Community policing: How to catch criminals faster

There are an infinite number of places for criminals to hide after they commit a crime, making it extremely difficult for police officers to find a perpetrator after they have left the scene. Departments have limited resources that can be assigned to search for on- the-run criminals, which can be an issue when time is of the essence. By leveraging Community Policing, departments can greatly increase the number of resources available during a search. In 2015, the average police department had only 16.6 officers per 10,000 residents. This can translate into a seemingly never ending sea of faces for criminals to hide among. But what if those 10,000 residents were also looking for the fugitive? The odds of the criminal being found and apprehended would skyrocket, simply by turning uninformed residents into alerted eyes on the ground. This is the exact scenario that played out Fairfield, NJ recently after a shoplifter escaped from a police cruiser and made a run for it. Police were initially unable to recapture the runaway shoplifter,  so they decided to send an Everbridge Nixle alert to residents in the area where the shoplifter was last seen. Sure enough, a local resident saw the alert and recognized the man in the picture and alerted authorities to his location. Using this information, police were able to quickly find and arrest the shoplifter, simply by leveraging members of the community who would have otherwise had no idea there was a search happening at all. This is the concept of community policing for finding missing persons, whether they be an escaped criminal or an at-risk resident who went missing. At the end of the day, residents want to help local law enforcement keep crime off their streets, so why not enable them to make a difference? An efficient emergency notification system can allow any department to connect with residents at a minute’s notice and immediately begin leveraging the community in the search, whatever it may be for. Learn more about Everbridge Nixle here. Discover more about Community Policing.