The sheer amount of people on the street, the high visibility, and the transit lines create a “situation where a lot is happening, and a lot of people are not afraid to pick up and call 911, or punch a report in [the app],” stated Jim Dudley, a retired SFPD captain with 32 years of service and professor of Crimenology at SFSU.
Most of the time, these crimes are petty, ranging from small theft, car break-ins, and other nonviolent crimes. Because of this, the streets, as busy as they are full of commuters from one end to another, also pack a heavy stream of emergency vehicles howling and weaving through the commotion. How can a concerned citizen find out what’s on the other end of that? What about an angry commuter wondering what’s holding up traffic? There’s an app for that.
The policing app Citizen, formerly known as Vigilante, is designed to create experiences for citizens with regard to crime in their areas. Their design is intended to play out in scenarios similar to the following:
Imagine sitting at home, alone, on a Monday night – working on the computer with a phone just out of reach. Suddenly, just barely visible in the periphery, the phone lights up with a new notification. A big, red, and bold notification has come onto the home screen. The text is from Citizen, a popular crime reporting app, and it reads “Reports of Shots Fired”, alerting its viewer that this alert is coming from less than 500 feet away. Before making it to the front door to check out the scene, the howling of sirens are heard off into the distance. Moments later, a patrol car comes flying by the door. Opening the app on the phone phone, Citizen asks, “Would you like to go live?”. Close enough to the scene, pressing record, the video is broadcast live and in real time action to hundreds of concerned citizens tuning in for the latest scoop. [4]
“Our mission is to keep people safe and informed,” the company’s mission statement, is emphasized in bold throughout its website and on the app itself. But is its mission statement being emphasized in application? That’s where the makers of the app and the police responding to the calls have a difference of opinion, at least for now. While Dudley has his reservations, refering to it as “vigilante citizen-policing,” Citizen sees itself as a tool for public safety, and a conduit to build relationships between police and informed citizens by increasing transparency. [1]
Dudley expressed the potential problematic nature of running into issues with the app not only distorting policing, but muting or amplifying the image of the crime presence within certain neighborhoods, “It can create a false sense of security for some people, or it might make some people paranoid,” Dudley said. [2]
“It doesn’t give you an accurate picture of reporting in the area, because it doesn’t really take 911 calls. Instead, it takes in calls from the app. So there’s a filter on top of a filter already,” Dudley expanded. The app is designed so that 911 calls are screened by a group of employees, who further filter which calls are reported to Citizen and appear on your phone. “The idea that the Citizen app can kind of pick and choose what they populate the website with is artificial,” he said. [2]
While Dudley has his reservations, others in service welcome apps like Citizen in an effort to incease safety and transparency. As opposed to Dudley, Captain Carl Fabbri of the Tenderloin police department is optimistic about its potential. Fabbri believes Citizen provides a good alternative to San Francisco government orchestrated sites that cultivate crime statistics, for tourists and those wishing to move to a new neighborhood within the city. [5]
Compared to sites such as Crime Mapping, or after reviewing CompStat reports that are released once a month, Citizen is instantaneous, and can provide real time information about crime happening in the selected area. Crime Mapping, however, is current with crime, as well as keeping postings of crime active on its site for days at a time, whereas Citizen’s stories expire after 24 hours unless they’re “trending” with a lot of viewers and reactions on the app. CompStats are collective crime statistics that don’t provide details about specific crimes, but can provide a trajectory or trend.
