Committee questions CPD traffic-enforcement data, cites district disparities and data limits

Cincinnati’s Public Safety and Governance Committee heard a briefing from Cincinnati Police Department traffic staff about how the department sets traffic-enforcement priorities and about limitations in the data used to measure enforcement.

Assistant Chief Matt Hammer told the committee the department’s enforcement decisions reflect three work streams: citizen complaints and community-council referrals; data-driven analysis of traffic crashes and high-injury locations; and officers’ on-patrol identification of hazardous conditions. "Decision making in terms of traffic enforcement for CPD, has some complexity to it," Hammer said.

Jillian Desmond, who works in CPD’s crime analysis and problem-solving unit, described data gaps that make it difficult to map and compare enforcement consistently. She said citation records arrive on paper, are manually entered into a county system, and that county-hand input causes lags and address errors that obscure location details. "There are ways that we can pull that apart, but it is a lot of manual review because there's a lot of free text fields," Desmond said. She told the committee that interstate stops and entries marked "N/A" or out-of-state are especially hard to place on a map because mile markers or addresses are often missing or handwritten.

Committee members pressed staff on summary measures. Council Member Mark Jeffries and others discussed the spring “blitz” counts the CPD presented: 1,797 citations and 1,212 traffic stops during that operation. Desmond and staff explained the apparent gap can occur because a single stop can generate multiple citations (for example, speed plus seat belt) and because some citation paperwork is entered later or with incomplete location fields.

Members also raised geographic equity. Council Member Anna Albee noted that District 3 recorded roughly 4.5 times as many citations as District 2. CPD staff said districts differ operationally: volume and staffing in District 3 are substantially higher and account for approximately half of the department’s activity in some measures. "District 3 is really well known as by far our largest, our most voluminous district," Hammer said.

Committee discussion included the role of the Ohio State Highway Patrol on interstates. Lieutenant Van Horn, traffic commander, said CPD has worked to build a cooperative relationship with the state patrol and that the state agency supports CPD on large events and some enforcement actions. Van Horn also emphasized CPD’s community-based policing approach, arguing that local officers frequently interact with the same residents. "We take great care to treat our citizens well … there’s a likelihood that I'm going to see you again tomorrow," he said, contrasting that with how he described state-level enforcement.

Council members and CPD staff also noted non-enforcement measures that affect safety. Van Horn pointed to street design changes, such as single-lane conversions and speed cushions on Colerain Avenue, and said those changes have reduced the number of enforcement opportunities there. CPD staff reported the city recorded 27 traffic fatalities last year; they did not offer a target for next-year totals.

The committee filed the traffic-enforcement report without a roll call vote. Members reiterated that traffic safety remains a priority; Hammer said the chief is committed to continuing the traffic-blitz format for the foreseeable future.

The committee asked staff to return with clarifications on several technical points, including how CPD distinguishes stops made for traffic violations versus stops made on suspicion unrelated to traffic, and additional breakdowns of citation locations when county-entered addresses are incomplete.