Project Impact

The Rochester Police Department and its partner agencies on Tuesday, April 22 launched the 2009 joint-patrol component of Project Impact.

These enhanced patrols with members of the New York State Police and Monroe County Sheriff's Office are the most visible component of Impact. They typically begin in the spring and continue through the summer, as these are the months that historically have the highest instances of violent crime.

The goal of these patrols is to reduce violent crime by focusing on when it occurs, where it occurs, and who is involved.

Joint patrols are deployed when crime is predicted to be most likely to happen. These predictions are based on extensive research from the Monroe County Crime Analysis Center to identify the peak hours, days of week, and weeks of the year in which violent crime is historically the highest. Command staff then deploys the patrols exactly when the problem of violent crime is at its worst.

In addition to understanding when violence is occurring, analysts and police commanders identify geographic hotspots of violence to deploy the IMPACT patrols in the areas with the highest historical concentrations of violence.

Lastly, patrols are provided with specific information about the crime problems and conditions in the areas they are working in. This allows the tactics of each detail to most effectively address the unique violent crime problems occurring in each detail area. For example, in one area, a detail may be trying to intervene in a violent gang dispute, while another detail is trying to prevent and catch a serial commercial robber.

Other components of Operation Impact include: