Fort Myers, Florida
Project Overview
The City of Fort Myers is the oldest city in Lee County, Florida and the county seat. The Fort Myers Police Department (FMPD) has faced numerous challenges, including a high violent crime rate. To combat violent crime, the FMPD, with assistance from the University of Cincinnati’s Institute of Crime Science (ICS) and John Jay’s National Network, implemented a Group Violence Intervention strategy (GVI). However, GVI has meant less focus on other crime types, causing FMPD’s robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto theft crime rates to stand out among other agencies from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. FMPD’s goal is to use crime analysis and technology to identify and disseminate micro-time hot spot bulletins to the patrol division for disruption. To accomplish their SPI initiative, the FMPD will hire additional analysts for the Intelligence Unit (IU), build the appropriate analytical skills and processes to identify micro-time hot spots in the IU, and create an organizational process that tasks patrol districts with addressing micro-time hot spots.
Methods and Findings
- In 2016, a Group Violence Intervention strategy (GVI) was implemented. An evaluation by ICS reported group member involved homicides and shootings decreased by nearly 50% between 2016 and 2018.
- In 2019, FMPD’s crime rates per 100,000 residents for robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto left were as follows, respectively: 107.0; 278.8; 1,7767.4; and 175.3.
