BPD Field Interrogation and Observation (FIO)

The FIO program encompasses a wide range of interactions between the Boston Police Department (BPD) and private individuals. By releasing the records of these interactions, BPD hopes to add transparency to the execution of the program while still protecting the privacy of the individuals involved. These records are now sourced from three different record management systems titled: (OLD RMS) (NEW RMS) and (MARK43). The differences between the resulting files are described below.

### About the FIO Records (Mark43) Files (Sept 29 2023 - Dec 31 2025)

These records are compiled from the BPD’s new Records Management System (RMS) on the BPD's FIO program. MARK43 went live September 29, 2019 and the FIO information has been structured into two separate tables. These tables are the same titles as (NEW RMS) but include new or different data points as retrieved from MARK43.

* `FieldContact`, which lists each contact between BPD and one or more individuals
* `FieldContact_Name`, which lists each individual involved in these contacts.
 
A FIO Data Key has also been created and posted to help distinguish the data categories *(Data Key (Mark43))*.

Lastly, FIOs are maintained in a live database and information related to each individual may change overtime. The data provided here should be considered a static representation of the Field Interaction and/or Observation that occurred in 2019.

NULL indicates no entry was made for an optional field. 

### About the FIO Records 2015 (New RMS) and 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (Jan 1 - Sept 29 2020) Files

These records are compiled from the BPD’s new Records Management System (RMS) on the BPD's FIO program. The new RMS, which went live in June, 2015, structures the FIO information into two separate tables:

* `FieldContact`, which lists each contact between BPD and one or more individuals
* `FieldContact_Name`, which lists each individual involved in these contacts

While these two tables align on the field contact number (`fc_num`) column, __it is not methodologically correct to join the two datasets for the purpose of generating aggregate statistics on columns from the `FieldContact` table__. Doing so would lead to incorrect estimates stemming from contacts with multiple individuals. As noted in the _Data Key (New RMS)_ file, several of the columns in the `FieldContact` table apply to the contact as a whole, but may not necessarily apply to each individual involved in the contact. These include:

* `frisked`
* `searchperson`
* `summonsissued`
* `circumstances`
* `basis`
* `contact_reason`

For example, the `frisked` column contains a value of `Y` if _any_ of the individuals involved in a contact were frisked, but it would be inaccurate to assume that _all_ individuals were frisked during that contact. As such, extrapolating from the `frisked` column for a contact to each individual and then summing across them would give an artificially high estimate of the number of people frisked in total. Likewise, the `summonsissued` column indicates when someone involved in a contact was issued a summons, but this does not imply that everyone involved in a contact was issued a summons. 

For a detailed listing of columns in each table, see both tables of the _Data Key (New RMS)_ file below.

### About the FIO Records 2011 - 2015 (Old RMS) File

These records are sourced from BPD's older RMS, which was retired in June, 2015. This system (which stored all records in a single table, rather than the two tables in the newer system) captures similar information to the new RMS, but users should note that the fields are not identical and exercise care when comparing or combining records from each system.

### Additional Notes

* The data provided is FIO information entered into the new system from June, 2015 through December, 2016, which includes some interactions which occurred before June, 2015 which were entered after the transition from the old system. _For comprehensive analyses of interactions prior to the introduction of the new RMS, users will need to include data on interactions prior to June, 2015 from the 2015 (New RMS) file._
* These files are extracted from live databases which may have records added or updated at any time. As such, the number and content of records shared here may differ slightly from versions used to produce analyses such as those linked below, due to subsequent revisions to the underlying database records. 
* A contact can consist of an observation of a vehicle, without direct contact with a person. This would create a record where no person-level details are recorded.

Tags: FIO, field interrogation, observation, police
Organization: Boston Police Department