Southaven Lowers Crime With TV
(Southaven, MS 7/16/2012) Police in one local city are using TV to make the streets safer.
Police not only fight crime, they gather a ton of statistics as they do their jobs.
Usually only the top brass sees that information, but now Southaven Police have adopted the idea that knowledge is power and they’re using TV to spread the word among the troops who keep our streets safe.
Amy McGuire considers her Colonial Hills neighborhood safe, mostly because people on her street watch out for each other, ”I know my neighbors and we have an understanding that if one of us is gone, we watch out for each other.”
But she does have concerns about her mother’s neighborhood which recently saw some car burglaries.
Southaven police now have a new tool in tackling crimes like that.
They call it SPDTV, or Southaven Police Department TV.
It displays the latest information cops on the street need to know about, and includes crime statistics right down to street level.
”It lets me know where in the area I’m working that crime is occurring so I can be there more often,” said Lt. Mark Little of the Southaven Police Department.
It shares information among all the troops that only the top brass had before, and helps officers identify hot spots without having to be told about them.
Southaven officers can not only come in and tell where crime is happening, they can also tell at a glance what time of day it happens.
It can also help supervisors steer extra patrols to problem areas, giving officers time to observe who’s coming and going, and who might not belong in the neighborhood.
”They start making more traffic stops, they start stopping people that are are walking,” said Little.
And hopefully, curb crime, or even stop it before it happens.
Folks in the neighborhood believe seeing more cops means they’ll see less crime.
”Absolutely, if my area is one of ‘em I sure hope they’re coming by here to work.”
How well is SPDTV working?
Consider this, in June, Southaven saw 30 break-ins between cars and homes.
So far this month, they’ve had only three, and expect they can cut the number of July burglaries in half.
