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Crime & Safety

New Policing Strategy Aims at Working Smarter, Not Harder

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department wants to use resources more effectively with "intelligence-led" policing.

Two weeks ago, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore announced a new policing strategy that increases reliance on intelligence-gathering techniques and crime analysis to focus resources.

As part of the newly proposed $607 million budget, eight new deputies and a sergeant would be deployable to areas in parts of San Diego the sheriff’ department serves.

“Essentially, if you have to call it something, it’s called intelligence-led policing,” said Imperial Beach Sheriff Station Capt. David Myers. “It incorporates all the best practices over the years – crime prevention, community-oriented policing, components of information-led policing—and it puts them all together.”

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Instead of “scattering deputies out to the hither lands,” the new officers will hone their attentions to areas with the highest need as the department looks for ways to utilize limited resources. The new strategy focuses on being effective and resourceful, Myers said.

“It would be nice for me down here in Imperial Beach to put a deputy on every corner – but the city doesn’t have that kind of money,” he said. “And in my opinion, that’s not the wisest way to use the money. We’ve got to be smarter in what we do.”

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Myers would know.

Two years ago, he started a Border Crime Suppression Team funded by a federal grant that used similar techniques. The 22-member team specifically addressed criminals who exploited the border region.

“Drug cartels, white supremacists, outlaw motorcycle gang members – it’s a wide variety,” he said. “Instead of just putting a bunch of cops around doing stuff near the border, we developed (the Border Crime Suppression Team) strategy that can concentrate on those crooks.”

The results of that work were the motivation behind Gore’s latest strategy, one that Myers said has also been implemented in Imperial Beach over the last two years as the IB station captain.

Crime is down in Imperial Beach and much of San Diego County, according to the San Diego Association of Governments recent Thirty Years of Crime report.

“We’ve been able to use this concept of intelligence-led policing to develop strategies so we put cops at the right places at the right times to address the right problems,” he said.

Myers will speak in detail about Imperial Beach’s crime prevention strategies at the July 6 City Council meeting.

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