Giving Thanks

 

On this holiday week, we would like to express our thanks and gratitude to safety and security, law enforcement, emergency management, and other campus professionals. Your services help to ensure safe environments for students, faculty, administrators, staff, and visitors. Thank you!

Violent Crime Reduction

 

Last month, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Major Cities Chiefs Association released the Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide (PDF) in an effort to address ways in which law enforcement can successfully combat violent crime. While there is discussion about and research on the increase and/or decrease in crime in the U.S., how violent crime is felt in communities and how policing executives respond is nuanced. Each jurisdiction has its own unique set of challenges, stakeholders, and resources making a singular or static solution unlikely to be effective. This guide outlines actions and activities that are relatable agency to agency and that have contributed to successful crime-fighting strategies throughout the country. This guide complements existing resources and was written by chiefs and for chiefs. This "for the field, by the field" perspective combines best practices and research to assist all law enforcement executives in assessing their overall capacity and answering the question, "Where do we go from here?"

 

The guide begins by discussing leadership and how the success of any strategy is dependent on this important element. The guide goes on to discuss problem identification and analysis, the first steps in determining strategies and deploying resources. By identifying the characteristics of violent crime, and carefully analyzing the causes of crime, law enforcement can implement effective, evidence-based enforcement and prevention strategies such as hot-spot policing, problem-oriented policing, directed patrols, and focused deterrence.

 

Following is an outline of critical elements, or essential components of crime-fighting strategies, including community engagement, partnerships, technology, analytics and intelligence, training, tactics, resources and sustainability, and accountability. In the guide, each of these critical elements is set up in a format to assist agency executives in determining their respective capacity in each area. The administrative side of the crime fight is discussed, as well as the importance of grants management. The case studies section features programs from throughout the country that may generate ideas, peer-to-peer exchanges of information, and a community of learning among law enforcement agencies and their partners. They illustrate programs that include the critical elements contained in the guide. The guide concludes with an appendix that provides a high-level outline of programs, resources, training, and assistance available to support police executives in building capacity.

 

In July 2018, a group of campus safety leaders and subject-matter experts, with support from the National Center for Campus Public Safety, gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one-day forum to discuss campus safety's role and strategies for preventing violence in their communities. The resulting report (PDF) contains a number of promising s trategic practices identified by participants that campus safety teams can implement to prevent violence in their college and university campus communities.

 

For additional information, visit the National Resource and Technical Assistance Center for Improving Law Enforcement Investigations' violent crime reduction strategies web page .

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