Nassau #1 Ranking Shows Intelligence-Led Community Policing Works

Whether you’re a Mayor, County Executive, Governor, or President, keeping residents safe and healthy is always your first job. Naturally, I’m especially proud that Nassau County was just been named by U.S. News & World Report as the safest community in America for 2020. US News looked at public safety through a comprehensive lens, assessing 3,000 municipalities for a variety of factors, including violent crime rate, vehicle crash fatality rate, the share of public safety professionals within a population and per capita spending on health and emergency services, including local fire and police protection. No one scored higher than us.

As state and federal lawmakers grapple with solutions to improve policing, it’s imperative that we work together to fix what isn’t working, but we must also recognize what does work and build on that progress. Comparing us to other jurisdictions can sometimes be like comparing apples and oranges, but it’s worth taking a look at what’s happened in Nassau County. We’ve seen a remarkable and sustained decline in major crime – a reduction of about 1/3 over the past decade. And so far in 2020? Major crime continues to go down. How did this happen? It’s important to first credit Nassau County PD, District Attorney, Fire Service, Sheriff’s Office, Probation, EMTs, and other first responders for the outstanding job they’ve done for residents. However, another important takeaway from Nassau becoming the safest in America worth highlighting is that intelligence-led, community-based policing works.

Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder has been a pioneer of intelligence-led, or “hot spot” policing, in which law enforcement gathers existing data about arrests, criminal records, domestic incidents, traffic stops, and gang activity – then runs analytics against that data to better identify patterns and accordingly allocate police resources. In an era of ever-shrinking local government budgets, efficiency is the name of the game. Intelligence-led policing can’t work without a collaborative approach that combines problem-solving policing, information sharing, and enhanced intelligence operations. The system depends on cooperation among various agencies at the federal, state, and local level, and perhaps most importantly – a close bond between law enforcement and the local community. This approach gets results: Nassau’s partnership with federal and state partners, along with close cooperation from the community, has been critical to our success in eradicating gang violence and stemming the flow of deadly drugs like Fentanyl into our neighborhoods.

Intelligence-led policing recognizes that society can’t arrest its way out of problems, and instead focuses on partnering with the community to identify potential victims and repeat offenders, then provide low-level offenders the opportunity to change their behavior before getting in trouble for a more serious crime. Nassau has invested in proactive community partnerships that promote this model, such as alternatives-to-incarceration programs for juvenile offenders, and the results speak for themselves: Both our county jail population and our major crime rate are at historic lows.

So, how is Nassau building on the success of what we’ve achieved? By investing in smart policing, and by building trust between police and the communities they serve. Next year, Nassau County will cut the ribbon on a state-of-the-art Training and Intelligence Center, continuing our commitment to intelligence-led policing, while ensuring our law enforcement receive the highest level of training. I’m proposing an increase in the number of Problem-Oriented Policing Officers, where each officer is assigned a member of a Youth Advisory Council consisting of young leaders focused on criminal justice issues and improving police-community relations. I’m also calling for an expansion of the Police Athletic League, which allows Police to directly interact with youth in communities through sports, crafts, educational programs, and more.

Nassau is committing to building trust through accountability. At my direction, the County is now reviewing proposals from vendors for implementation of body-worn cameras, which have proven to be a valuable tool in promoting safety and transparency – something government can always use more of. That’s why we formed working groups bringing protest organizers and law enforcement to the table to engage in good faith and work towards solutions that improve public safety and build trust between Police and the community.

In short, we’re building on what works, and where there is room for improvement, we always strive to do better. In these divisive times, it’s important to demonstrate that maintaining public safety, supporting the police, and improving policing are not mutually exclusive. You may not read about it often, but it’s possible to do it all. Nassau County is proof.