911 calls for service and community context: associations between community safety needs and neighborhood environment

Calls for service (CFS) to 911 are one way to assess both community safety and public health needs. While an abundance of literature demonstrates that conditions within the neighborhood environment may contribute to violent- and property-related CFS, limited research is available on the association between neighborhood environment and non-crime related CFS, which constitute the majority of 911 calls and present avoidable risks due to police intervention. Furthermore, many studies fail to distinguish between police-initiated and public-initiated CFS, despite public-initiated calls theoretically representing a recognized need from residents rather than what is observed by policing alone. The current study therefore seeks to improve our understanding of how community needs align with neighborhood resource allocation by examining spatiotemporal associations between non-violent, public-initiated CFS and neighborhood characteristics in Durham, North Carolina.

Using publicly-available data from the Durham Open Portal, we analyzed approximately 640,000 public-initiated CFS data aggregated to the census block group between 2015 and 2021. Non-violent, public-initiated CFS were aggregated into the following groups: alarm, disturbance, sound of gunshots, medical assistance, mental health, lost and found persons, noise complaint, other (panhandling, prostitution, gambling), property, public assistance, substance use, and suspicious activity/behavior. Census block group level evictions from 2015-2021 and poverty and unemployment from 2015-2019 were assessed as neighborhood characteristics. We assessed correlations between call groups and neighborhood characteristics. Neighborhood eviction density, poverty rate, and unemployment rate were examined cross-sectionally in relation to public-initiated CFS, adjusting for education, race, sex, and age.

Public-initiated CFS were moderately to strongly correlated with evictions and poverty rate. Similarly, non-violent, public-initiated CFS exhibited significantly positive associations with levels of evictions and poverty. Unemployment rate, however, was not associated with non-violent, public-initiated CFS.

This work provides important insights into the neighborhood conditions associated with a greater demand for public safety resources via 911 call centers. More research is needed, qualitative and quantitative, to understand public safety funding that best aligns with community needs.