--- title: "SOSAFE: Using Social Media to Communicate with the Public" type: "pdf" year: "2019" canonical: "/projects/233" --- # Herman Goldstein Award Submission 2019 Use of social collaborative mobile application between neighbors and responsible for security, emergencies and services. ![img-0.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-0.jpeg) # Table of Contents - [Herman Goldstein Award Submission 2019](#herman-goldstein-award-submission-2019) - [1. Summary:](#1-summary) - [2. Description:](#2-description) - [Scanning:](#scanning) - [Analysis:](#analysis) - [Response:](#response) - [Assessment:](#assessment) - [3. Agency and Officer Information:](#3-agency-and-officer-information) - [Key Project Team Members:](#key-project-team-members) - [Sosafe ahora notifica directo a la policía](#sosafe-ahora-notifica-directo-a-la-policía) # 1. Summary: The 21st century is witness of a revolution in the interactions between people. Some decades ago we could only connect by physical letters that were send from person to person. Also, the evolution of the media and the appearance of social networks have transformed the way we relate and communicate. While we are hyper connected by electronic devices, we have lost the ability to interact person to person. Phenomena such as individualism, the high demand of work, disenchantment in the institutions and the increasingly low participation of the population in politics, shows that we are locked in our homes and that we even do not know our neighbor in front. All of this is a great opportunity for criminals who take advantage of this lack of communication between neighbors and authorities to commit their misdeeds. After the observation and analysis of different surveys; Public Security in Chile is the main concern of citizens, but when they are consulted as to whether they denounce what happens in the neighbor, around the $50 \%{ }^{1}$ of the people say they do not. Public safety professionals are aware that the dark figure of crime is a huge problem. Denounce allows to be police oriented to solve the problems of our communities and also allows police to optimally use resources. Definitely, in order for building a better city, problems have to be communicated and solved together with the community. We investigate within the reality of the country if there was something that allows authorities to communicate with neighbors and vice versa. We analyze different options, from how different services use social media like Twitter or Facebook for interacting with their neighbors and also, we analyze the option of creating our own tool from scratch. We decided to partner with SOSAFE. SOSAFE is a free mobile app and web platform that was created by two young serial entrepreneurs whose families experienced violent crime. They started to think on a way of communicating with the authorities, with the family and with neighbors with just one button. When Carabineros de Chile took contact with SOSAFE they were already working with high incomes cities while Carabineros at South Precinct were instead in the most vulnerable cities of Santiago de Chile. We opted for a very old practice, sitting down to grab coffee and think on the possibility of implementing a free trial at South Precinct. [^0] [^0]: ${ }^{1}$ https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?script=sci arttext\&pid=S0718-33992014000200012 # 2. Description: ## Scanning: The problem we are trying to solve is how to communicate better between communities and between neighbors, police authorities, emergency responders and urban services that also influence the sense of security and also in situational prevention. In Chile, the ENUSC survey is the most important survey for implementing public policy. ENUSC $2018^{2}$ indicates that safety is the main concern of communities all over the country. In addition, having a dark figure crime of $50 \%$ is a big problem since all the police work is planned and plans are established because of data. Also, neighbors do not know what happens in their sector, so they cannot take security measures. If the problems are not detected it is impossible to solve them. The company SOSAFE developed a tool that allows neighbors to alert an incident to the authorities but at the same time to the community and to their family and neighborhood members. It is an all in one free mobile application that can integrate the community, Carabineros, Firefighters, and other emergency responder and city services. Once an emergency service start using SOSAFE, the service starts to have a quicker response time because there is no need of asking so many