As the Genesee County Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative checks off the items it needs to cover per Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 203 on community policing, Sheriff William Sheron is taking it a step further by adding increased community input to the list.
Sheron addressed three more topics mandated in the executive order during Monday night’s Zoom videoconference meeting – hot spot policing, focused deterrence and crime prevention through environmental design – but also spoke at length about his department’s need to connect with the public.
“One of the things that needs to come out of this project is to develop a program to meet on a regular basis with the citizens of our county to identify their concerns about criminal activity,” Sheron said.
During the 40-minute meeting, the sheriff outlined several areas that could be improved by regular communication with government and civic leaders as well as residents.
- Annual Crime Statistics Report
Sheron said the plan is to put out a report within the next few months for 2020, detailing the types of crimes by town.
“I think it is very important that we get that out there so the citizens have a clear understanding of what the community is like, what kind of crimes that we are investigating. It’s transparency and I hope to resurrect that for 2020.”
- Regular Town Hall Meetings
Sheron said he looks to meet with community leaders and citizens to find what areas the community would like officers to focus on.
“We don’t formally hold meetings, but again that is an area of improvement. Typically, (we connect through) phone calls, emails, posting on our Facebook page or web page.”
- Speaking at Town & Village Board Meetings
Sheron said he hopes to contact town and village boards to have a spot on their meeting agendas to let them know what activities that are going on in their communities and to get some feedback and suggestions.
“That is something that I would include in the report (to the state by April 1) as that’s an area where we can improve,” he noted.
- Promoting the Tipline ((585) 343-3020) and a Webpage Link for Suggestions
The sheriff said the department receives calls on a regular basis about drug activity and other crimes, but agreed that it needs to be reinforced through public service announcements and other initiatives.
He also said that prior to the next committee meeting on Jan. 4, a link will be added to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Department website that citizens may utilize to submit comments, suggestions, complaints, etc., directly to the agency.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said. “(Now, we really don’t have an area for suggestions and complaints. We will have a link on there for citizens to ask questions and provide information – good, bad and indifferent – and then we can follow up on that.”
HOT SPOT POLICING
Sheron defined hot spot policing as identifying and analyzing specific crime problems and locations and targeting resources toward solving those problems.
“We’re a little bit different in that we cover mostly a rural area opposed to an urban area, so our hot spot policing usually gets developed from citizen complaints – many to do with drug activity, a lot of vehicle and traffic complaints, or that we may be seeing an increase of burglaries or so forth,” he said.
Tools used in this regard, he said, including the Genesee County Drug Task Force (in conjunction with the other county police agencies), confidential informants, the City of Batavia Neighborhood and Enforcement Team, Police Traffic Safety grants, STOP-DWI, Monroe Crime Analysis Center and dedicated patrols in areas of potentially high drug, theft and traffic activity.
“We also have a patrol assigned to a 'hot spot' which is the core detail – Veterans Memorial (Drive) and that area with all the big box stores … where there is tremendous amount of traffic and considerable amount of theft in that area,” he offered.
“Again, this is much different than what you would see in an urban area like Rochester or Buffalo, where they have concentrations on violent crimes, shootings. We don’t have that in this area, thank God, but we do have ‘hot spot’ policing for specific situations."
FOCUSED DETERRENCE
Focused deterrence is a crime-reduction strategy, which aims to deter crime by increasing the swiftness, severity and certainty of punishment, usually directed at a specific crime problem such as gun violence, and primarily administered through prosecution and the courts, Sheron said.
Initiatives utilized in this area include KOPER Patrol, officers assigned to specific areas of suspected criminal activity; cooperation with the district attorney’s office, and the Genesee County Drug Task Force.
“Over the years, county court judges have been harsh with their punishment -- very stern with their sentences – and it sends a message clearly to those individuals that are coming in from outside this area to deal drugs in our communities,” he said.
CRIME PREVENTION/ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
The sheriff explained that attention to environmental design can help to increase the probability that an offender will be caught. Studies show that increased probability of capture tends to deter the commission of crime.
Examples of crime prevention through environmental design would be better lighting in crime-prone areas, conspicuous placement of security cameras with attendant conspicuous signage, elimination of shrubbery where it could serve as a hiding place for an attacker, etc.
In Genesee County, the Sheriff’s Office works with businesses, schools and individuals on crime prevention and personal safety issues; employs Civilian Response to Active Shooter Training, Neighborhood Watch, school resource officers, information about scams against the public, compliance checks at establishments that sell or serve alcohol and responsible server training.
He mentioned that cooperation among all law enforcement agencies in Genesee County goes a long way in the success of these programs.
“We do have a tremendous sharing of information and cooperation between the city and county,” Sheron said. “Genesee County as a whole … I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the cooperation as good as it is now.”
