Mayor Emanuel and Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent Eddie Johnson recently announced the deployment of 86 new officers as part of the plan to grow the Department by 970 police officers. In addition, CPD’s new smart policing technology, utilizing predictive strategies, has also been expanded to the 12th (Near West) District.
The 86 new officers were deployed to their district assignments, adding to the 720 sworn members who have joined the Department since the beginning of the hiring plan.
Residents will notice new officers have been added in every police district in the 42nd Ward: the 1st (Central) district will receive 20 new officers, the 12th (Near West) district will receive 10 new officers, and the 18th (Near North) district will receive 20 new officers.
Additional districts receiving new officers include: the 2nd (Wentworth) district, 14th (Shakespeare) district, and 19th (Town Hall) district.
After successfully completing their training at the Academy in December 2017, these new officers have now completed their field training and are being sent to their first district detail. The new officers will benefit from the new in-service training requirement, which begins with 16-hours of mandatory training and will necessitate that all Department members take 40 hours of continuing education annually by 2021. These officers also benefited from a new cultural awareness course taught at the DuSable Museum of African American History, and new de-escalation, crisis intervention and procedural justice modules.
A station-based Strategic Decision Support Center has also been installed in the 12th (Near West) District, with additional POD crime cameras set to be complete next month, to support police in preventing, combating and responding to violent crime. The implementation of these predictive technology and analytical tools builds upon CPD’s crime strategy of targeted, data-driven enforcement to build a culture of accountability among violent offenders. Year-to-date, across the first eight police districts that currently utilize these tools, shootings are down by nearly 34% compared to the same period last year, outpacing the reductions citywide, which stands at 28%.
POD Crime Cameras Expansion
The City will increase the number of POD crime cameras in the 12th (Near West) District by the end of next month. The POD crime camera footprint will be increased to support improving investigations, including the recovery of reported stolen vehicles, responding to calls for service more efficiently, and deploying officers more strategically.
Strategic Decision Support Centers
The Strategic Decision Support Center (SDSC) that has been installed in the 12th (Near West) District will utilize existing data sources within CPD, such as offender criminal history databases, and past crime data. The new SDSC places all this information into a single, usable, platform to help district command staff and officers plan for patrol deployments or prepare to respond to a call for service. The new centers will each be staffed with a civilian University of Chicago data analyst who will collect and analyze data trends, and partner with a District Intelligence Officer to coordinate the information directly with patrol units in the field.
Mobile Technology
CPD will also issue mobile phones equipped with crime analysis tools to every beat officer who responds to a service call in the 12th (Near West) District. These devices will give real-time access to district intelligence information to police officers in the field, helping them determine deployment strategies based on historical crime data. This mobile technology will allow for smarter, data driven patrols and significantly decreased response times to potential service calls.
Smart Policing Strategies were implemented in 2017, in six police districts on the south and west sides where gun violence presented the greatest challenge for decades – 6th (Gresham), 7th (Englewood), 9th (Deering), 10th (Ogden), 11th (Harrison), and 15th (Austin). During January 2018, this technology was expanded to the 3rd (Grand Crossing) and 4th (South Chicago) Districts, and in February, to the 5th (Calumet) District.
To read the full press release, click here.
Source: Alderman Reilly Reports 3/9/18
