The Harford County Sheriff?s Office is moving toward implementing a big-city program to track the suburban county?s crime.
Sheriff Jesse Bane promised he would implement in Harford the Comstat crime tracking program pioneered in New York City and already used in Baltimore. Harford?s program is expected to begin in late summer or early fall, with cooperation from the Maryland State Police and municipal police departments, he said.
“Comstat is useful in any jurisdiction that has a crime problem. … If it?s working elsewhere, it can work here,” Bane said.
Crime analysts will use the system to collect data on 911 calls, crimes and complaints and look for patterns or concentrations; law enforcement can then be redeployed according to where the crime is, Bane said. Patrolling officers will still maintain a presence throughout the county, but special units and community resources can be concentrated where they?re needed.
“We?ll still have geographic patrols,” Bane said. “We?re not going to say, ?We have 47 percent of the crime in Edgewood, so we?re going to put 47 percent of our personnel there.? ”
The Sheriff?s Office has only one trained crime analyst but is applying for a grant to hire another. A records clerk is taking classes in statistics and analysis to become the third person on staff. Between the grants for additional personnel and using existing computer equipment, Bane said he didn?t anticipate Comstat costing the county anything extra.
The sheriff?s command staff members are all required to take a one-day training session at Harford Community College taught by Phyllis McDonald, who helped develop the program for the New York City Transit Authority and is now a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
The course reviewed how Comstat works and how other jurisdictions have used it both successfully and unsuccessfully, said Sgt. Christina Presberry, a police spokeswoman who attended the first class Monday.
“I see Comstat taking the place of community policing; taking it further using the statistics,” Presberry said.
