Community Policing & Problem Solving

The Vacaville Police Department utilizes a unique blend of Community Policing and CompStat to maintain the excellent quality of life we enjoy here in Vacaville. Community policing is not a new model of policing, but stresses the importance of officers getting to know the people, places, and problems in the areas they patrol, and then develop strategies to solve those problems. 

In the early days of law enforcement, when officers walked a beat, they practiced the purest form of community policing as they nabbed shoplifters in the corner market, returned lost property and wayward children as a matter of routine, and kept truants and vagrants off the streets. Residents and business owners knew the local officer as their officer, and the officer knew them. 

As policing demands and technology changed to keep up with more crime, as well as more sophisticated crime, law enforcement veered away from that venerable model, and entered the mobile age of patrol cars, radio dispatches, computer data bases, and much more territory to cover. Today’s community policing blends the old with the new, as we work to provide good service, get to know the members of the community better, and problem solve more efficiently. 

An important component of community policing in Vacaville is the partnership between the community and the police department. Without the eyes, ears, and cooperation of our community members community policing can not be effective. As it says in our CoreValues we have formed a partnership with those we serve. Working together is the key to successful community policing.

CompStat relates directly to efficient problem solving, and works well with a modern community policing model to offer new tools for better crime prevention. The name CompStat comes from two words, “comparative statistics.” Originally developed in New York City to deal with severe crime problems, CompStat is now in use in many cities across the country, in a variety of forms. Using current technology to place up to date crime maps and statistics in the officer’s hands allows them to not only get to know the area in which they work more intimately, but to identify crime trends and patterns while focusing resources in the areas that will yield the most results. Marrying community policing and CompStat creates a policing model that has shown great results in crime reduction, and prevention, and promises to help keep Vacaville safe.