OPERATION IMPACT COUNTIES RECEIVE TRAINING AT UALBANY

UAlbany and New York State's Division of Criminal Justice Services Offer State-of-the-Art Training to More Than 30 Officers From the IMPACT Counties

Governor George E. Pataki today announced that the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) joined forces to launch the first crime analysis workshop for Operation IMPACT law enforcement officials. The workshop, aimed at providing support and hands-on computer training in crime mapping and analysis for police departments in New York State, is the first training since the Governor announced the historic partnerships with UAlbany and John Jay College as part of Operation IMPACT II.

"These historic partnerships, which are the foundation of Operation IMPACT's strategic crime control and prevention initiatives, will provide local law enforcement leaders with the additional resources they need to drive crime down even further," Governor Pataki said. "The training that UAlbany is offering this week will be invaluable to the IMPACT sites and enhance the success of Operation IMPACT. By providing police officers across the State with the most cutting-edge and innovative tools to understand and attack crime in their communities, we will make the citizens of the state even safer than they already are."

Director of Criminal Justice Chauncey G. Parker said, "Operation IMPACT was created by Governor Pataki to help us meet our goal of making New York the safest state in the nation by 2009. The innovative partnership with UAlbany will allow us to elevate our crime fighting capabilities to a new level in the most crime plagued communities throughout the state. The workshop that was held this week is a critical step towards further implementing the key components of Operation IMPACT - building crime analysis skills for tactical and strategic policing in departments throughout the state."

Crime Prevention and Control

Operation IMPACT is built on a platform of successful crime reduction strategies developed through data-driven problem assessment, strategic planning, and accountability. The new partnership with UAlbany is assisting each of the participating IMPACT county task forces in designing, implementing and evaluating a focused, comprehensive strategy, based on a more in-depth, rigorous analysis of crime data. Through the Strategic Crime Control and Prevention Initiative, the IMPACT partners will be equipped to best utilize crime data; to develop effective and innovative problem-solving strategies; and to guide their IMPACT task forces through the strategic crime control process.

The workshop, which was held from June 6 through June 9, 2005, is being taught by Prof. Piyusha Singh of the School of Criminal Justice and is focusing on crime mapping and crime analysis using GIS (Geographic Information Systems).

Professor Singh is a nationally recognized expert in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and information technology in policing and criminal justice research.

The workshop is being held in UAlbany's state-of-the-art computerized classroom located in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, on the uptown campus.

"I am most grateful to Governor Pataki for his vision and leadership in bringing together this pioneering partnership between DCJS and the University at Albany," said UAlbany President Kermit L. Hall. "Our combined strengths in academics and research, as evidenced by our nationally ranked School of criminal justice, will undoubtedly bolster the efforts of local law enforcement as well as improve the safety and security of the communities in which we live."

"The School of Criminal Justice has recently launched the nation's first criminal justice information technology concentration," said Dean Julie Horney , "We are particularly pleased that our first crime mapping workshop is furthering the School's partnership with the Division of Criminal Justice Services and Governor Pataki's Operation Impact. It is exciting to reach out to crime analysts from around the state and to realize how eager they are to develop IT skills that will allow them to contribute more effectively to their home law enforcement agencies."

Operation IMPACT

Operation IMPACT was first announced during the 2004 State of the State Address. Designed to assist the areas of New York State with disproportionately high crime rates, IMPACT targets the counties that account for more than 80% of the crime outside of New York City. In April 2004, Governor Pataki launched the first full-scale Operation IMPACT in Rochester. Since then, each of the 15 original IMPACT task forces have been designing and implementing a focused, comprehensive crime-fighting strategy based on a rigorous mapping and analysis of local crime data. The task forces continue to assess their strategies, and make real-time improvements based on continuous review of up-to-date crime data.

Key state resources available through Operation IMPACT include: New York State Police IMPACT Units (officers who specialize in gang, gun, and drug-trafficking crimes) and Division of Parole personnel to assist local law enforcement agencies in immediately reducing violent street crime. Other state agencies that are full partners in IMPACT, lending their expertise and resources to all target counties, are the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives, the Department of Taxation and Finance, the Office of Children and Family Services and the State Liquor Authority.

In his 2005 State of the State Address, Governor Pataki expanded Operation IMPACT by committing another $8 million to enhance and expand operations in the original 15 IMPACT counties, bring full IMPACT operations to two new counties (Chatauqua and Ulster), and provide additional resources to other parts of the state designated as crime "hot-spots" through crime mapping and analysis. Also, the Governor has committed an additional 100 State Troopers for IMPACT operations (bringing the total number of Troopers available for IMPACT to 400).

Since Operation IMPACT began, violent crime in the IMPACT communities has decreased by 4.0 percent, murder has declined by 15.2 percent, robberies have declined by 10.1 percent and rape has declined by 1.2 percent. In addition, property crime has decreased by 3.6 percent, burglary has declined by 8.1 percent, motor vehicle theft has declined by 6.0 and larceny decreased by 1.8 percent. The only crime to increase was aggravated assaults by a mere 1.0 percent. And, in 2004, Rochester -- the first IMPACT site launched and the first city in New York State to implement Ceasefire, an innovative crime reduction strategy -- had one-third fewer murders, including a 70 percent drop in murders of the most at-risk portion of the population, young African American men.

Over the past ten years, violent crime in New York State has been cut in half and crime is at its lowest levels since statewide crime reporting began - nearly 40 years ago. In 1994, New York State was the sixth most violent state in the nation. Today, a decade later, New York is the seventh safest state overall, and the safest large state in the nation.