A trooper on patrol is dispatched to the scene of a shoplifting at a mall; another is dispatched to a residential burglary in a rural area; and a third investigates a personal injury motor vehicle accident on a highway. Each trooper conducts quality independent investigations and seeks to determine whether or not those incidents are solitary or part of a larger pattern of criminal and traffic events. Supervisors ensure that those investigations follow a systematic process and provide critical information to the oncoming shifts. Commanders review and analyze real-time crime data in conjunction with statewide crime analysts to determine trends; develop deployment strategies; and later report those events, strategies, and results during weekly and monthly meetings with senior leadership. Between 2015 and 2017, those practices and procedures became anchored in the Delaware State Police (DSP) culture. The DSP was the first U.S. state police agency to successfully adopt this model.

The Delaware State Police

Since its creation in 1923, the DSP has played a significant role toward ensuring and providing professional, competent, and compassionate law enforcement services to approximately 1 million residents and 9 million annual visitors to Delaware.¹ The agency employs 716 sworn state troopers and 240 civilian support employees, who are assigned among 8 uniformed patrol troops, 3 criminal investigative sections, and 28 operational support sections. Those troops and sections cover calls for service in urban and rural landscapes, as well as diverse populations.

For many years the DSP evaluated its success toward addressing and mitigating criminal acts and traffic collisions through a traditional CompStat model. However, due to the agency’s organizational structure and geography and the need for greater flexibility required to address the varying nature of crime and traffic problems, it was determined that an alternative approach was needed.

Delaware State Police Enhanced Analytical Response (SPEAR)

In 2014-2015, DSP Superintendent Colonel Nathaniel McQueen Jr. led a critical review of the agency’s accountability process to determine if it could be more effective and efficient in reducing crime and traffic collisions. Utilizing A Police Organizational Model For Crime Reduction as a guide, Colonel McQueen established a strategic goal of using a combination of intelligence-led policing and accountability to improve operations.² This process led to the statewide implementation of a stratified policing model known as the Delaware State Police Enhanced Analytical Response (SPEAR).

SPEAR is an approach to crime reduction that incorporates the best practices from a variety of policing models, such as problem-oriented policing, hot spot policing, CompStat, and others, while seeking to overcome those models’ weaknesses. Perhaps, the greatest shortcomings of other models is the focus on singular incident suppression rather than systemic events and the lack of accountability at every level.³

The stratified model is designed to embed effective evidence-based procedures for handling all types of incidents into the daily practices of a law enforcement agency and to standardize the agency’s processes and accountability—while still providing for flexibility as needed.⁴

The DSP leadership team conducted a diligent review of the SPEAR methodology to determine whether it would be effective in Delaware. Colonel McQueen ultimately selected the stratified model for implementation due to its focus on using evidence-based practices to reduce incidents of criminal and traffic complaints, while using personnel and equipment resources in the most efficient and effective manner. Additionally, the model embraces and enhances community engagement, which the DSP believes is a critical component for fulfilling its mission in providing professional law enforcement services.

 Model Implementation

Once the decision was made to adopt the stratified model, the Delaware State Police’s first step was to conduct an in-depth analysis of the DSP jurisdiction’s crime and traffic data spanning the five preceding years. The data analysis and self-assessment were conducted to determine the agency’s effectiveness in reducing and investigating criminal and traffic incidents, as well as to identify areas in need of improvement. The analysis was also conducted to establish a baseline measurement of those data, which would later be used as comparators, comparative variables, following the implementation of the stratified model.

The subsequent crime and traffic analysis was conducted at the DSP’s Delaware Information Analysis Center (DIAC), which is Delaware’s fusion center. The results of the crime analysis revealed two main findings. First, each operational troop had well defined geographical crime hot spots in their respective areas. Second, certain types of lead crimes were occurring at every troop jurisdiction; however, the hot spots were divergent in location, crime, amount of crime, offender, and time of occurrences for each troop. As a result of this informational analysis, it was determined that DSP could be more effective in targeting geographic and temporal areas by utilizing hot spot management, identifying and investigating frequent offenders, focusing attention on the most frequent and serious crimes, and developing specific accountability mechanisms at every level.

