Emphasizing the importance of "evidence-based approaches" in the fight against crime, First Deputy Police Commissioner Patricia Giorgio Fox of the Philadelphia Police Department spoke to a group largely composed of graduate students on Wednesday.
Nearly 40 graduate students and one undergraduate gathered in Penn's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology to hear Fox speak.
Returning for the second consecutive year, Fox's speech was part of the class "Criminology in Practice."
Fox concentrated much of her attention on Compstat, a data collection and processing procedure that is at the forefront of the Philadelphia Police's efforts to reduce crime in and around the city.
Compstat is a data collection system that police staff can use to aid in deployment schemes and in the overall smooth operations of the force.
Fox said that Compstat's deployment functions are especially important because the police department's staffing is currently "as low as we can comfortably go" in a city that has several "geographic hot-spots" of crime. Stressing the need for a cohesive network of intelligence-sharing among departments, Fox said that "we can only prevent that of which we have information about."
Citing the relevance of Compstat to the topics studied in class, graduate student Matt Poppalardo said that Fox's speech tied together the theme of evidence-based approaches to the real-life practices of crime prevention and justice.
Fox's visit came less than two weeks after students in the course assisted Philadelphia highway patrol on actual ride-alongs in the area. In response to Fox's speech, graduate student Jeff Fischer said that it was "interesting to find out how those units are deployed and how they help the city -- it's something all students can relate to."
Criminology professor Laurie Robinson, who also serves as the director of the Master of Science in Criminology program at Penn, described Fox as "a wonderful example of a criminal justice practitioner of evidence-based criminology approaches," which is the basis of the Penn program.
Fox outlined her career of 29 years on the force, highlighting the fact that she was one of the first 100 women who joined the Philadelphia Police in 1976. Beginning with her assignment as a Police Officer in the 39th District, Fox served in a variety of positions and rose to the rank of Inspector in August 1997.
In August 2002, she was appointed Deputy Police Commissioner for Crime Control Strategies, making her the first woman in the history of the Philadelphia Police to hold the rank of Deputy Commissioner. In June 2004, Fox was appointed First Deputy Police Commissioner and oversees all operational bureaus.
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