Behind The Numbers

Branden Dupont, Data Analyst of NWSP, Inc.

There are many involved in the work of the Near West Side Partners. Meet Branden Dupont, the Data Analyst for our team.

Who are you?

My name is Branden DuPont. I hold concurrent, part-time positions as a Law Clerk with the Milwaukee District Attorney’s office and a Data Analyst on the PARC Initiative. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Degree in Political Science from the University of Milwaukee Wisconsin.

I’ve had an interesting path that led me to this position — one that fits almost like a rotational program within the Milwaukee Criminal Justice System. I started as an intern with the State Public Defender’s office where I worked on sentencing memos, alternatives to revocation briefs, and which capped with a program evaluation of Milwaukee County’s Veteran Treatment Initiative (“MCVTI”).

The work done by the MCVTI team gives Veterans caught in the justice system with substance abuse or mental health needs, often arising from their service, a second chance. I’d encourage anyone who reads this post to check out the piece WUWM did on the MCVTI. (linked below)

I then had the opportunity to serve as the Coordinator of the MCVTI as a Public Ally with JusticePoint, Inc., a Milwaukee-based nonprofit committed to evidence-informed criminal justice that administers several of the pre-trial and Early Intervention Programs through a contract with the Milwaukee County Courts.

After my position as a Public Ally expired, I continued to work as a Law Clerk with the Milwaukee DA’s office on a number of Community Justice Council initiatives. Those familiar with my analytic work in the justice system thought I’d be a great fit on the Promoting Assets Reducing Crime (“PARC”) initiative and suggested I apply.

And here I am! It’s an incredible opportunity to do impactful work within the Near West Side.

http://wuwm.com/post/milwaukee-county-court-succeeds-helping-vets-overcome-addiction

What do you do for NWSP?

I serve as a Data Analyst for the PARC Initiative. Primarily, I provide analytic, tactical, and strategic research and data analysis for the Near West Side Community Prosecution Team. However, I also put together maps, analyses, and interactive visualization on issues that affect health and economic development.

For instance, using publicly available COMPASS data, I put together a monthly crime report of the Near West Side for partners. Other projects include maintaining an interactive map dashboard of properties in the PARC project area likely eligible for the City of Milwaukee’s Lead Abatement program and teaching Marquette Center for Peacemaking Students how to create web scrapers to pull rent data from sites like Craigslist or Rent.com. The project I’m the proudest of is the creation of an interactive data analytic tool that systematically

identifies nuisance and problem properties through the analysis of data on criminal and nuisance incidents, police calls for service, DNS violations, tax delinquency, vacant and/or foreclosure properties, and license premises. This tool is currently in the testing stage and we hope to begin fully using it later this year.

Why is it important to the efforts of NWSP?

I like the definition of PARC found on the NWSP’s website: “PARC is built around an innovative, yet proven law enforcement strategy known as community prosecution that engages directly with residents, businesses, and local organizations to address problem places and people who pose risks or who are at-risk.”

To make this happen, the NWSP Community Prosecution Unit needs actionable data to proactively identify issues and develop innovative responses to prevent and address crime. I’m able to distill information in a way that allows the team to spend less time collecting, coordinating, and analyzing the data and more time developing and implementing strategies to combat the issues identified through this analysis. Freeing up the Community Prosecution Neighborhood Safety Team to more efficiently determine which collaborative, people or place-based interventions will continue to help make the Near West Side a safer place to live, work and play.