Dr. Shea Cronin, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Boston University Metropolitan College (MET), was recently quoted in a Harvard Gazette article, “HUPD releases updates to dashboard reporting department data, indicators.”
An expert in the areas of crime policy and administration who also chairs BU MET’s Department of Applied Social Sciences and oversees the College’s criminal justice programs, Dr. Cronin was asked to comment on the recently deployed Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) dashboard, a website launched in 2021 to document departmental statistics in the name of transparency and accountability within the Harvard community and beyond. HUPD released the latest updates to the dashboard in early June.
According to Cronin, publicly accessible data is invaluable when it comes to measuring the success of public safety agencies such as the HUPD. “It helps anybody who is concerned about issues on campus to advocate for whatever changes they see fit,” he says in the article, going on to observe that the dashboard benefits from including clear terminology and definitions. “It uses language that just about anybody would understand, in terms of what an arrest is, what a criminal complaint is.”
Read the Article in the Harvard Gazette.