City of Rochester
News Release
(Friday, March 3, 2017) – Mayor Lovely A. Warren and Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminelli released two reports today that collectively demonstrate that the Rochester Police Department is well positioned to enhance its community engagement initiatives on the foundation of the Department’s Five-Section Patrol Model.
“We now have a blueprint for engagement and a strong foundation to build it on,” said Mayor Warren. “We will strengthen the bond between our officers and the community. And together, we will make our city safer than it has ever been.”
The RPD released the report on the 90 Days of Community Engagement along with a comprehensive evaluation of the patrol division reorganization, which took the Department from two divisions to five sections.
The 90 Day report produced a set of action items that will help the RPD and the community develop a better understanding of each other.
“While we do not suggest that these initiatives will solve all of our issues, they will — in conjunction with a number of other initiatives already underway — greatly advance our ongoing efforts to improve and solidify RPD’s relationship with the Rochester community,” Chief Ciminelli wrote in his introduction to the report.
The report identified eight key themes that can provide direction to improve the relationship between the RPD and the community: Communication; training; education; relationship building; transparency; diversity and respect; and youth outreach. The report goes on to provide several initiatives to address each theme, such as creating a Communication Task Force that consists of members of the community and RPD; and developing a cadre of
Community Recruiters, or members of the community who will help the RPD recruit candidates to the Department.
The report was based on a series of community meetings in each section, a telephone town hall, an on-line survey and meetings with stakeholders over a 90 day period.
The Department also released its evaluation of the Patrol Division Reorganization, which was launched in 2014.
The Evaluation concludes that the new five-section patrol model is working successfully in practice and the analysis that was used to determine the section and car-beat boundaries was accurate. Most metrics of police service remained the same or improved.
During the evaluation period under the new model, overtime hours driven by personnel shortages and response times declined, as did citizen requests to speak to a responding officer’s supervisor. The evaluation also showed that the work load among most of the car beats is evenly distributed and the majority of calls for service are answered by the patrol officer assigned to the beat that includes the address of the caller.
During both years under the new patrol model, rates of Part 1 crime, those determined by the FBI to be the most serious, declined.
The evaluation provides confidence that the Section boundaries and car beats were established correctly and the RPD can now make the capital investments to identify sites and locate offices in each section. The RPD can also undertake a more extensive community engagement process with the residents of each section without concern that the section boundaries will change during the process.
Deputy Chief Wayne Harris will discuss the new Blueprint for Engagement at the Police Citizens Interaction Committee meetings in each of the patrol sections.
Note, due to weather and other events in the Sections, several of these meetings were cancelled. A new round of discussions is being planned.
The schedule for those discussions is:
• Goodman Section: 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 8 at the SE Neighborhood Service Center, 320 North Goodman St. (Cancelled for neighborhood vigil)
• Genesee Section: 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 8 at Staybridge Suites Rochester University, 1000 Genesee St.
• Clinton Section: 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 14 at the NE Neighborhood Service Center, 500 Norton St. (Cancelled for weather)
• Lake Section: 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 21 at The Aquinas Institute, 1127 Dewey Ave.
• Central Section: 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, March 15, at RPD Central Section Office, 30 N. Clinton Ave. (Cancelled for weather)
To read the full reports, visit www.cityofrochester.gov/RPDOpenData/.
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News Media: For more information, contact Jessica Alaimo at 428-7135.