The ideation of Sanctuary
When I was 19, I worked at a nonprofit Latino organization as a tutor for kids from 3rd to 8th grade. Apart from helping the kids with their homework, we would go to the nearby park so they could play once they were finished with said homework. On the southwest side of Chicago, gangs are active and visible. The children knew this very well and would talk about it in good and bad ways. Unfortunately, one day, as I was playing basketball with the kids and tutors, I hear a bottle break on one of our student’s faces. We ran to our student and the other tutors towards the perpetrator to no avail. We never found out who did it, the victim never reported the crime, and no one was ever charged.
Problem & Goal
Oftentimes, people who are victims of a crime fear retaliation, police would not or could not help, or they thought the crime was not important enough to report. According to my research, there is a disparity between the crimes reported and crimes that actually happen. My application, Sanctuary seeks to solve that problem by letting users report crime anonymously or by giving their contact info and creating a “master list” of victim aid resources.
Research & Data
2016 Statistics from the Bureau of Justice and the FBI
*About half (51%) of serious violent crimes, including rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault, were reported to police.
*42% of all violent crimes and 36% of property crimes were reported to police.
*Rape and sexual assault crimes were only reported 22.9% of the time, and throughout domestic violence 49.1% was reported
intimate partner violence was reported 46.9% of the time and stranger violence was reported 44.7%.
*People of color are affected most by crime.
*72 victimizations per 1,000 African-Americans, 50 victimizations per 1,000 Latinos, and 46 victimizations per 1,000 Whites.
Additionally, I realized that victim aid resources are not easily found on the internet or within local law enforcement. There are websites that deal with specific categories of crime for victims but there are few that have a centralized database for resources.
*42% of all violent crimes and 36% of property crimes were reported to police.
*Rape and sexual assault crimes were only reported 22.9% of the time, and throughout domestic violence 49.1% was reported
intimate partner violence was reported 46.9% of the time and stranger violence was reported 44.7%.
*People of color are affected most by crime.
*72 victimizations per 1,000 African-Americans, 50 victimizations per 1,000 Latinos, and 46 victimizations per 1,000 Whites.
Additionally, I realized that victim aid resources are not easily found on the internet or within local law enforcement. There are websites that deal with specific categories of crime for victims but there are few that have a centralized database for resources.
Stakeholder Interview Takeaways
*Unanimous agreement between the disparity of crimes reported versus what’s actually reported.
*#1 reiterated reason, why victims do not report a crime is because of fear of retribution.
*Unanimous agreement that there should be a centralized database for all authorities.
*Stakeholders UI would be entirely different from the reporter's UI.
User interview takeaways
*Interviewees only know how to report a crime through 911.
*The severity of the crime dictates whether or not they would report said crime.
*When asked if there would be any reason why they wouldn’t report a crime, they said the following: fear of retaliation, going through an entire process of legalities, fear for their life if they were afflicted or if the victim was afflicted, and most notably, getting lost in the legal system.
*People of color do not trust the legal system as much as white people.
Comparative analysis
The Chicago Police Department is the most accessible comparative analysis as there are a few other agencies that have an online reporting system. For obvious reasons, there was a certain point that I had to abandon filling out the form for reporting a crime. However, upon landing on the crime reporting page, you are bombarded with a heavy text and spreadsheet design that categorizes crime followed by definitions and examples of those crimes. While this certainly makes sense, the Chicago Police officer I interviewed understood that there are people reporting crime online, but back out of the site almost immediately arriving at the page. This communicates a clear disconnect in the design and overall approach to the UI. Additionally, the CPD crime reporting site only had non-serious crimes to report. The reason for this was explained to me by the Chicago Police officer I interviewed to be because they would like any serious crimes to be reported in a more traditional sense, (i.e calling 911 or walking into a police station). However, as I have stated various times above, there is a clear disconnect between victims and the judicial system's way of reporting crime.
A feature I found to be puzzling was the countdown timer on the bottom right corner of the screen which is followed by a red circle, (which I would assume turns green once the user has successfully completed the report). I would imagine that this would be a negative user experience as they would feel like they need to rush filling out the report which could result in inaccurate or not specific enough reporting.
Comparative analysis of different crime reporting applications.
Wireframes
When I first started this project, it started as a voice user interface. I then created two chat flow iterations. For this iteration, I prototyped this through Sayspring which is now owned by Adobe. I ultimately decided that a voice user interface wouldn’t be as accessible considering not that many people have access to things like Amazon Echo, Google Home, or devices of that nature. According to TechCrunch, 16% of Americans own a smart speaker. I then moved towards a form approach and prototyped this through Typeform. Considering 78% of Americans own a laptop or desktop, I feel like this approach is one of the most accessible options. Considering that I was constrained to Typeform’s design, I decided a mobile app approach would be just as good in regards to accessibility and can also exemplify my design skills.
Hi-Fi Screens
What's Next?
The next steps for this project will be to work closely with law enforcement to secure any and all legal issues. One of the most glaring legal issues is the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. In this clause, it says, “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him." This would bring a fundamental feature of my application to a halt. While you can report a crime anonymously, if the reporting ever went to court, the victim who has accused the perpetrator of the crime, must be present. Additionally, going through the reporting process with law enforcement to see if the questions in my app are enough for them to work with.
I would also like to improve and add multiple features to the app. The first would be to add an image upload and social media links when describing the perpetrator, and conversely, the victim. Having other forms of identification like this would only aid law enforcement. The second would be to include an email confirmation. At the end of a user’s reporting, having the option to send a copy of their report to their email and perhaps others, would benefit the user. Lastly, I would like to for this application to be on a desktop format as well with additional features. One of those features would be to respond to tips or ongoing criminal investigations that a user may be able to help with. Another would be to include a way to contact 911 via text or chat and this could obviously work with mobile as well. Having multiple ways to contact 911, especially in a discreet manner, could be the difference between life and death.