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    Jaycee.ElliottContributor II

    Enhanced Validation Criteria for Unknown Race EntriesNew

    I came across the hyperlinked article in The Seattle Times this morning and it echoed exactly what we are experiencing with our tenant of Mark43. Ironically, I was presenting our quarterly use of force data to command staff and we again discussed the prevalence of subjects with “Unknown” race entries on the contextual profiles of use of force reports, despite the same subject having previous contacts and a known race listed.  Report: Use of force by Seattle police at all-time low, but racial disparities cloud numbers | The Seattle Times Unfortunately for Seattle PD (as this article reads), the monitor over their consent decree will not support the lifting of the decree, in large part due to the failure to reliably document the race of subjects in use of force incidents. For those that do not know, Seattle PD uses Mark43.  I have proposed this numerous times previously and have attempted to both demonstrate and discuss the significance of this issue, but it has gained little to no traction. Hopefully others here have noticed the same thing and we can collectively discuss and propose solutions to Mark43 for enhanced data collection. Proposal:Maintain the ability for “Unknown” race to be entered. This is necessary for true unknowns and to report to NIBRS. Add additional validation criteria for profiles that have “Unknown” race. Oftentimes, the race of a subject is prefilled from any number of sources (i.e., historical reports, disparate interfaces, related reports under the same REN, etc.). These instances often result in passive acceptance of the prepopulated data elements, that perpetuate the issue. In any case, passive (or intentional direct entry) of “Unknown” race subjects, I would like the author to receive a prompt that forces them to go back to that data element and select a known race or maintain the “Unknown” entry and populate a free-form text entry explaining/confirming a reason for the entry.   Would love to hear the thoughts of other Mark43 clients and Mark43.