveys to collect such data.

2) Provide analytic support to COMPASS problem-solving efforts. Once the database
is developed, the COMPASS team will have the capacity to analyze relationships among key indicators. The research partner(s) is expected to lead this analysis to enable the collaborating agencies to identify key public safety problems affecting the city and understand potential causal factors. In addition, the research partner(s) should assess the impact of the problem on the community, the community interest and degree of support for the inquiry, the concreteness of the problem statement, and the potential for success in recommending priorities for the city.

3) Assist in the development of research-based strategies to address public safety
problems. Once the problem has been precisely defined and analyzed, the COMPASS
team will begin designing intervention strategies. The role for the research partner in this effort is to assist collaborating agencies develop interventions that target identified crime problems. The research partner will be responsible for the collection of information regarding various strategies that have been successful elsewhere. These will include crime control strategies, methods for controlling disorder and targeting deterrence, and various initiatives and programs seen to be effective (those discussed, for example, in the Maryland "What Works" report – Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's

Page 4
Promising and the "BLUEPRINTS" project in Colorado – Blueprints for Violence
Prevention series. The knowledge gained from this review should be used to develop
research-based interventions and strategies to address targeted public safety problems.

4) Documenting the process. Another role of the research partner(s) is to document the on-going implementation of COMPASS in Seattle. This should include such items as: (1) information on the nature of COMPASS team working relationships; (2) variables which contribute and/or detract from sound cooperative and successful relationships; (3) factors which ensure adequate and appropriate data availability, access, and analysis; (4) types of strategies that are effective in addressing crime problems; (5) the influence of external factors on the activity of the team; and, (6) factors that influence the team's ability to implement designated strategies. The research partner(s) should include in their proposal a plan for documenting this process.

5) Provide on-going feedback to the COMPASS team on the impact of selected
interventions. Once the intervention has been implemented, it is the role of the
COMPASS team and the research partner(s) in particular to observe the intervention and related data carefully, monitor changes in key indicators, and recommend adjustments to improve the success of the intervention. This feedback loop is to be on-going. Using this "on-going feedback model", the COMPASS team can make strategic adjustments to the intervention strategy to ensure that the selected interventions adhere to a specific model as closely as possible. The research partner(s) should be comfortable relaying assessment information to the COMPASS team on a continuous basis and should continue to assist the COMPASS team partners to refine interventions until intended results are achieved. It is also important that the research partner(s) consider possible additional measures of success. These measures could include a host of other factors such as community satisfaction with the system, assessment of satisfaction levels of participating personnel, etc.

Qualifications of Research Team/Consortium:
A qualified research partner(s) will have the following: 1) a Ph.D. in criminal justice, sociology, public policy, or a related discipline or equivalent in work experience; 2) evidence of understanding, ability, or experience in the areas of: data infrastructure development and analysis; local survey development and administration; development of collaborative, problem-solving approaches; action research models; and program evaluation and assessment; and 3) demonstrated understanding/experience working with jurisdictions (including city officials, criminal justice practitioners, and community members) in a collaborative, problem-solving relationship. Considering the variety of skills needed, researchers are encouraged to partner with others as necessary to fulfill requirements of COMPASS model.

Submission Information:
•
Submit of letter of intent to NIJ by December 17, 1999.
Page 5
•
Concept papers should be no more than twenty pages, and should include a statement demonstrating an understanding of the COMPASS model and the role of the research partner in its development, a statement describing past experience with similar initiatives, a time and task plan for implementing the five core research roles described above, and a statement of organizational qualifications.

Concept papers should be submitted by January 7, 2000.
Send letters and concept paper to:
COMPASS Initiative
National Institute of Justice
810 7th St. NW
Washington, DC, 20531 (Fed Ex zip is 20001)
•
If you have issues for which you would like clarification as you are writing your
concept paper, you may contact Laura Winterfield (202-616-3482; email
HUwinterfi@ojp.usdoj.govUH) or Erin Dalton (202-514-5752; email
HUdaltona@ojp.usdoj.govUH).
Selection Criteria:
•
Responsiveness of proposal to COMPASS model.
•
Quality (e.g., comprehensiveness and clarity) of proposal.
•
History of successful coordinated efforts with local practitioners and policy
makers.
•
Qualifications of key staff.
•
Demonstrated ability to manage proposed initiative.
•
Soundness of plans for implementation.
Review Process:
•
Review at NIJ internally by at least three readers.
•
Review by Seattle COMPASS team by at least three readers.
•
Joint interviews (NIJ staff and Seattle COMPASS team staff) with
candidates deemed highly competitive by the review process.
•
Make funding decisions by February 11, 2000

