The first step to understanding what is really going on in our communities and in our country is to gather more and better data related to those we arrest, those we confront for breaking the law and jeopardizing public safety, and those who confront us. “Data” seems a dry and boring word but, without it, we cannot understand our world and make it better.

The most important thing about data, which people often forget, is that it has to be true.
Truth beats everything.

You can’t build a good model with data that is just 65% accurate

Data are not the same as information. Before you can get the answers you want, you have to ask the right question.

Big or small; data is the evidence that defends the truth in your story.

The real point of the matter is that what we call a 'wrong datum' is one which is inconsistent with all other known data. It is our only criterion for right and wrong.

The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it.

One ought not to reject the data merely because one does not like what the data implies.

Data is discrimination between physical states of things (black, white, etc.) that may convey or not convey information to an agent. Whether it does so or not depends on the agent's prior stock of knowledge.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.

A person not familiar with all of the special knowledge about a particular instrument should not try to draw too many conclusions from printed data. Such data typically contains certain assumptions about the equipment not necessarily known to outsiders.

I was going into people’s houses where there were really challenging social problems. Those kinds of challenges really made me question the data I was collecting and why.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so

The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does not give us a picture of their empirical reality. While reflecting an indisputable aspect of reality, it can falsify the actual truth in a most misleading way. This is particularly true of theories which are based on statistics. The distinctive thing about real facts, however, is their individuality. Not to put too fine a point on it, once could say that the real picture consists of nothing but exceptions to the rule, and that, in consequence, absolute reality has predominantly the character of irregularity.