Once the initial evaluation was completed, a Delaware SPEAR Committee was created to formulate new policies and procedures that aligned with the stratified police model. The committee included a member of the DSP executive staff, a troop commander from each county in Delaware, the commander of the Planning and Accreditation Section, and the special projects coordinator from the Criminal Intelligence Section within the DIAC.

In order to develop a better understanding of SPEAR, the committee contacted Drs. Rachel and Roberto Santos, who developed and implemented the model with great success in the Port St. Lucie Police Department in Florida and several other agencies across the United States. During the course of many discussions, Drs. Santos and Port St. Lucie Chief John Bolduc afforded the DSP committee with the opportunity to visit the Port St. Lucie Police Department in order to view firsthand how the model worked at that agency. The chief graciously opened his doors and allowed committee members to attend their leadership strategy meetings and to review Port St. Lucie Police Department’s organizational structure, analytical productions plans, and stratified model policy. This opportunity proved to be extremely important toward further development of this model in Delaware. In particular, Delaware SPEAR Committee learned that a carefully written policy was essential for ensuring the successful implementation and acceptance of this organizational model in the DSP.

In December 2015, Drs. Santos conducted an internal assessment of the DSP. Upon completion of that assessment, they provided the SPEAR Committee with recommendations for policy development. Immediately thereafter, the committee started developing and writing new policy. During this process, careful consideration was provided to ensure that the policy addressed the establishment of strategic goals, a structure designed to safeguard evidence-based practices in fulfillment of those goals, and effective evaluation mechanisms at established intervals. The committee also took into consideration the policy’s need to identify and account for various complexities associated with criminal and traffic issues. Specifically, parameters regarding calls for service (immediate problems), crime trends (short-term problems), and systemic problems (long-term problems) were identified as critical elements within the stratified model. Additionally, the committee defined specific roles and responsibilities for every member and rank, trooper through colonel, in the identification and management of problems. The committee believed this final piece was critical because it defined who was accountable to accomplish each task and what the agency was accountable for overall.

The SPEAR Committee’s next task was to examine the agency’s organizational structure to determine how that structure would support the new model. They subsequently recommended several changes to DSP’s structural components, which were later adopted and implemented. The first recommendation was to centralize crime analysis for all troops with the DIAC. This change was designed to ensure consistent reporting of crime statistics and objective assessments of the efficacy of evidence-based investigation actions within each troop. The second recommendation was to change the manner in which commanders’ meetings were held. Prior to the adoption of this model, only commanders met with the members of the executive staff on a monthly basis. The committee recommended that the manner and scope of those meetings should be expanded to include other supervisory levels at various intervals. They posited that the meetings should coincide with the complexity of the crime or traffic issue and the trooper most capable of addressing that issue. Specifically, simple problems would be addressed by personnel with specific knowledge of the problem during daily meetings. More complex problems would be addressed during weekly and monthly meetings, during which higher organizational leaders could offer more direction and authorize the deployment of additional resources. By using this process, for example, if one troop was experiencing a systemic issue that was beyond that commander’s resources, the operations major could deploy additional assets from another troop or section to assist that respective troop commander. As a result of the committee’s recommendations, the organization structure shown in Figure 1 was put in place.

Following a review of the aforementioned crime analysis, several crimes were identified as overall core crimes or traffic issues for the DSP, regardless of the specific geographical area. Moreover, careful consideration was also rendered to low frequency problems that were not necessarily systemic, but aroused community sentiment. As a result of this information, Colonel McQueen selected the following strategic crime reduction and traffic safety goals:

Crime Reduction Goals

• Reducing the occurrence of robberies

• Reducing the occurrence of burglaries

• Reducing the occurrence of thefts

• Reducing the number of aggravated and simple assaults (non-domestic)

• Increasing the number of patrol-generated drug arrests

Traffic Safety Goals

• Reducing the number of total collisions

• Reducing the number of fatal motor vehicle collisions

• Reducing the number of combined pedestrian- and motorcycle-related collisions

• Increasing the frequency of proactive DUI enforcement

Once the goals were identified, Colonel McQueen’s plans needed to be articulated and shared with all of the members of the DSP in order to align everyone’s efforts toward accomplishing those goals. Since this process was a significant change in business practices for the DSP, the colonel initiated this process by informing and educating the command staff. He based this decision on the premise that accountability was rooted in this model and that those commanders were in the best positions to lead and mentor their personnel through these changes.

