LAPD's TEAMS II: The Impact of a Police Integrity Early Intervention System, Los Angeles, California, 2000-2015 (ICPSR 36574)

Version Date: Sep 17, 2018

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Principal Investigator(s):
Marc L. Swatt, Justice & Security Strategies, Inc.; Craig D. Uchida, Justice & Security Strategies, Inc.; Shellie E. Solomon, Justice & Security Strategies, Inc.

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36574.v1

Version V1

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Summary

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This research was an evaluation of the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) Training Evaluation and Management System II (TEAMS II) Early Intervention System conducted by Justice and Security Strategies, Inc. TEAMS II was designed to identify officers at-risk for engaging in future problematic behavior. This system was mandated as part of the Consent Decree (Section II) that was formally entered into on June 15, 2001 between the U.S. Department of Justice and the LAPD. Justice and Security Strategies, Inc. research staff worked with the Information Technology Bureau to obtain and analyze TEAMS II data, conducted informal interviews with officers, sergeants, civilians, command staff, and technologists involved with TEAMS II, and worked with the TEAMS II contractors to examine and provide recommendations.

The data collection includes 3 Stata data files. The concentration analysis dataset (TEAMS-Concentration-Analysis-FINAL-v2.dta) with 143 variables for 15,710 cases, the regression-discontinuity dataset (TEAMS-Regression-Discontinuity-FINAL.dta) with 98 variables for 297,779 cases, and the time series dataset (TEAMS-Time-Series-FINAL.dta) with 43 variables for 192 cases. Demographic variables included as part of this data collection include officer age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and total number of officers employed by demographics.

Citation

Swatt, Marc L., Uchida, Craig D., and Solomon, Shellie E. LAPD’s TEAMS II: The Impact of a Police Integrity Early Intervention System, Los Angeles, California, 2000-2015. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2018-09-17. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36574.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2013-IJ-CX-0015)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

None

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reason for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2000 -- 2015

Date of Collection

2000 -- 2015 (Time Series Stata File), 2000 -- 2015 (Concentration Analysis Stata File), 2007 -- 2015 (Regression-Discontinuity Stata File)

Data Collection Notes

  1. These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

  2. For additional information on the LAPD's TEAMS II: The Impact of a Police Integrity Early Intervention System Study, please visit the Justice and Security Strategies, Inc. website.
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Study Purpose

In this evaluation of the Training Evaluation and Management System II (TEAMS II) Early Intervention System (EIS) used by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), researchers sought to answer several key questions:

  1. What has been the effect of TEAMS II on officer behavior? Did the system itself lead to reductions in uses of force, civilian complaints, lawsuits, traffic collisions, and pursuits?
  2. Does TEAMS II correctly identify "problem officers" - those who have more "critical events" than others?
  3. Is TEAMS II useful in anticipating officer behavior? Does it make use of "risk factors" or "protective factors" that contribute to predicting behavior?
  4. What are the effects of Action Items on subsequent behavior? Are Action Items effective in deterring future behavior?
  5. Are the peer groups appropriate, accurate, and reasonable? What is the basis for the peer groups? Should they be changed? Should other peer groups be added? What would be the outcomes if they are changed? What would be the basis for making changes?
  6. Are the critical events appropriate (use of force, complaints, collisions, puruits, and lawsuits)? Are these the "correct" events to use to predict problem officers?
  7. Is the time frame for the review of an officer's past acts appropriate? Should the review cover a longer period of time? What should be the time frame?

Study Design

Training Evaluation and Management System II (TEAMS II) is an Early Intervention System which was designed to identify officers at-risk for engaging in future problematic behavior. The problematic behaviors that were examined by the TEAMS II system included: use of force incidents, citizen complaints, lawsuits or claims, pursuits, and preventable collisions. In the TEAMS II system, data were "pulled" from 15 separate databases. Data included personnel information, arrests, stops, citations, use of force, complaints, lawsuits/claims, pursuits, vehicular collisions, trainings, and commendations. These data were used to create metrics for use of force, citizen complaints, claims/lawsuits, pursuits, and preventable vehicle collisions to evaluate officer actions on a continual basis against other similarly situated officers comprising their "peer group."

If officer scores exceeded a critical threshold based on the means and standard deviations of the peer group, an automated alert called an "Action Item" (AI) was generated and provided to their immediate supervisor for review. These thresholds were set to 3 standard deviations above the peer group mean from a rolling average of the prior 7 or 13 deployment periods depending on the metric. The supervisor was required to notify the employee and conduct an extensive review to determine whether the employee's actions suggested a pattern of at-risk behavior. If the supervisor found such a pattern of behavior, he or she was then required to select a disposition and discuss it with the officer. This decision was reviewed up the chain of command.

Sample

Data is not a sample.

Time Method

Longitudinal, Longitudinal: Cohort / Event-based

Universe

Population of Sworn Officers in the Los Angeles Police Department during 2000-2015

Unit(s) of Observation

Deployment Periods, Observation Months, Individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

The data obtained during the Training Evaluation and Management System II (TEAMS II) evaluation that are included as part of this collection include 3 STATA data files:

  1. The Time Series dataset includes monthly counts from 2000 to 2015 of sworn officers, use of force incidents, citizen complaints, claims/lawsuits, pursuits, collisions, action items, arrests, and citations.
  2. The Concentration Analysis dataset includes monthly counts of use of force, citizen complaints, lawsuits/claims, collisions, pursuits, and action items for each sworn officer employed between 2000 to 2015. These data also contain limited demographic and employment information.
  3. The Regression-Discontinuity dataset includes records for every officer in the "geo metro non-supervisory patrol" peer group from 2007 to March 2015. For each of these officers, records were created for every deployment period (equivalent to 4 full weeks) the officer was included in this peer group. These records contain the date of every use of force, citizen complaint, and action item for each officer during the deployment period; any officer calculated value and peer group threshold value when a critical event occurred; whether the officer was continuously employed by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) over the following 1, 4, and 13 deployment periods; and the count of use of force incidents, citizen complaints, and action items over the subsequent 1, 4, and 13 deployment periods.

Response Rates

Not Applicable

Presence of Common Scales

None

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Original Release Date

2018-09-17

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Weight

None

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Notes

  • These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.