SERVICES

SafeCity Solutions can help your community design a custom crime reduction program. Our consultants, who are active practitioners, have been successful in leading communities to significant decreases in crime and disorder. SafeCity advocates a manner of operation called POLICING WITH PURPOSE. This strategy helps the police department focus on those activities and functions best suited for achieving a high quality of life and comfort level for the citizens of the town. Policing with Purpose is a synergy of community policing, problem solving, and directed patrol. It needs to be customized for each community based on its own unique problems, issues, and resources. SafeCity Solutions will promote a department wide philosophy, a commitment of the police officers, elected officials, and the broad community acceptance that is necessary for success. Training in the latest police problem solving techniques, professional and unbiased enforcement methods, innovative patrol tactics, and thorough investigative case management is also offered as part of the implementation of this project.

SafeCity Solutions provides a complete battery of testing for promotional opportunities. Our services include written examinations, professional oral boards, and assessment centers. Our clients have been pleased with our philosophy of “testing for success” and report a high percentage of passing grades and the increased satisfaction of the many officers who do well in the process.

A rapidly expanding crime prevention method is gaining popularity among community planners, developers, school districts, businesses and neighborhoods. It is called Safety by Design, also known as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED). CPTED inserts features into the physical environment that will influence people’s behavior. These features encourage people to be more aware of their surroundings, cause them to follow designated routes and pathways, and promote a sense of comfort and well being. CPTED also designs public spaces to deter negative, harmful, and criminal behavior. The basic concepts are Natural Surveillance, Territorial Reinforcement, and Access Control. CPTED uses improved lighting, landscaping, way finding, hard and soft barriers, public art, building design, and activity clustering to achieve the goals of a safer and more appealing city. SafeCity Solutions has staff certified to implement CPTED concepts in your community.

Paramount in the hearts and minds of parents throughout the country is the safety of our schools. Law enforcement officials, school administrators, and elected officials are charged with the duty to ensure schools are not only safe, but that they provide an environment that promotes learning. SafeCity Solutions can provide training and consulting services that focuses upon that ever important relationship between schools and law enforcement. SafeCity Solutions provides school related services through law enforcement professionals, as well as educators and school administrators. This provides services from both perspectives.

Major topic areas encompassing the services provided include:

• Developing and establishing School Resourcee Officer Programs tailored to your needs
• Identifying At-Risk Children
• Safe School Audits – Policies, Proceduress, Facilities
• Developing Effective Community Teams: Schoool, Law Enforcement and the Community
• Using Technology to Improve School Safety
• Current Research Relative to Student Achievvement and Safe Schools
• Effective Programs for School Resource Offiicers and School Administration to Teach:
  • Bullying/Relational Aggression
  • Drugs and Alcohol Awareness
  • Sex Crimes and High School Students
  • Safer Driving
• Staff Development Programs for School Resouurce Officers, Educators and Security to include:
  • Identifying substance abuse
  • Trends in Drug and Alcohol use among teens
  • Interviewing Techniques
  • Deescalating a potential violent situation
  • Trends in homemade weapons and bombs
  • Identifying gang activity in schools

SafeCity Solutions will do a detailed analysis of your agency, examining both the processes used and the results obtained. Skilled, experienced public safety executives will evaluate the agency’s organizational structure and performance, making recommendations for strengthening the most critical functions and suggesting specific steps that would enhance current and future efficiency and effectiveness.

How do you know if your current chief is doing an outstanding job? Unless he or she is closely evaluated by fellow professionals, you probably don’t know for sure. SCS senior advisors can provide you with an honest, candid appraisal of your chief executive or other command personnel. In addition, the municipality and its chief will get specific recommendations for improvement and a plan for continuous professional development.

Many cities and department directors are too busy with day to day decisions and operations to adequately review and update agency policies and procedures. Yet these policies are the foundation for your success or failure. It is imperative that public safety policies are clear, inclusive, and current. SCS can review your agency’s policy manual and recommend changes where necessary. We can even assist you in developing and writing new policies that fit your agency.

In most emergency service agencies, especially the police, personnel expenses account for over 90% of the agency budget. When the costs are this high, you want to make sure personnel policies and procedures are the best and latest that can be found. Our staff has insight into the administrative and operational issues affecting the performance of your greatest resource, and your greatest potential liability. SCS will review your current personnel procedures, labor contracts, arbitration awards and labor board decisions with an eye toward maximizing management prerogatives. Let us guide you through the quagmire of sensitive personnel issues that affect the agency’s bottom line.

Many agencies are finding that rising costs and the increasingly challenging nature of modern day policing is straining municipal budgets as they strive to deliver the myriad of services necessary to meet the needs of their community. For some communities, it makes sense to combine their resources with other municipalities and share police service. Whether this is accomplished by consolidation, regionalization, or contract services, such initiatives can stabilize costs while improving capacity and service.

The need to maximize available resources, along with the decline in the number of volunteers necessary to staff fire department and emergency medical service units, has led many municipalities to explore the public safety concept. We can offer advice and guidance regarding the consolidation of emergency services, especially those involving police department and fire departments sharing personnel and other resources. Our staff includes advisors who have assisted in the planning, implementation, and leadership of such public safety agencies.

Including personnel resource studies, operational effectiveness, crime reduction, and prevention enhancements are some of our other specialized services.

One of the most important and impacting decisions made by municipal officials is the selection of its chief executive and managers. SCS will provide a comprehensive, interactive selection process to find the person most suited to lead your agency toward success.

Losing a Chief Executive can be a major impediment to maintaining performance and morale in an organization. Consequently, many municipalities move too quickly to fill a vacancy, sometimes before adequately considering their options and mounting a search for the best successor. SCS can provide an interim chief to steady the helm and keep the agency focused on its mission. This allows community leaders to concentrate on finding the right person to lead the agency in the direction it needs to go.