INSIDE the Lakeland Police Department

Crime - A Small Part of Our Workload

One of the blogs we follow everyday is The Chief's Corner from Chief Tom Casady at the Lincoln (NE) Police Department. Chief Casady is a really sharp individual with a keen interest in crime analysis, crime data, and community policing.

In a recent blog posting, he noted how crime in his community accounted for approximately 8.9% of Lincoln PD's overall workload. Does that seem unusual to you?

In reality, that percentage is right on target for many police agencies. Our numbers in Lakeland indicated UCR Part I Crime (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft) accounted for a little over 6% of our total workload last year.

You may wonder how that can be?

The vast array of calls for service we get on a daily basis only include reports of Part I crime a small portion of the time. Traffic crash calls, disturbances, various police services like checking on someone's welfare or false alarm calls, directed patrols, and traffic enforcement comprise a big part of our total workload. While it's true that preventing crime and investigating reported crime is our primary mission, there is so much more to what we do everyday.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Charting Crime Trends

January always brings about the publication of annual crime stats for the past year. Initial numbers are showing a slight reduction in overall crime and property crime with a little bigger decrease in violent crime. We are in the process of auditing our UCR data in preparation for publishing the 2008 crime stats later this month.

In the mean time, I recently looked over the Weekly Crime Trend Charts for 2006 - 2008, a tool that we use on a weekly basis to identify emerging crime trends. For a "data geek" like me, these charts are a quick visual overview of crime numbers in comparison to previous years.

I share these charts with you so you can see how we monitor crime trends every week. Let me know if there is any interest in publishing these charts on a more frequent basis.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lakeland Police Release September 2008 UCR Data Report

The crime data for the September_2008_UCR Report have been released. Overall year-to-date crime is down 5% from the same period last year. Violent crime is down 22% and property crime is down 3%.

Our web site contains crime data from previous years, too. If you are interested in learning more about the UCR crime reporting system, visit the FBI's UCR web page.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

November 2007 UCR Figures Released

The November 2007 Uniform Crime Report is now available on the Department's website. Please note these figures through the first 11 months of the year are preliminary pending our end of the year audit, but they do show a basic overview of reported crime in Lakeland.

Our complete annual report of crime will be released in February following submission to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and confirmation of the numbers.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Traffic Safety: Something's Working in Lakeland

One of the more difficult aspects of measuring police performance is to determine if what you are doing is really working in the field. We refer to this as measuring outcomes versus outputs.

Unlike a sterile science lab, cops are often unable to use the basic scientific method of measuring conditions before hand, applying some type of intervention, and then measuring things afterward do determine if what you did made a difference. And because we try so many things at once, it is difficult to say which strategy (if any) changed things or if chance simply occurred. (Apologies to all of my former science teachers and statistics professors for simplifying this explanation.)

Take traffic safety for instance...

We rely on the Three Es - Education, Engineering, and Enforcement - to improve traffic safety in Lakeland. One of the ways we determine our success is the by the number traffic crashes reported to the police. The theory goes something like this; you educate drivers, you design safety roadway systems, and you give tickets to traffic violators. In the end we hope to have less crashes today than yesterday.

Something is working in Lakeland...

According to data from our CAD system, our Planning and Research Section reports traffic crashes of all types (from the least serious to the most serious) are down 4.6% for the first seven months of 2007 as compared to the same period last year. P&R examined data from the City of Lakeland's Traffic Operations for the more serious crashes that result in a report being written during the first six months of the year. That analysis found the more serious crashes in 2007 were down 17% from 2006 and estimated amount of property damage down 9%.

Think about it - more drivers on the roads and less crashes. Whether it's education, engineering, or enforcement, something is working in Lakeland.

-Asst Chief Bill LePere

When is a Police Department Considered to be Good?

Here's something to think about regarding police performance measures -

Is a police department good when they are doing their job by making lots of arrests and issuing lots of traffic citations, or is a police department good when they do not make lots of arrests?

Looked at another way, does making arrests and issuing citations make a police department good at promoting public safety?

If not, how do you tell if your police department is considered to be good?

Tell me what you think...

-Asst Chief Bill LePere