Law enforcement technologySheriffs in Pasco County, Florida to stop crimes before they happen

Solving the puzzle before the event // Source: preliatorgroup.com

Local law enforcement officials in Florida are taking a new more proactive approach to fighting crime.

Last week Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco announced that the department would begin implementing what he calls “intelligence-led policing.” Under his plan, officers will focus on gathering intelligence and sharing that information with local, state, and federal agencies to stop crimes before they occur.

“Instead of being reactive, we are going to be proactive,”Nocco said. The Sheriff’s department is still in the early stages of adopting Nocco’s “philosophy shift,” and he has yet to talk about the specifics of the plan.

Intelligence led policing is not an entirely new approach to law enforcement and many Pasco county sheriff’s deputies and detectives already use this approach.

According to Lieutenant Stephen Jones, an officer with the New Jersey State Police, his agency has been using this method since 2005. The technique has proven useful in helping to predict where criminals will strike next.

For instance in a string of gas station robberies in New Jersey, law enforcement officials mapped out the locations that were robbed to predict the thief’s next target and waited there for the robber.

“We’re catching people red-handed,” Jones said.

He added that this method of police work is “really the only way to get things done in an era when budgets are a concern. Essentially, you want to put your resources to work in the areas where they will be most effective.”

In Pasco County, Sheriff Nocco will face about $3 million in budget cuts, but has requested twenty-three new employees including ten more detectives, two sergeants, and three intelligence analysts.

With the additional staff, Nocco plans to have the analysts map crime patterns. In addition, he wants to form two detective squads led by a sergeant. He says these will be his special operations units that will focus on apprehending targeted criminals.

Funding for the staffing increases will come from $4.4 million in retirement savings that stem from the agency’s compliance to state laws.

According to Sheriff Nocco 6 percent of offenders commit 60 percent of crimes, and so his department will begin more closely monitoring these individuals. In addition, by mapping crime patterns, patrols can be targeted to when and where crimes are expected to occur.

In particular, Sheriff Nocco wants to battle the prescription pill epidemic that has plagued Pasco County.

“To say it is destroying our families, our loved ones and our future is an understatement,” Nocco said. It is “astronomical what it has done to our community.”

In Pasco, 72 percent of children are removed from homes because their parents are abusing prescription pills and the number of prison inmates who require detox programs from prescription pills has doubled in the past two years.

Intelligence led policing was first implemented in the United Kingdom in the mid 1990s and has slowly made its way to the United States. In the years following 9/11, it has gained increasing popularity with more police departments using it.

Dr. Ernie Scott, a visiting professor of criminology at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, said that some privacy advocates are concerned about the notion that police officers are closely monitoring people who have not committed any crimes.

With this new approach, Dr. Scott said that law enforcement agencies are “trying to find a balance between security and liberty.”

So far the sheriff’s offices in nearby Hillsborough County, Florida took an intelligence led policing approach in 2008 and officials there say that it is largely responsible for a 25 percent reduction in crime.