“This project is a powerful example of how collaborative, applied research can directly inform and improve public safety,” Buker said. “Working alongside the Pensacola Police Department and involving our students in every step gave us the opportunity to develop a practical, data-driven solution while providing students with valuable hands-on experience in real-world criminal justice challenges.”
The article, titled “Optimizing police patrol beats: A practical framework for enhanced efficiency in determining the patrol beat borders using the ‘need for patrol presence score,’” was published in The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, a peer-reviewed journal that provides a platform in which theory, research and practice come together to advance knowledge in different areas and diverse aspects of policing. Former UWF students Ihsan Buker, who was in the data science master’s program, and Jasmine Oswalt, who graduated with a double major in criminology, criminal justice and legal studies and English, were co-authors on the article.
“Working with Dr. Buker on this project has been a great pleasure,” Ihsan Buker said. “I found the computational aspects of the project especially engaging, and I appreciated the opportunity to accompany Dr. Buker during his presentations to the focus group at the Pensacola Police Department. Observing Dr. Buker engage with practitioners and gather their insights was incredibly valuable to me, as it modeled good collaborative practices and community engagement. Beyond this, I was able to see firsthand how receiving direct feedback during those sessions helped us refine the scoring system and adjust the clustering algorithm to better reflect the needs of our community partners. As a Ph.D. student in biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I look forward to applying the skills I gained while working with Dr. Buker.”
For more information UWF’s Department of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, visit uwf.edu/ccjls.