This community-driven project was completed as part of an upper-level computer science practicum course.

This case study features a data-analysis project conducted to provide policymakers with recommendations for reducing municipal spending on police court overtime in Boston.

The team included Boston University students supervised by the BU Spark! Lab in partnership with community leaders and stakeholders.

BU Spark! Lab is a technology incubator and experiential learning lab housed within the Faculty of Computing and Data Science (CDS), a nontraditional interdisciplinary academic unit at Boston University. Its primary focus is to empower students to explore innovation opportunities in computer science and engineering using practical experiential learning.

Through BU Spark!, students are able to work on a variety of software engineering and computer science projects with a range of external partners, helping them to answer critical questions using technical data analysis.