things to neighbors. The service immediately receives the GPS location of the incident, the kind of incident, pictures and videos of what is happening at the same time the community can help by adding extra information to reports. The services that is connected to SOSAFE not only receive information, they have the chance to answer the neighbor and show to the community step by step that Carabineros in this case, received the information, then that Carabineros already call the neighbor and that the police car is on the way. Once Carabineros get to the place it is possible to upload a picture showing the daily work of the officers. With SOSAFE Carabineros is not answering only to the person that made the alert, Carabineros is talking and showing their work to the hall community. The 26 of May, Carabineros capture a shooter because of SOSAFE and then it was possible to send a massive message to the community telling that the shooter was already capture by Carabineros ${ }^{3}$ Chile has a population of 18 million people but there are 27 million mobile phones ${ }^{4}$. For more than a decade it has become one of the countries with the greatest connection from a cell phone in Latin America. This trend has been on the rise thanks to the strong penetration of the mobile phone market at low prices and easy access to consumers, which has generated that at present, our country is a leader surpassing the rest of the nations of Latin America, including Mexico, which in past decades was a leader in the ranking. Chileans use the Internet from a mobile device an average of 37 hours a week, increasing to 40 , in the population ranging from 18 to 34 years. ${ }^{5}$ [^0] [^0]: ${ }^{2}$ https://www.ine.cl/docs/default-source/sociales/seguridad-ciudadana/2018/metodologia/sintesis-de-resultados-xv-enusc-2018.pdf ${ }^{3}$ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYmjtL9wgOg ${ }^{4}$ https://www.latercera.com/entretencion/noticia/celulares-chile-se-acercan-los-27-millones/63290/ ${ }^{5}$ https://atacamanoticias.cl/2018/04/23/chile-es-lider-en-la-region-en-uso-de-celular-e-hiperconectividad/ The South Precinct of Carabineros de Chile works at the poorest and most vulnerable cities of Santiago de Chile, it has the highest criminal index. 830,000 people in 90 square kilometers. There are 7 cities, each of them with a Precinct of Carabineros that is under jurisdiction of the South Precinct. The 7 seven precincts are: - El Bosque - La Cisterna - La Granja - La Pintana - San Joaquín - San Miguel If we put together a high criminal index, a high dark figure of crime, a high penetration of mobile phone and a lack of communication between neighbors and between neighbors and authorities the path to start analyzing is one. How to use mobile technology for opening a daily and easy to use channel of communication for neighbors and authorities. # Analysis: The analysis is based on three areas. The first one is a survey that since 2003 measure the levels of victimization and insecurity in Chile, its regions and the main urban districts of the country, through the National Urban Citizen Security Survey - ENUSC. The second area is interviewing neighbors. Part of the daily work of police officers is to have informal interviews. As the dark crime figure is too high, police officers at the South precinct are used to have conversations with the community for gathering information. The third area is through de STOP program. It is a local version of the COMPSTAT, it was applied in Chile on the 2011. Carabineros holds monthly meetings with security-related authorities such as the Mayor, the Regional Prosecutor and governors. In this way, the information on the crimes that occurred in the area is analyzed and specific goals and objectives can be established for the prevention and fight against crime. The big issue here is that all the analysis is made with formal information, as it has been explained, it is only the $50 \%$ of the incidents at the South precinct. The main reasons why the dark figure of crime exists are three. - People prefer not to report to avoid retaliation - People consider that it is not worthwhile to verify certain situations to the authorities - The process to formally inform the authorities is very bureaucratic. What the South Precinct is trying to solve is something absolutely frequent. It is a transversal and permanent and daily problem, the communication between neighbors and neighbors with the Police and authorities to face and find solutions to problems. Also, it is something that involves the hall community. All are influenced by the lack of communication. The