The education process began with information briefings, and it was followed up in November 2016, when Dr. Rachel and Roberto Santos returned to provide SPEAR model training for DSP commanders. After receiving the appropriate training and information, the director of training for the DSP Academy was responsible for modifying recruit and in-service curricula to further educate every member (sworn and civilian) on the SPEAR model and their role in that process.

In order to assist the troops in transitioning to the new practices and procedures, Colonel McQueen selected a member of the SPEAR Committee to serve as a full-time liaison and facilitator with the troop administrators. The liaison maintained open lines of communication among the troop commanders, the colonel, and the SPEAR Committee to evaluate identifiable best practices and to resolve implementation problems. Several positive outcomes resulted from those meetings. The most important outcomes included the development of standardized reporting templates for the daily, weekly, and monthly meetings; management of short-term crime and traffic problems that affected multiple jurisdictions; and the process of sharing best practices during monthly commanders’ meetings. Moreover, to ensure accountability, a mandatory five-step investigation process was enacted for every incident. Those five steps are (1) crime scene processing, (2) witness canvassing, (3) checking for videos of the incident, (4) identifying traceable stolen property, and (5) leveraging investigative technology for suspect identification and property location. Troopers became responsible for completing all five steps or providing written justification why they were not completed prior to the completion of their tours of duty.

As these processes continued to emerge, senior leadership initiated the process of evaluating commanders’ use of the stratified policing model for short-term and long-term results. Each operational troop area was provided with defined geographical crime and traffic hot spots in their respective troop territories. Commanders were provided with autonomy to develop strategies and action plans to address those hot spots working with and through their supervisors and line officers. Accountability for responding to those hot spots and providing demonstrable productivity measures was placed at every level (see Figure 2). The ensuing product yielded extremely positive results.

Results

The organizational shift from traditional a CompStat model to the SPEAR model took approximately 18 months. During that period of time, it was determined that defined roles and responsibilities for each trooper, frequent analysis of the data, increased scrutiny of investigations, and greater information sharing across all sections were crucial elements of success. The first full-year implementation of this model occurred in 2017.

Following the successful implementation of SPEAR, the DSP experienced significant reductions in crime and saw a positive impact on reducing an upward trend on traffic accidents. In comparing the same variables from 2016 to 2017, the Delaware State Police ascertained the crime and traffic results shown in Figure 3.

Conclusion

The adoption of the SPEAR model proved to be extremely successful for the DSP. The agency experienced tremendous improvement in the manner in which crime and traffic accidents were handled, and accountability at every level was enhanced—ensuring that investigations were handled efficiently and effectively. Criminal and traffic hot spot analysis provided commanders with exact temporal and geographic areas for appropriate resource allocation to mitigate and, often, eliminate adverse trends. Additionally, offender management, the identification of nuisance locations, and effective communications at every level dramatically improved the delivery of services. The men and women of the DSP are committed to enhancing the quality of life for Delaware’s residents and visitors by providing competent, compassionate, and professional law enforcement services. As this model continues to evolve, new strategies and methods for preventing and solving criminal and traffic incidents will continually be explored. The lessons learned from adopting the stratified model of policing in the Delaware State Police can serve as a resource for other leaders who are considering implementing these processes in their organizations.

Notes:

¹ World Population Review, “Delaware Population 2018”;  Delaware Tourism Office, “The Value of Tourism,” 2016.

² Rachel Boba and Roberto Santos, A Police Organizational Model for Crime Reduction: Institutionalizing Problem Solving, Analysis, and Accountability (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Orientated Policing Services, 2011, revised 2015).

³ Boba and Santos, A Police Organization Model for Crime Reduction.

⁴ Roberto Santos and Rachel Santos, “Evidenced-Based Policing, ‘What Works,’ and Stratified Policing ‘How to Make It Work,’” Translational Criminology (2015): 20–22.