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HOW COMPUTERS |
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By Jose M. Cordero Police Director, East Orange |
East Orange officials, leaders of a city once plagued with the highest crime rate in New Jersey, never imagined that their city would become a national leader in crime reduction. In 2003 nearly 7,300 serious crimes were reported to the East Orange Police Department (EOPD)—almost a quarter of which were violent crimes. Worst yet, most residents’ perception of crime was higher than the actual crime rate. Like many police departments, East Orange employed a traditional, reactive approach to gang/drug violence and quality-of-life-problems. Predictably, the results were a stubbornly resilient and worsening crime rate. Three years later, East Orange’s public safety blueprint, known as a suitcase for success, has netted impressive results. The number of serious crimes has dropped to less than 3,200, a crime rate not seen in the city for over 25 years. Murders fell from 24 in 2003 to 9 in 2006. Violent and nonviolent crimes declined 56 percent. A more important achievement is the change in public perception. A sense of community wellness is replacing exasperations and fear as criminals rethink the cost of committing crimes in East Orange. The added sense of safety has greatly enhanced the city’s redevelopment and revitalization efforts, as an increasing number of developers and investors now want to do business in the community. The EOPD has shared its unique policing paradigm, strategies and insights on technology with friends across the country. Two common questions are: “How was it achieved?” and “Can it be replicated elsewhere?” As to the latter question our answer is an unequivocal “yes!” While we know of no generic strategy—no magic bullet—no single technology system that can be employed everywhere with like results, there is a framework for success. Our suitcase of success combines many elements, including best practices, new and not-so-new organizational and management practices including CompStat, information-led and real-time policing techniques, and a network-centric policing paradigm. While we can only scratch the surface of how and why we packed our suitcase as we did, we have highlighted several key elements: Problem Assessment—Get the facts Finding solutions to any problem necessitates a thorough understanding of the challenges before us. Unfortunately, public safety policies are often based on conjecture and theory. For example, juveniles were perceived to be disproportionately involved in violent crime. After a detailed analysis of what we knew and thought we knew about the problems, we found little support for this widespread assumption. In fact, juvenile arrests and overall crime declined proportionately over the last three years.
Redefining Public Safety—A people perspective EOPD members deserve a great deal of the credit for our success. But law enforcement’s perspective of public safety, alone, cannot and will not change the public’s perception and fear of crime in their community. As such, we incorporated residents’ own vision of safe communities into every policing strategy—we call it the 70/30 rule. Initially, 70 percent of every strategy was designed to address problems known to law enforcement and 30 percent to dealing with public safety perceptions. The purpose is to simultaneously deal with the obvious problems and not so obvious perceptions that cause fear of crime and detract from a community’s well being. Information-Led Policing—From theory to practice Whether police departments have limited or an overabundance of resources, the degree of effectiveness will be dictated by the accuracy of information available to them. We created a business intelligence hub known as the Strategic Decision Support Center. Its members manage our intelligence collection circle and analyze a large volume of data using sophisticated analytical and visualization tools. They then produce actionable intelligence in real-time to help direct our efforts to where and when they matter most. Criminal trends and patterns often occur and change quickly. Operating in real-time requires both timely access and rapid police response to accurate criminal intelligence. The EOPD relies on commercial and locally produced technologies to operate in this challenging, but highly effective way. Managing and Organizing for Success Our department’s goals and resources were realigned with our core mission—crime prevention. Public safety is most effectively influenced by a series of law enforcement practices that emphasize crime prevention as the foremost value. One of the most difficult challenges for law enforcement leaders is changing a policing culture that is primarily focused on criminal apprehension after the fact, to one focused on preventing crime in the first place. Our 2005 reorganization leveraged the department’s organizational capacity on crime prevention and added a healthy dose of flexibility that improved bottom-line results. For example, in 2004 the EOPD conducted about 6,389 focused, crime prevention directed patrols in addition to providing other important police services. Without an infusion of additional resources, crime prevention activities increased to 186,454 in 2006 and are nearing 404,000 in 2007. At the same time, in 2006, the department recorded savings of nearly $1,000,000 in salary spending, while adding close to $5.56 million in police services. Much of the department’s efficiency reflects the enormous investment in professional development and training. We are doing a lot more with fewer resources in large part because of the exposure of officers to a variety of tools, techniques and support systems. Training now occurs at every level of the department. As such, the department’s leadership has inculcated a culture that emphasizes high standards of professionalism, responsibility and accountability. Accountability and Transparency Our achievement is also due in large part to the support we have received from our city’s elected officials who believed in and supported our vision. Much like building support from residents, we work hard at earning their support. By operating with a great deal of transparency and as part of a municipal team, we overcame many complex challenges. The EOPD developed a series of successful strategies targeting violent and nonviolent crimes. Our drugs, gang and gun crime strategy yielded a 53 percent decline in shootings and dismantled numerous violent gangs. Tactics are incorporated to influence the criminal mindset; using active and subtle approaches, we continually educate and reeducate our criminal offending population of the increasing probability of apprehension. Finally, we carefully measure, adjust and re-measure until we attain the desired results. Technology In 2004, the use of technology was non-existent. We have come a long way. Our selection of technology revolves around four principles:
EOPD’s network-centric, real-time policing model relies on a robustly networked environment that focuses on real-time information sharing to enhance situational awareness at various levels of the organization. This evolving policing model permits various organizational elements to self-synchronize crime prevention efforts with emerging or ongoing criminal trends and patterns in real-time. Total factor synchronization and real-time policing continue to be EOPD’s most effective strategy for sustainable progress as evidenced by an additional 34 percent reduction in crime during the first ten months of 2007.
The following systems serve as key force multipliers:
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