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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Homewood Police vehicles during a traffic stop in West Homewood.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
The new Homewood Police Department mobile app gives residents a breakdown of incidents reported each week.
Crime in Homewood was down 12% from 2022 to 2023 and down 18% compared to the 10-year average, police officials say.
Robberies and auto thefts were up, but there were decreases in homicides, assaults, burglaries and thefts, according to statistics from the Homewood Police Department.
Changes in scheduling and new policies have given police more visibility in the community, and new technology, social media and proactive policing have helped reduce crime, police Chief Tim Ross said.
Here are some highlights from the 2023 crime stats shared by Sgt. John Carr, the department’s public information officer:
There were 75 burglaries in 2023, down 30% from 108 burglaries in 2022 and down 41% from the 10-year average of 144.
There were 35 robberies in 2022, up 52% from 23 robberies in 2023 and up 9% from the 10-year average of 34.
Auto burglaries were down 1% from 167 in 2022 to 165 in 2023 and down 12% from the 10-year average of 207.
Auto thefts increased 22% from 125 in 2022 to 152 in 2023 and were up 55% from the 10-year average of 91.
Sex Crimes were down 10% from 11 to 10 and down 50% the 10-year average of 16.
Assaults were down 26% from 92 in 2022 to 68 in 2023 and down 24% from the 10-year average of 91.
There were three homicides in 2022 and just one in 2023. The 10-year average is one homicide a year.
Thefts were down 18% from 779 in 2022 to 639 in 2023 and down 25% from the 10-year average of 885.
Calls for service to the Police Department increased 24% from 38,500 in 2022 to 47,810 in 2023.
Ross said the visibility and presence of police officers have helped reduce crime. Changes in scheduling in particular have helped achieve that visibility, he said.
“We currently, and have had, for the last couple of years, overlapping periods of shift coverage,” the chief said. “Three times a day every day, we have twice as many – or have the ability to have – twice as many cars on the street, twice as many personnel or officers on the street, as we did when we were scheduling our officers differently.”
Patrol officers were scheduled to work eight-hour shifts for most of the history of the Homewood Police Department. Ross implemented a 10-hour shift with overlapping periods between three shifts.
“That enable us to put more officers on the street during those overlapping periods,” the chief said. “That increases our presence and increases our visibility, which we know from studies and just our experience, has a tendency to decrease crime.”
Ross said his department also implemented a single-use vehicle plan in which each officer has a car assigned that is only used by that officer. He said the single-use plan increases officer visibility and increases officer presence on the street.
“It enables that officer to be in that car for the whole shift, driving it to and from work and to and from extra jobs, to and from court or other administrative functions that they have to perform,” he said. “That just puts that car and that officer out in the public, out on the street more frequently. We've discovered that also aids in preventing crime.”
Ross also cited advances in technology in his department’s battle against crime, having employed a predictive computer software that predicts where crimes might occur based on data that was put into the computer.
“It enabled us to strategically place our patrol officers in those areas where crime was highest based on the algorithms that this computer software generated,” the chief said. “I believe that had an impact on crime just in the way we placed our personnel throughout the city.”
Homewood police also have benefited from the use of cameras throughout the city that read license plates.
“We've used Flock safety cameras, which a lot of agencies are using across the country,” Ross said. They're investigative tools for investigators, but they're also beneficial in reducing crime because they alert patrol officers to cars traveling through the city that have been reported stolen somewhere.
Those cameras also can tip off police that a car registered to someone with an outstanding warrant for their arrest is on Homewood streets.
“If we're able to apprehend those people, then naturally that could be reducing crime that they may be coming to commit in our city,” the chief said.
Homewood police worked with a company to produce an app which, Ross said, has greatly increased the department’s ability to communicate with the public. Police use the app to pass along critical information about crime and crime trends. The chief said his department’s presence on social media has also been beneficial.
“It lets us be more responsive and efficient in our response to what they communicate to us via those social media platforms,” Ross said. “We have a Community Relations Unit comprised of several officers. One of their fundamental jobs is to forge those relationships in the community where the community is comfortable reaching out to us and communicating to us things about crime and crime trends.”
As the chief listed pieces to his department’s crime-fighting puzzle, he made sure to include the Criminal Investigations Division. They're able to solve crimes quickly, which ultimately leads to less crime, he said.
Ross cited a string of burglaries on Valley Avenue a few months ago as an example.
“Our Criminal Investigations Division did such a great job identifying those suspects through good investigative work that we were able to apprehend those two suspects very quickly,” he said. “I know because of them doing that, they prevented an untold number of additional burglaries.”
While the new technology and schedule changes have been very successful tools, nothing contributes more to crime reduction than the proactive nature of Homewood’s police officers, Ross said.
“They really do a great job. Those patrol officers … take a lot of pride in their work and their professionalism, their dedication to duty, the way they carry out their job every day,” he said. “Really, that can't be discounted and really probably has more impact than anything else on the reduction of crime over the last several years.”
