LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The man behind the Los Angeles Police Department's widely hailed but controversial data-driven crime-fighting tools is leaving the agency next week to help expand similar programs in other cities, it was reported today.
Deputy Chief Sean Malinowski spent years pushing the LAPD to the forefront of how police agencies analyze data to target crime. His departure, though, comes amid the overhaul of a program he helped implement more than eight years ago to predict locations of property crimes after questions were raised about its effectiveness and whether black and Latino communities are unfairly targeted, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A 25-year veteran, Malinowski said he plans to work part time at the University of Chicago and run his own company, which won a $635,000 contract in March with the Baltimore Police Department.
Malinowski was one of a team of experts who helped the Chicago Police Department on crime issues. Under a $250-an-hour contract, Malinowski earned $223,750 between late 2016 and Feb. 9, 2018, in Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. LAPD policy doesn't specify how much a person can earn with a second job; it does limit the work to 30 hours a week. Malinowski was quoted in a story in Chicago saying he had used all his “vacation time and days off” to do the work.
After reaching 25 years at the LAPD, he could not perform the outside work and still serve Los Angeles, he said in an interview. His last day is May 16, according to a disclosure filed at the city's Ethics Commission, according to The Times.
“The LAPD has given me lots of opportunities,” said Malinowski, who spearheaded predictive technologies under former Chiefs William J. Bratton and Charlie Beck. “I'm interested in doing things in other cities. I believe in what I do.”
Last July, newly appointed Police Chief Michel Moore picked Malinowski, 54, to be the chief of detectives. He has also led the weekly Compstat meetings at which station captains are grilled by higher-ups about how to reduce crime. The department, he said, has a “deep bench” of leaders committed to using data to make Los Angeles safer.
Some of Malinowski's earlier posts included commanding officer of the Special Olympics World Games in 2015 and leading the Foothill Division and Real- Time Analysis and Critical Response Division, The Times reported. The former Fulbright scholar holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois.