Neighborhood Engagement Areas or NEAs are locations that LAPD deems to be “problem areas” that they intend to target with policing, but using the terminology and framework of Data-Informed Community-Focused Policing (DICFP), launched in April 2020.

LAPD launched Data Informed, Community-Focused Policing (DICFP) in April 2020 in response to the forced shut-down of Operation LASER, its central Predictive Policing program that operated from 2011 to 2019. DICFP contains many of the same elements of Operation LASER, but renamed and reorganized.

In its "guidebook" about DICFP, which reads like a marketing document, the LAPD describes NEAs as:

locations identified by an Area ACCIC where crimes have increased over the past year and where Senior Lead Officers (SLO), patrol officers, residents and businesses begin to take more responsibility for reducing crime.

In the LAPD internal 2020 Data-Informed Community-Focused Policing (DICFP) Daily Operation Guide, obtained through a PRA (which is not yet closed by LAPD, so visibility is limited) by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, LAPD additionally describes NEAs as “Neighborhoods experiencing crime and low community engagement.” Further notes under “NEAs” direct the following:

• NEAs are to be identified using crime data and databases, and that the analysis is to be conducted biannually
• Analysts are looking for areas that have seen a “crime spike” over a 1-year span
• LAPD’s Senior Lead Officers (SLOs) are to be involved in the plan to implement S.A.R.A. or SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) at these locations.

Crime analysts at the Area Crime and Community Intelligence Center (ACCIC) are further expected and directed to do the following, regarding NEAs:

• Conduct in depth analysis of how different elements contribute to “public order and community safety”;
• Review crime reports and provide “analysis of how the environmental factors may play a role in any pattern or trend of the underlying offense”;
• Create solutions, work with “City entities, local businesses and residents, and community leaders to effect [sic] the desired change”;
• Assess results of the solutions:
  • Look at crime reports and calls for service
  • Consult the community regarding satisfaction
  • Analyze if problem has been solved or whether to continue SARA process.

These documents confirm that LAPD’s 2020 Data-Informed Community-Focused Policing (DICFP) is a rebranding and continuation of Hot Spot Policing, Predictive Policing, and Operation LASER’s location-based predictive policing, all of which ultimately harms people and communities that live in the areas being targeted.

It also seems that LAPD sometimes refers to NEAs as S.A.R.A. or SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) locations, most likely because ACCICs are instructed to create SARA plans or reports for NEAs, but:

• no more than one SARA is to be opened per NEA;
• SARA reports can also be created for locations that are not within the NEA.

Image description: An LAPD mobile substation is parked outside the Vons Supermarket at 4520 Sunset Blvd in East Hollywood. This Vons is a Neighborhood Engagement Area (NEA) location, as revealed by documents the LAPD produced in response to a Public Records Act (PRA) request filed by Stop LAPD Spying Coalition in 2022. Image source: A local organizer, 2022.

Location of NEAs in Los Angeles

To learn more about which areas in Los Angeles have been deemed NEAs, in May 2021 and in February 2022 the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition filed  PRAs demanding maps, records, SARA reports, and other information regarding the location of areas deemed to be NEAs. The 2022 PRA is still open and records are still being returned by LAPD.

Locations identified as NEAs in those documents, meaning they were subject to S.A.R.A. or SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) plans to coordinate efforts by LAPD and other city departments at that location, include the following:

• A Bridge Home housing shelter at 100 E. Sunset Avenue in Venice
• The Vons Supermarket at 4520 Sunset Blvd in East Hollywood
• 443 Soto Street in Boyle Heights, a previously vacant lot which is now being redeveloped
• The Grenada Hills Recreation Center in Grenada Hills
• South Beacon Ave between 7th and 8th Street in San Pedro
• Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Exposition Park