Dover Police say Enhanced Visibility Patrols serving to tackle crime hotspots

The Dover Police Department says its Enhanced Visibility Patrols are displaying effectiveness.

The Enhanced Visibility Patrols program started earlier this 12 months as a method to make the most of faculty useful resource officers, who ordinarily have little to do throughout summer season months.

The program locations these further officers in areas police have outlined as crime hotspots by utilizing criticism numbers for each the emergency and non-emergency strains.

Operations Division Commander Captain Kevin Streadwick says this concept is one thing that different police departments have used successfully.

“We in the police profession take good ideas across the entire profession and use it to try it our neighborhoods. Major cities have tried- what they call hotspot patrols, what we call our summer initiative- and, we’re seeing double digit increases in improvements in certain target areas.” he mentioned.

He provides the identification of “hotspots” is predicated on what he calls a “data based approach” to policing.

“Any time a complaint is called in, our dispatchers put it into the [system] depending on what they do, how the complaint works out- adjusted to shoplifting, trespassing, a welfare check. That all goes into the system. I took all that data, over a five-year period, and looked at the time, the date, and the peak times and dates.” he mentioned.

Steadwick says because the program started, some hotspots are seeing a big lower in complaints in comparison with their common for this time of 12 months.

He notes locations like Target and Route 8’s Wawa location have seen an over 20% lower in criticism calls.

The patrols are scheduled to proceed by the tip of August, ending with the beginning of the brand new faculty 12 months.