{"id":867,"date":"2016-10-16T20:01:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T03:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/?p=867"},"modified":"2016-10-16T20:01:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T03:01:51","slug":"examining-police-expenditure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/2016\/10\/16\/examining-police-expenditure\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining Police Expenditure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before diving into the creation of my own blog post for this week, I examined the ones already posted by classmates to read about the different datasets they chose from the L.A. Controller\u2019s Office platform. I enjoyed this one<\/a> especially because it used the concept of digital division discussed by Wallack and Srinivasan as a lens to evaluate the platform itself by noting how the popularity\/value of each set (measured by # of views) could be an implication of the \u201cmismatched ontologies between the state and individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Drop
Drop Down Menu from L.A. Controller Panel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Taking this notion into account, I used the drop down menu on the left to view the popularity of the different sets this past week, month, and year. As the police force continues to be a large part of national discussion, I decided to choose the Police Expenditures<\/a>\u00a0dataset. I think it is particularly reflective of public sentiment (and thus possibly community ontology) that this dataset was one of the most viewed for the year (although not for this week or month).<\/p>\n

As denoted by the title, this dataset contains information regarding the police force\u2019s expenditures from June 2011-January 2014. There are 25 data types consisting of ID Number, Fiscal Year, Department Name, Vendor Name, Transaction Date, Dollar Amount, Authority, Business Tax Registration Certificate, Government Activity, Fund Group Name, Fund Type, Fund Name, Account Name, Transaction ID, Expenditure Type, Settlement\/Judgment, Fiscal Month Number, Fiscal Year-Month, Quarter, Calendar Month #, Calendar Month Year, Calendar Month, Data Source, Authority Name, and Authority Link. A record for this dataset is a single purchase (expenditure) made by a department within the L.A. Police Force.<\/p>\n

Wallack and Srinivasan first discuss the importance of ontology by stating, \u201cOntologies represent reality, but this representation of information may in turn become the basis for actions that in turn shape reality\u201d (3). They then proceed to delineate the differences between meta ontologies and localized, community ontologies and the consequences when there are discrepancies between the two. Based on their definitions, I would say the Police Force Expenditures dataset is a meta ontology based on the criteria of its data types. For example, ID Number, Business Tax Registration Certificate, Fund Group Name, Fund Type, and Transaction ID are all types that make little to no sense to local citizens. These types are only understood by government and city officials that work with and understand the particular taxing and funding protocol. Although it should be noted that other data types are able to be understood by non-government workers such as the Dollar Amount and Vendor Name.<\/p>\n

This dataset can tell you about the money that was spent by a police department, for each record indicates a specific expenditure made by a department with a dollar amount and to which vendor it was paid for. However, the item or service that was purchased is not specified, only the \u201cGovernment Activity\u201d it was used for, which is rather broad considering nearly all of records have \u201cProtection of Persons and Property\u201d as the reason for activity. Thus, I think this dataset is only informative for quantifying purchases for the different departments, rather than trying to determine exactly what each spends their money on specifically.<\/p>\n

If I were to create a local, community ontology on Police Expenditures the data types would not look entirely different, rather I would take away and add a few data types. I think the general public would primarily want to know an itemized list of the specific goods and services purchased by the department from the vendor and a more informative reason as to why such purchase was made. I would still collect the same data regarding the dollar amount, vendor name, department, and fiscal time periods; tax registration and identification numbers are not essential for the community ontology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before diving into the creation of my own blog post for this week, I examined the ones already posted by classmates to read about the different datasets they chose from … Continue reading “Examining Police Expenditure”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}