The City of Albuquerque and APD have significantly invested in a variety of "data-based policing" methods, which range from intelligence sharing agreements like this one to the Real-Time Crime Center which is staffed by analysts with, for example, live access to a large network of city and privately owned surveillance cameras. Various administrations have touted these investments as a solution to the city's high crime levels, notoriously poor performance of APD (in terms of both crime reduction and compliance with a Department of Justice consent decree), and chronic understaffing of many area police organizations but especially APD.

There has, of course, been no real evidence of success. A promising change in local crime trends seems to be more a result of significant reform of the DA's office than anything APD has done. APD's main contribution to the effort has been harassing anyone who happens to be near downtown at night, including people who live and work there. That and shooting someone on occasion.

What is perhaps most surprising about these programs is how little attention they have received from the public. While APD's abuse of force and corruption problems are widely known and one of the area's foremost political issues, there is almost no discussion of APD's mass surveillance programs even among police abolition groups. It seems to reflect the general trend that mass surveillance is a much great topic of discussion in the tech community than outside of it.

All that said, my real comment is that this program seems unsurprising and of little import compared to the real-time crime center, its privacy implications, and ongoing internal problems including chronic high turnover and sudden dismissals (which tends to suggest problems that were not publicized), hiring a director with a history of internal affairs problems, etc. And then even that seems like a small matter in the context that APD has been under a department of justice consent decree resulting from a pattern of excessive force for six years now and has only just in the last few months finished making the policy changes required by DoJ, with the independent monitor reporting that compliance with those new policies is extremely poor.

I guess it's just hard to get too fired up about APD being run by major retailers when it's been clear for years that APD does not answer to the people, the city government, or the federal government. Being in the pocket of Target is downright wholesome compared to what we expect from APD.

Look on the bright side: APD has it together compared to BCSO. Sheriff Gonzales resisted implementation of body cameras for years until the state legislature took the matter into their own hands and mandated cameras for all law enforcement agencies. After a series of gaffs including Sheriff Gonzales announcing that he thought officers owning smart phones was sufficient to meet the mandate, the media has enjoyed discussing what will happen when they blow through the deadline and BCSO no longer meets statutory requirements to exercise law enforcement authority.