entrepreneur that has a business, the kid that would like to play on the street, the police officers that try to do their best with the information they have, fathers that are worried every time their sons come back from school, among others. In the past, the way for trying to solve the lack of communications was just promoting the traditional channels for communicating incidents and for contacting authorities with neighbors. Now that times have changed, authorities and police precincts should adapt to how the community interact today. The impact of the extra promotion of old channels was to low. The dark figure of crime has had similar percentages the last five years. Maybe, for not being able to talk and listen to the community people is losing the faith in institutions. If the South Precinct is able to adapt and create new successful channels of communication in the most vulnerable cities in the country with the highest criminal index, definitely start interacting between neighbors and between neighbors and authorities is the key for crime and solving problems. The expectation of people when alerting something is to have an answer and then in a reasonable time having the problem solve. A successful communication channel should take care of people expectation. # Response: There are three main goals: - Connect the $10 \%$ of the population. Total population: 850.000 Goal: 85.000 - Being able to map formal and informal incidents in the same platform. - Reducing the dark figure of crime from $50 \%$ to $30 \%$. Together with authorities from different areas, from the level of the Vice President of the country, Ministry of the Interior, Undersecretary of Crime Prevention, with neighbors, neighborhood leaders and mayors we were thinking for a long time on trying to do something different, not expensive and extremely effective. If goals are accomplished it would be one of the most successful projects that Carabineros de Chile has ever implemented. Today is a private public alliance in a pilot plan to verify that it is a useful tool, free for neighbors and police and municipal authorities, as the result will escalate nationally and we are willing to share our experience to scale it internationally. At the beginning we found resistance to change, and doubts about a private public alliance but as it is working well, a great lesson for the South Precinct is that the world changes permanently and that there are more and better communication channels, the forces of law enforcement cannot be below these changes. Also, before implementing SOSAFE we explore a wide range of solutions in the public and private sector. Different technologies were analyzed. Integration with radios, anonymous complaints by phone, obtaining information from cameras, obtaining information from drones, among others. Regarding the legal scope, according to the Organic Constitutional Law of Carabineros, in the article $N^{\circ} 3^{6}$ says that Carabineros de Chile may establish the police services it deems necessary for the fulfillment of its specific purposes, in accordance with the Political Constitution and the respective legislation. It means that developing new projects in order for doing a better job is part of their attributions so we are within the framework of the law. # Assessment: The project will be evaluated for one year with monthly revisions. Only during the first month the results are awesome. We have been able to connect more than 18.000 people from the South Precinct. There have been some successful cases where officers have saved life's ${ }^{7}$, we have been able to recover stolen goods ${ }^{8}$, and we have dismantled drugs organization ${ }^{9}$. All of this in one month. We measure the people that is connected through number of address that have been registered the SOSAFE platform. Before launching the project, we had some technical problems or issues to solve. We needed to update some computers, we had to improve de internet access of some precincts, and in some cases, we redesign the physical office were officers receive incidents by phone, in order for being able to receive incidents by phone and by SOSAFE at the same office. After the first month, it is possible to show the next results: - Connect the 10\% of the population. | | Results after the first month | | | | | | | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | :--: | | Precinct | $\mathbf{N}^{\circ}$. of registered addresses | Population | Target population | Missing directions to reach the goal | Goal compliance percentage | $\mathbf{N}^{\circ}$. Of reports | | San Miguel | 7,733 | 107,954 | 10,796 | 3,063 | $71.6 \%$ | 956 | | La Cisterna | 2,245 | 90,119 | 9,012 | 6,767 | $24.9 \%$ | 474 | | San Joaquín | 1,721 | 94,492 | 9,450 | 7,729 | $18.2 \%$ | 407 | | La Pintana | 2,304 | 177,335 | 17,734 | 15,430 | $13.0 \%$ | 665 | | San Ramón | 990 | 82,900 | 8,290 | 7,300 | $11.9 \%$ | 330 | | La Granja | 1,293 | 116,571 | 11,658 | 10,365 | $11.1 \%$ | 335 | | El Bosque | 1,743 | 162,505 | 16,251 | 14,508 | $10.7 \%$ | 401 | | Totals | 18,029 | 831,876 | 83,191 | 65,162 | 21.7\% | 3,568 | [^0] [^0]: ${ }^{6}$ https://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=30329 ${ }^{7}$ https://n796y.app.goo.gl/F8rqTC2JCs43umKf8 ${ }^{8}$ https://s3.amazonaws.com/sosafe-custom-push-prod/SanMiguel/sanMiguelv3.html ${ }^{9}$ https://n796y.app.goo.gl/zR5TBdDM19UkRc7ZA - Being able to map formal and informal incidents in the same platform. ![img-1.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-1.jpeg) - Reducing the dark figure of crime from $50 \%$ to $30 \%$. We should wait for the next year ENUSC survey. # 3. Agency and Officer Information: ## Key Project Team Members: - Diego Rojas, Lieutenant Colonel South Precinct - Fernando Osses, Major San Miguel Precinct - Cristian Cabrera, founder \& CEO SOSAFE - Carlos Fernández, founder \& CCO SOSAFE Project Contact Person: - Name: Diego Rojas - Position/Rank: Lieutenant Colonel - Address: Gran Avenida 6868 - City / State / Postal code: La Cisterna / Santiago / 7980112 - Phone:+56 952174822 - Email: diego.rojas@carabineros.cl drojasdaydi@gmail.com 4. Appendices (e.g., charts, tables, graphs, articles, letters) (Optional) A) Incidents per precinct during may El Bosque ![img-2.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-2.jpeg) La Cisterna ![img-3.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-3.jpeg) La Granja ![img-4.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-4.jpeg) La Pintana ![img-5.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-5.jpeg) San Joaquín ![img-6.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-6.jpeg) San Miguel ![img-7.jpeg](https://popdatasets.blob.core.windows.net/popdatasetmdimgs/19-05_chile_sosafe/img-7.jpeg) B) Recently appearance on TV - https://www.t13.cl/noticia/nacional/app-seguridad-sosafe-y-carabineros-trabajaran-juntos-disminuir-delincuencia-7-comunas https://www.emol.com/noticias/Nacional/2019/05/29/949522/Carabineros-lanza-aplicacion-de-seguridad-en-zona-sur-de-Santiago-En-marcha-blanca-permitio-20-detenciones.html - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYmjtL9wgOg - https://www.ahoranoticias.cl/noticias/nacional/262328-la-pintana-sosafe-aplicacion-adolescente-baleada-detenido-vecinos.html - https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-metropolitana/2019/05/26/vuelco-en-la-pintana-baleo-contra-adolescente-de-15-anos-fue-intencional.shtml - https://www.facebook.com/tvbiobio/videos/188153282100107/ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFnflhBNWDs # Sosafe ahora notifica directo a la policía La app se unió con Carabineros en un piloto para agilizar la respuesta ante riesgos. Con presencia en más de 22 comunas del país, la aplicación de celular (mali) se ha convertido en una herramienta cada vez más utilizada para alertar sobre problemas de seguridad que afectan a las comunidades. Desde su deber, la plataforma ha operado con alianzas municipales para que personal de las al casillas responda a los llamados, pero ahora natal otra vía de respuesta que busca agilizar la reacción al informació socialmente a Carabineros de las alertas ciudadanas. Se trata de un plan piloto orientado a traclos de cien que permite a los sozformados de la Preferica Zona Sur de Santiago tener acceso a las alertas generales mediante la app en las comunas de su vigencia: La Cierrena, San Kameño, La Guanja, San Miguel, El Bosque, San Joaquin y La Pintana. Mediante este menú número el sábado se consignó que la policía llegará en caso de misterios a un sector de La Pintana donde los vecinos calificaron sobre un sujeto que estaba disparando en la calle, logrando detener al abalido. En la práctica, la app se posicionaría como un sistema paralelo al llamado al 131, con la ventaja, afirman sus gestores, de que al crear una alerta los policías reciben de inmediato la información de dónde está ocurriendo la recompensa, qué tipo de riesgo se está incumitando, a los otros fotografias o videos que puedan aportar los testigos, todo sin tener que hablar con quien hace la demanda. El comandante Diego Rojas destacó que este trabajo conjunto les da "soluciones nuevas para problemas importantes como la comunicación entre los vecinos y de los vecinos con la comunidad".