Pasco Sheriff's Office Implements New Strategy

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco has appointed a longtime employee of the agency to implement a policing strategy that seeks to prevent crime using information gathering and analysis.

Nocco announced on Tuesday, June 14, that he has appointed Lt. Brian Prescott as head of the new Intelligence-Led Policing section at the sheriff's office.

Intelligence-Led Policing is a “philosophy” shift and a lynchpin of Nocco’s proposedbudget request to Pasco County commissioners. He wants to hire three new analysts as part of the shift.

Nocco held a press conference on Tuesday to describe his plan to implement the strategy.

"The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is not only talking about Intelligence-Led Policing," he said. "We're moving forward with Intelligence-Led Policing."

Prescott is a 20-year employee of the agency who once served as supervisor of the agency’s school resource officer section. He will supervise the agency’s efforts as it phases in Intelligence-Led Policing and teaches it to deputies. He did not receive a pay raise, he said.

Intelligence-Led Policing uses information from policing agencies and the public, private, government and nonprofit sectors to track crime and decide where to send deputies.

"If all things are equal, we're going to put our deputies in the places where they're likely going to be closest to the crimes that are committed," Prescott said. 

The strategy  gives the police new resources and ways to send out information.

The concept of Intelligence-Led Policing was created in the United Kingdom but has been used in New Jersey, London, Australia and elsewhere in Florida, as well as by the U.S. military.

In Intelligence-Led Policing, deputies talk to community members in a neighborhood where a crime has occured, compare the information to data the police already have and devise a plan of attack, Prescott said.

“We have a very finite amount of resources, human resources, here at our agency,” Prescott said. “So we have to do everything we can to work smarter and to make sure have those people in the right place. It’s what called ‘predictive policing.”

 One phase of implementing Intelligence-Led Policing involves holding community meetings to tell citizens about the policing method and their roles in it.  A public email address and webpage will be created for citizens to report crimes.

A “fusion center,” or clearinghouse, will be created to as a “one-stop” shop for information from police agencies and other sectors of the community, such as Pasco County Fire Rescue, the citizenry, the press, the county's emergency services, public and private health care, utilities, transportation, schools and hospitals. Its location has not been decided.

If they make it into the final budget, Nocco's requested analysts will review calls for service to the Sheriff’s office to track existing and emerging crime trends and place deputies in Pasco's most crime-ridden areas. They will analyze information from the , a database which tracks a person's prescription history and was recently given the OK to move forward in the state. They will also track trends of assaults on deputies, such as location and type of call involved in an assault.

The agency currently has five analysts on staff, said Becky Beebe, director of data services and analysis. One concentrates on GIS mapping. Two are criminal analysts. One of these specializes in gang activity.

Nocco has also proposed in his budget 10 additional detectives and two new sergeants for his agency's Vice and Narcotics Units. These hires would concentrate on pill crimes in Pasco, which accounted for 64 percent of the cases generated by the unit in 2010.

Nocco, appointed by Gov. Rick Scott in April to finish out Bob White’s term as sheriff, also wants to add six licensed practical nurses and two certified nursing assistants to the jail staff.