While Crime Mapping has an app as well in order to appeal to those desiring instantaneous updates on crime, Citizen is significantly more popular with consumers and receives a higher rating on the app store compared to Crime Mapping, 4.7 and 2.4 stars, respectively. [8]
Market Street, between 4th and Valencia, can be seen on Citizen littered with markers reporting crimes, consistently active at all hours of the day and night. The Tenderloin Police Department tasked with policing this area of Market Street find it difficult to deal with the recent influx in the number of property crimes, which skyrocketed 20 percent in the number of reported incidents when compared to last years’ CompStat report for the month of January. [3]
This area of Market Street is incredibly popular for transients, as well as homeless residents of the city, because of its proximity to many of the outreach services that the city offers, many of which aren’t available in other neighborhoods. The service draws these people in, which makes the crime influx unavoidable and a constant plague of the Tenderloin district. According to Dudley, “one third of criminal arrests were made in this little 36 block triangle that is the Tenderloin.” [2]
Dudley believes that, while many of these crimes are visible to users through the app, that rather than aiding the police in producing an effective policing strategy, the reporting of these property crimes on Citizen and others like it, is actually preventing the police from being able to do their job. “The police do not monitor social media. Instead [of reporting to police], they tell their neighbor, or they report it to an app, where they think their obligation is done,” stated Dudley, referencing other neighborhood apps like NextDoor. [2]
“If you look at Citizen, you could use Citizen as a vigilante police scanner. If you live in OMI [Oceanview, Merced, Ingleside], and you say ‘Oceanview Park, I’m cleaning it up. Anytime there’s a report, I’m going there. I’ve got my buddies, I’ve got my bats, I’m going to handle it.’ And that can be a real problem,” Dudley continued. [2]
Throughout his career in San Francisco, Captain Fabbri hasn’t come into contact with the vigilantism citizen-policing that Dudley warns of, and isn’t concerned that an app like Citizen would increase the potential threat of such. For the most part, he feels the SFPD and his department have a positive relationship with technology, as long as it is proving to increase safety and efficiency. [5]
While property crimes saw a 21 percent decrease across the board in the Tenderloin between January and February of this year, it’s impossible to say whether or not Citizens presence influenced this drop at all. [6] Since its introduction to the San Francisco Bay Area in October 2017, Citizen is still too new to measure any kind of success. The issue that comes with measuring success is that officials still aren’t sure how to measure it, or even what that looks like with an app.
Dudley’s personal motto “arm yourself with knowledge” lends him to heed some recognizance to the potential that an app like Citizen has, with some major adjustments. “I think to a degree it’s helpful if you were to tell people of crime trends and patterns in an area. We’re at this saturation point where we’re seeing so much on our phones, we’re bombarded with information everyday.” [2]
Similarly, Fabbri conceded that while Citizen has incredible potential, there is some significant room for refining. With a generation that has so enthusiastically embraced technology in almost every aspect of their life, Fabbri sees crime reporting apps like Citizen as a way to bridge the generation gap, and to get more people actively involved in their communities and their own safety that might have been weary to use more traditional methods like dialing into their local station. [5]
Conversely, Dudley believes that the curse of information overload and our overall societal relationship with technology can be likened to the car alarm phenomenon. “It’s like the old car alarms. Anytime a car alarm went off in the first couple of years, people ran to windows to see if it was their car. And now, if you and I are sitting here talking, and a car alarm goes off, who cares?” Dudley asks. [2]
“I think with these social media sites, it’s going to be awhile before regulations catch up with them. I just hope nothing happens in the meantime,” Dudley cautioned. [2]
Citizen did not return calls for comment.
[1] Citizen Website, http://www.citizen.com/mission/
[2] Interview with Jim Dudley (refer to audio file)
[3]Compstat Report , January 2018 (http://sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/Documents/PoliceDocuments/CompStat/SFPD-CompStat-January-2018-Final.pdf )
[4] Refers to Citizen app
[5] Interview with Carl Fabbri (refer to notes)
[6] Compstat Report, February 2018 (http://sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/Documents/PoliceDocuments/CompStat/Feb%202018%20COMPSTAT.pdf)
[7] CrimeMapping (https://www.crimemapping.com/map/location/Market%20St,%20San%20Francisco,%20CA,%2094102,%20USA?id=dHA9MCNsb2M9NTUyNTMzMSNsbmc9MzQjbGJzPTEwOTo0MDE2NzE5Nzs5OjI1Mzk1NzQ1)
[8] Refer to Apple Store, Crime Mapping (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crimemapping/id452856454?mt=8), Citizen (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/citizen-safety-awareness/id1039889567?mt=8)
