As Albuquerque's Hispano Chamber of Commerce unveils a dashboard that it hopes will lead to stronger anti-crime laws coming out of the Roundhouse, work continues on another data-driven initiative to help officials better understand connections between incidents and the people responsible.
It's been nearly 10 months since then-Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez joined leaders from RS21 to announce a software platform to combat the negative effects of crime on economic development. An organization made up of a few Albuquerque businesses called the Business Coalition for a Better Albuquerque put $3.5 million behind that platform, called Quaro.
"We know that we need to have better crime-fighting tools so that we can retain and attract talent to our community," said Tom Antram, the president and CEO of Albuquerque-based French Funerals and Cremations. "All of us have the similar vision in that regard that we can do better and we can be a better community through these types of initiatives."
French Funerals and Cremations is part of the Business Coalition alongside PNM Resources, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, Bank of Albuquerque and New Mexico Mutual. The group came together to support RS21, an Albuquerque data company, in building Quaro in early 2021. The platform aims to help prosecutors and police make quicker, more efficient use of data collected during an investigation in order to identify criminal networks.
"We wanted to demonstrate that you can really have a phenomenal public-private partnership together in serving the community," Antram said. "This isn't just the business community saying, 'Hey, here's the software, make it happen.' It will require that the city, the county, the state gets on board."
Quaro is "about 95% there" in terms of implementing it in Bernalillo County, Antram told Business First. While it's set to be implemented in Bernalillo County first, the platform was built with the idea of expanding to other DA offices across New Mexico, he said.
"Our anticipation is that it's going to cost somewhere upwards of $1 million per year to keep this active," he said. "That cost goes down as you spread it around to other district attorneys offices."
Annemarie Henton, director of state and local services at RS21, has helped lead the Albuquerque-based data company's work on Quaro. She told Business First that after a period of testing and evaluation over the next few months, the platform could be implemented within the Bernalillo County DA's office "moving into next year."
"Nothing gets us more excited than being able to help address challenges in our home state," Henton said. "Getting to be a part of a project where we're helping our partners [get] to better insights and apply that knowledge in practice is a really thoughtful approach.
"I think it's a real example of a digital transformation that's powered by this really important and unique partnership."
Since the development of Quaro started in early 2022, there's been changes at the Bernalillo County DA's office. Torrez's win in the November election took him to New Mexico's Attorney General's office, and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Jan. 3 appointed former prosecutor Sam Bregman to take over as the county's District Attorney.
Bregman backs the anti-crime platform and said the goal is to have it launch sometime in the next 12 months. He said Quaro's origins provide an example that others could follow.
"We'll always gladly accept private resources being shared to help government in our quest — if you will — to make this a safer place," Bregman said. "Government has a finite amount of resources, so we want to do everything we can to get the necessary resources, and technology is a huge part of that.
"Anytime we can get the private entities and the private businesses to work with us we're thrilled to get that done."
Quaro is a different approach than the one announced last week by officials with the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce.
That website — crimestatsnm.org — allows users to see statistics on different types of crime in legislative districts across New Mexico. Each district is ranked in five categories on a scale from "great" to "critical." The website also has a tool to send a pre-written letter to legislators on behalf of the Hispano Chamber to urge the adoption of anti-crime legislation.
Albuquerque software company Real Time Solutions built the platform which was announced on Feb. 8. Last week, Real Time Solutions added another feature to the site — the ability to track bills as they move through the state legislature.
Neither Real Time Solutions CEO Chris Schroeder nor Hispano Chamber CEO Ernie C'deBaca disclosed how much it took to build the website.
At the heart of both efforts, there's a trend of private businesses partnering to take a stronger stance toward crime in the community that impacts their bottom line.
"We want the legislature to understand that the business community [rallied] together as one voice to come in and work together to help," Steven Chavez, an Albuquerque businessman and member of the Hispano Chamber board, said during the Feb. 8 announcement. "We don't want to point fingers. We want to make a change."
Antram applauded the Hispano Chamber's efforts.
"I love the fact that the Hispano Chamber of Commerce has come out with something that also gets in line with this," he said. "Together, I think we're really scratching the surface on something that can be transformative."
