Public and Private
T
he recent economic downturn has had a significant impact on law enforcement nationwide. According to a 2010 publication from the Police Executive Research Forum entitled “Is the Economic Downturn Fundamentally Changing How We Police?” the average budget cut experienced by many police agencies is approximately 7 percent. In spite of cuts in pay, furloughs, layoffs, and the dissolution of specialized units, police agencies are still expected to provide the same level of quality public safety services as they did during times of economic vitality. How can the quality of the law enforcement services provided not be impacted during these hard economic times? For the Albuquerque (NM) Police Department, the answer is that we had to change the way we police. At the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) we have accomplished this by engaging our community.
An Eye-Opening Beginning
When we started down this road in 2006, we were not facing the current economic crisis. We began this journey with the purpose of better serving our community based on the needs defined by our citizenry. We had assembled a Community Policing Steering Committee to provide direction on how we should work with our citizens. While the APD had focused on neighborhood
policing, the committee asked the question, “What about the business community?” Thus, it was our citizens who prompted us to hold a “business summit” in May 2006 where we developed our first public-private partnership that is now known as the Albuquerque Retail Assets Protection Association (ARAPA). In conjunction with some of the loss prevention professionals employed by retailers such as Target, Walgreens, and Smiths, we held our initial ARAPA meeting to exchange information about crime impacting the retail sector. Our law enforcement personnel gathered toward the back of the meeting room with arms crossed, thinking they were at a meeting that would not provide anything new or different. Moments after the meeting started, this all changed. Retailers had brought photos and videos of offenders committing “their” crimes to illustrate their stories of criminal victimization. The very first case discussed was presented by Walgreens and involved an offender who was sweeping product from shelves at an area store, walking out with hundreds of dollars in merchandise. After seeing the photo of the suspect, one of the officers in the back of the room stood up and stated that he had investigated the same guy for an auto burglary the previous week. At this point arms in the back of the room became uncrossed, and the basis of the ARAPA partnership began.
Information Sharing
Members of the Albuquerque Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit include (front row from left) Det. Al Velarde, Sergeant Mizel Garcia, Det. Lawrence Saavedra, (back row from left) Detectives Scott McMurrough, Vicente Alvarado, Jerrod Pelot, and Dakota Moore.
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March - April 2012
After establishing the foundation for this public-private partnership, the next hurdle we faced involved improving communication and information sharing between law enforcement and retailers. It was after ARAPA received recognition as a “Best Practices in Community Policing” by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in 2008, that Target Corporation provided the initial funding for a web developer to work with us to create the web-based, real-time crime alert system we now call CONNECT, which stands for Community-Oriented Notification Network Enforcement Communication Technology. The philosophy behind CONNECT establishes that in order to improve public safety, we have to employ proactive methods for our private-sector partners to be engaged in addressing community safety needs. In a traditional police response to crime, victims call police when a crime occurs and an officer is dispatched to take a police report. The report is written, filed, and approved via police procedure and, at some point in the coming week or more, the case is assigned to a detective for follow-up. Prior to ARAPA and CONNECT, our detectives and retail personnel would both be investigating the same offender for different crimes and not be working together, thus they would not be linking the offender’s criminal activity. With the public-private partnership model, loss prevention personnel are accepted as crime fighting partners. Through CONNECT’s real-time information-sharing technology, we level the communication platform by recognizing that police can no longer be a community’s sole response to dealing with crime and public safety issues. By allowing our community to be equal partners in APD’s crime-fighting strategy, we expand the resources available to us to fight crime, which becomes a force multiplier in addressing Albuquerque’s public safety needs. |
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