After a month of data collection, I started taking a deeper looking into what the information collected and displayed on the Dakota County Inmate Dashboard can tell us [If you are not familiar with the Inmate Dashboard, click through and take a peek before continuing on].
One of the first things that you may notice right away are the large number of 18 to 24 year old white males being arrested. Being that Dakota County is 89%+ White (2008 data) and the median age (2007 data) is about 34, this was not a surprise to me at all.
The second thing you will notice is the huge spike that occurs on Monday with the number of people who are arrested in Dakota County. Wondering what would cause this, I contacted the county to verify that I was interpreting the data they provide correctly (I was). I was told that the arresting officers report is where this information is gathered so there is a small possibility that data entry error or human error could be involved but those should both be minimal. Knowing this, I took the Arrest Date and the Arrest Agency for this exercise and summed the totals from there. While the chart is for all cities in Dakota County, in my explanation below I will reference only the seven Dakota County cities I generally cover:
As you can see from the information provided (which is as of last week), most of the cities that I talk about most end up putting people away in county jail most often on Monday. Common sense would say that the majority of people would be arrested on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights leaving the weekends the most popular. Well, even two local police chiefs (Apple Valley and Burnsville–they were the only two who were willing to even respond to my e-mail asking for their thoughts on the subject. Boo on Hastings and Eagan!) thought the same thing and Chief Scott Johnson from Apple Valley even had his own data–only for all arrests, not necessarily for those that end up at county jail–to back it up. He said that they do more work on the weekends than any other time. The only real problems on Mondays are vandalism and burglary. Wednesdays are big days for shoplifting and domestic disputes are saved for the weekend. Tuesdays are generally pretty calm.
So why the difference? Aside from the fact that this is a pretty small sample and the Ns are low (728 records, 725 unique) I have no idea to be honest so that’s where you come in. Why do you think that there are so many arrests on Mondays? How about other information that we can glean from this report. What do you find most interesting about it? What do you think could be reported better?
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December 15th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Why Are More Dakota County Inmates Jailed Monday? http://tinyurl.com/yedzaga
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
December 15th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I imagine there are a few common sense reasons. I know from listening to my dad’s scanner and talking with him, a lot of crime actually happens on Sunday night. The idiots are coming down from their drunken binges and then do stupid stuff. Domestics apparently spike at the end of weekends. From spending a few Sunday evenings at his place listening in, his assessment seems to be accurate…there are always some doozies on Sunday evenings.
I imagine some of it also has to do with various delays in booking. People are arrested, thrown in the holding cells, then the actual booking happens after a few hours. Maybe the jail staff is lower on the weekends?
This is all just anecdote and guesswork on my part. I’d be curious to hear more.
December 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I’m sure it’s something stupid like they don’t process on the weekend.
December 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Maybe they don’t to cavity searches on the Sabbath?
December 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Maybe it’s a case where active investigations are finished on a Friday, held over the weekend, and suspects are then arrested on Monday. Think shoplifting, etc.
No real idea, though.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Unfortunately Apple Valley (who were the most willing to talk) doesn’t keep day-by-day stats on those who are actually jailed at the county so we really don’t know about them but according to the chief that’s really not an issue for them.
Burnsville’s chief e-mailed me back but didn’t go into great detail other than to say he was surprised. Wish the other cities had been more forthcoming with information.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Why Are More Dakota County Inmates Jailed Monday? | Bill Roehl http://bit.ly/78NJaU
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
December 15th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Maybe warrants are obtained and served on Mondays for various things happening over the weekend.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Well, I kind of have a running joke about if anything bad happens to me I hope it will be Sunday night or Monday morning so I don’t have to go to work. So maybe people get pissed off and bad stuff happens before the alarm goes off on Monday morning?
I think it is probably more along the lines of what the others mentioned – they don’t process people over the weekend. If you’re picked up on Saturday night for drunk driving I don’t think you do anything other than sit in a holding cell until Monday morning when they decide what to charge you with. Although I could be completely mistaken, I am blissfully unaware of how such matters are handled. I prefer shower gel to “Soap on a Rope.”
December 16th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Based on what Bill said, I can only guess that the “arrest date” on the report is not being used as the actual date of arrest all the time. Though that might be a non-LEO perspective issue. i.e. I would consider the arrest date the date that you are placed into confined custody. But my guess is that isn’t how it actually works.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:32 am
[...] problem during economic downturn but fuck it’s getting bad. What the hell is going on? Maybe Apple Valley should start arresting and putting more people behind bars in Hastings on more days of … [...]