Executive Law 837-A and Violent Felony Offenses
Executive Law 837-A demands the Division of Criminal Justice Services in the State of New York to report the processing of violent felony offenses. These offenses are officially defined in Penal Law 70.02.
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program
In 1930, Congress authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigations to become the manager of a law enforcement crime reporting system at a national level. This Uniform Crime Reporting Program was based on a similar system dating back to the 1920s. The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program refers to offenses that are being reported to law enforcement agencies. It also relies on arrests made by the same law enforcement agencies. UCR also uses standard offense definitions to take these crimes into account, indifferent to the variations that crime laws might register from state to state.
The function of the Division of Criminal Justice Services
The Division of Criminal Justice Services is responsible for gathering crime and arrest reports from more than 500 NY State police departments and also sheriff’s offices. These reports are then compiled in the form of the official statistics of the State of New York. All of these statistics are then submitted to the FBI under the https://www.fbi.gov/.
New York Crime Analysis Centers
The creation of several New York Crime Analysis Centers in Albany, Erie, Monroe, and Onondaga is the result of the Division of Criminal Justice Services proposal. The establishment of these centers was discussed several years ago, and their locations are based on their total Part I crime numbers and their high rate of violent- and firearm-related crimes. These centers have given birth to a centrally located unit that completes the thorough analysis of all NY county crime incident data. The data is then used for informed decision-making in areas that imply strategic planning.
Recognition of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services
The success of these centers has led to the honoring of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. The special project involves criminal data sharing in four of the most important urban centers in New York. Access to millions of criminal records is thus permitted, boosting the ability of those agencies to fight against violent crime.
Crime Analysis Centers
The centers are also responsible for offering police and sheriff’s or district attorney’s offices the centrally located unit they need to use for analyzing all county crime data. Two programs that Visual Analytics Inc., VisuaLinks are offering and DIG enable approximately 90 crime analysts in the four centers to gain access to, research, and completely mine data on more than 55 different databases. The main responsibilities of these people refer to working in fast crime hotspot discovery; they can also identify potential hotspots of crime patterns prior to them becoming crime trends. They also create daily briefs on crime data, aiding law enforcement officers in making critical informed deployment decisions.
Crime Analysis Centers and Law Enforcement
The use of such strategic technology in order to fight against violent crime is not uncommon throughout many U.S. states, and New York has attentively embraced the standards. The intelligence that these special Crime Analysis Centers are able to display in front of law enforcement executives for their decision-making processes refers to daily tactical deployment. It also plays a significant role in the long-term planning process the same executives are held responsible for; they can therefore solve violent crimes and offer street officers the essential information they need to keep them and the NY citizens safer.
Operation IMPACT and Crime Analysis Centers
the Crime Analysis Centers were built as a result of the success of Operation IMPACT, which is the state’s main program that fights against crime.
What was Operation IMPACT
Operation IMPACT – an acronym for Integrated Municipal Police Anti-Crime Teams is a multiagency initiative aimed at helping 15 counties outside of New York City with high crime rates. The goal of Operation IMPACT is to reduce violent street crime. The initiative began in January 2003 as a 90-day initiative. High Crime target areas were saturated with a “critical mass” of resources, utilizing recruits from the graduating Police Academy class and personnel from the Detective Bureau, the Gang Division, the Narcotics Division, the Warrants Division, and Vice.
The following counties participate in Operation IMPACT: Albany, Broome, Chautauqua, Dutchess, Erie, Monroe, Nassau, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Rensselaer, Rockland, Schenectady, Suffolk, Ulster, and Westchester. These 15 counties in New York have high crime rates and are targeted by the state police for reducing violent street crime.
Operation IMPACT has been successful in reducing crime rates in targeted areas. In 2019, the program reported a 15.4% reduction in violent crime and a 12.2% reduction in property crime compared to the previous year.