Submitted by: Crime Prevention Committee

Cosponsored by: Police Investigative Operations Committee

CPC.10.20

WHEREAS, the October 2019 edition of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Police Chief magazine was dedicated to the enhancements of crime prevention methods and programs that ultimately were found to lower crime and enhanced the quality of life for our communities; and

WHEREAS, the use of joint crime prevention education programs, along with community-police engagement coupled with a proactive policing strategy, dramatically lowered crime rates across the United States, ultimately keeping these crime rates low for more than 20 years; and

WHEREAS, these traditional methods of crime prevention and proactive community policing have established a tried and true benefit to our cities and towns nationwide; and

WHEREAS, in some communities, the tradition of patrol officers and detectives staying engaged with proactive policing has slowed, and in some metropolitan areas, it has regressed to the point that fewer and fewer field stops of individuals suspected of committing crimes is occurring;34 and, this reduction in proactive field interviews of suspicious individuals has caused some communities to experience an increase in quality of life crimes;35 and

WHEREAS, in many midsize and larger metropolitan police jurisdictions, due to a variety of reasons, proactive police-and-suspect field engagements has declined dramatically, and in some states where policies have contributed to a reduction in proactive policing, like California, crime has been on the increase for the first time in over 20 years;36 and

WHEREAS, a strategy of using low-cost GPS tracking technologies where items typically stolen in a community were secured with electronic/GPS clandestine trackers, and the offenders stealing these items would be captured during their criminal act, and thus removed from the community;37 and

WHEREAS, this strategy of using low-cost GPS technologies for targeted arrests has allowed officers to reengage in the field with suspects during their criminal acts, with the evidentiary support of confirmed probable cause, thus avoiding any of the civil or political issues or conflicts or other specious complaints;38 and

WHEREAS, an article in the October 2019 IACP Police Chief magazine outlined many cities already successfully employing this GPS technology of part of their community policing strategy, including Redlands, California; Nassau County, New York; Miami-Dade, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and San Francisco, California; and

WHEREAS, these and other U.S. cities and towns have successfully used this electronic-based GPS crime prevention method, including business and community locations, to impact repressible quality-of-life crimes like convenience store robberies, vehicle burglaries, commercial safe thefts, bicycle thefts from campus environments, tire and wheel thefts, construction site thefts, brass fire department connections and scrap metal thefts, pharmacy burglaries, vending machine thefts, parcel thefts (USPS/UPS/FedEx), laptop thefts from student coffee shops, organized retail crime (ORC), smartphone robberies and burglaries, credit card skimming thefts, and cemetery/graveside thefts;39and,

WHEREAS, in these cities and towns where these modern-day crime prevention strategies have been employed have enjoyed significant reductions in thefts/robberies/burglaries, and other quality-of-life crimes, it is recommended that the IACP promote these crime prevention strategies on a large-scale basis;40 therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the IACP, will hereby support the overall concept of preventing crime through the application of GPS-based technology; and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the IACP recommends that its members foster understanding and promote dialogue of this crime prevention method through GPS-based technology within the policing profession to lower crime, ultimately remove offenders and lower the necessity of arrests due to lower incidents of crime, and thus enhance the quality of life in our communities.

34 Mark Berman et al., “Major U.S. Cities, Gripped with Crisis, Now Face Spike in Deadly Shootings, Including of  Children,” Washington Post, July 6, 2020; Mark Morales and Eric Levenson, “New York City Crime Stats Show Spike  in Burglaries and Murders So Far This Year,” CNN, June 16, 2020; Marcus Santos and Anthony M. DeStefano,  “NYPD Commissioner Immediately Disbands Controversial Plainclothes Anti-crime Unit,” Newsday, July 16, 2020.

35 Public Policy Institute of California, “Proposition 47 Linked to Increase in Some Property Crimes, But Not Violent  Crime,” press release, June 13, 2018; Timothy Williams, “Violent Crime in U.S. Rises for Second Consecutive Year,” New York Times, September 25, 2017.

36 Erica Sandberg, “After Proposition 47: Crime and No Consequences in California,” National Review, January 30, 2018.

37 Travis Martinez, Using GPS Technology to Investigate Crime Trends (National Resource and Technical Assistance Center for Improving Law Enforcement Investigations, 2017).

38 Martinez, Using GPS Technology to Investigate Crime Trends.

39 Richard T. Long, “Crime Prevention Through Targeted Arrest Strategies,” Police Chief Online, October 23, 2019.

40 Martinez, Using GPS Technology to Investigate Crime Trends.