By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Police Chief Jeff Hooper notes that the proactive policing his department is doing appears to be working from a statistical standpoint.
"So far this year, we have crime down an additional over 30%," Hooper said. "The first year I was here, we were able to lower crime about 28% and now we're down an additional 30-some percent and so, we've reduced crime over 50% in the three years since we implemented our intelligence-led policing strategy."
Proactive policing really is strengthened with good data collection.
"We're using a new analyst tool," Hooper said. "We're calling it a near-repeat analysis. What my analyst has discovered is that when a Part 1 crime occurs in this community, there's a 43% greater likelihood that a second Part 1 crime will occur within 1000 feet of that crime within the next seven days."
The department puts those on a map that all officers have access to.
"Especially where you have where two of those or three of those intersect, obviously, there's a very high likelihood that's going to be where another crime is going to occur in the next week," Hooper said. "We use that mapping strategy. It's put up in our shift detail room. Every vehicle has it on their screen. When officers aren't responding to calls, they are out on foot patrol or they are patrolling those high areas where those near repeat statistics show that they should be."
Sometimes there are reasons that things like property crimes happen in certain areas like inadequate lighting or poorly maintained property. In those cases, police work with other city agencies to address the civil concerns that make it easier for offenders to commit crimes.