Chesapeake, Va. (WTKR) - The Chesapeake Police Department has launched a new initiative to combat crime and improve traffic safety in the Greenbrier area.
The Data Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic Safety, or DDACTS, was used to identify areas in the city where crashes and crimes were higher than normal.
One such area is the Greenbrier commercial zone and hotel district on Woodlake Drive, where police will step up their patrols and traffic stops during the next year.
"It’s a very commercial area, a lot of larcenies, a lot of burglaries, a lot of businesses and a very dense area so we have a lot of crashes in that area," Chesapeake Police Crime Analyst Ben Orasko told NewsChannel 3's Todd Corillo.
Chesapeake Police say the theory behind DDACTS is that deploying officers to the areas of high activity adds an additional deterrent, especially knowing that crime often involves the use of a car.
Police will beef up patrols during the days and times that historically see more crashes and crimes.
"More towards the weekend – Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Crashes happen more in daytime hours while crimes are happening during evening and overnight hours," Orasko explained.
Chesapeake Police have set several target goals for the Greenbrier area during the increased patrol.
They include:
- Reducing robberies by 5%
- Increasing DUI arrests by 10%
- Increasing drug arrests by 5%
- Reducing larcenies from cars by 10%
- Reducing commercial burglaries by 5%
- Reducing traffic crashes by 10%
"At the end of the year, we’ll compare it to our Western Branch commercial area to see if what we did actually made a change," Orasko explained. "That’s going to be our control area and see if the changes were just random or if we actually had an impact in that area."
The increased patrols in Greenbrier started on Friday, July 11.