I attended several meetings associated with the datagathering in 1999. In 2001 Jeri Dawson (of Dawson v. Seattle) and I attended a COMPASS Interagency Leadership Council meeting. I had been trying to get access to my COMPASS R&B file since August 1999. I filed numerous FOIAs with Seattle agencies, had pounded the Mayors' office, the Strategic Planning Office, the Seattle Police Dept and the Department of Neighborhoods, all to no avail until they finally started responding with claims that the R&B files never existed. The #1 item on the COMPASS meeting agenda the day I showed up was "How to answer a public disclosure request."

Here's a NIJ 1998 speech explaining the proposed COMPASS program:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/speeches/asc.htm

An NIJ site search for "COMPASS Kerlikowske" comes back "0 results."

Is it possible that I am the only anti-NWO researcher who knows Kerlikowske helped create COMPASS, or what COMPASS is, or HOW COMPASS ties to UN LA21 sustainable community development plans?

Here's a snippet from Travis's farewell speech in 1998:

So, I pay special thanks to our many partners who were willing to take risks with research, and special tribute to Janet Reno for insisting that research inform policy. At the beginning, these were not natural conversations and our perspective was not always welcome. After nearly six years of working together, however, we can honestly say that we have created an insatiable demand for research. The idea that major programs should be evaluated, that demonstration projects should have research partners and should test research hypotheses, that enforcement initiatives should be held accountable for their impact, and that even the work of the furthest removed detective interviewing an eyewitness to a crime should do his or her job in a way that reflects the best social science research -- these are no longer foreign ideas. We have come so far.

Now is not the time to be complacent. We have so much work to do to make our communities safe and just. We are just beginning to see the contribution that research can make to achieving this vision. Just imagine that every community in America is a COMPASS site, and that every community has the data at its fingertips to track levels of crime, fear, neighborhood well-being and perceptions of justice in real time to support and guide real time interventions. Imagine that this community's health, education and social service agencies implement programs of known effectiveness that prevent crime. Imagine that this community can identify the abused and neglected child at first occurrence and surrounds that child with protection through to adulthood. Imagine that every young person who engages in delinquent behavior is taken aside and given assistance in navigating his way toward responsible citizenship. Imagine that every violation of the law becomes an opportunity to help victims rebuild their lives, offenders repay their debts, and communities strengthen their social bonds. Imagine that every person who works for an agency of justice has the technological tools and the proper training to bring both science and wisdom to their work.

Impossible, we might think.

In August 2001 a JIN newsletter described how Seattles COMPASS was to be a national model. Here' an Abstract of how that went down.

In September 2007 Seattle police began installing video surveillance cameras around the city, SPD Chief Kerlikowski explained why:

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said he has seen camera-surveillance programs work in Chicago and London and believes they're something every police department should consider.

"It is certainly of great interest, particularly downtown," Kerlikowske said. "It would be foolish of a police department not to explore it."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003873006_cameras07m.html

So COMPASS is buried but it's definitely still findable online with a little searching. What's kind of amazing is there's nothing online tying COMPASS to its originator. My FOIA response from DOJ where I finally got a copy of the Seattle COMPASS grant application (Seattle COMPASS said they didn't have aything like that!) is where I first saw Kerlikowske's name.

This was also when the WA State Dept of Motor Vehicles switched to bar codes and digital facial recognition technology, the DMV also refused to respond to any of my PDA's regarding the data layers included in the expanded DMV COMPASS database.

Wonder if Gil thinks the UK's new flying restrictions is good "preventative" policing.

"Sources said Kerlikowske established ties in Washington, D.C., and has strong relationships with Biden and U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton years." http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008840620_webdrugczar11m.html

I bet he also has strong ties with Dr. Amitai Etzioni, Clinton's advisor on Community Policing.

Current Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr shared an office space with Dawson attorney Margaret Boyle when I first met her. She supported Carr for the top slot so I did some research on him back in 2002. With his background in Urban Planning, Tom's most definitely a communitarian.

Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr called Kerlikowske's appointment "a loss for Seattle but a great gain for the country."

"Having had the privilege of serving with him the last seven years, I believe that he will bring his experience, education, judgment and common sense to the seemingly intractable drug problem in our country," Carr said.

Why didn't Carr mention Gil's greatest achievement in his career? Why doesn't anyone?