The initiation of a Planning and Research Division has helped thrust the department into the 21st century. Through the use of two prime areas GIS based mapping technologies and Crime Prevention has already proved very useful in long term and short term strategic planning.  The ability to create specialized and customized maps have allowed us to develop detailed plans for many neighborhood safety issues and has been used to organize searches for missing elderly persons.  This division is also now responsible for incorporating the Unified Crime Report (UCR) statistcs.

The Planning and Research Division provides statistical information in three different areas: Administrative, Strategic and Tactical. ADMINISTRATIVE CRIME ANALYSIS involves long range projects. Tasks include providing economic, geographic and law enforcement information to police management, townhall, the town council, and neighborhood/citizen groups. Its purpose is financial, organizational, political, and legislative. It is critical to budget, personnel, public information, and legal issues.

STRATEGIC CRIME ANALYSIS is concerned with operational strategies and seeks solutions to on-going problems. It provides information for resource allocation purposes, including patrol scheduling and beat configuration. Its purpose is to identify unusual crime activities over certain levels or at different seasonal times, identify unusual community conditions, provide police service more effectively and efficiently by matching demands for service with service delivery, reduce and/or eliminate recurring problems, and assist in community policing or problem oriented policing.

TACTICAL CRIME ANALYSIS deals with immediate criminal offenses to promote quick response. It provides information to assist operational personnel in the identification of specific crime trends and in the arrest of criminal offenders. The primary goal is to identify crime trends and patterns/series. Tactical information links offender and modus operendi information from a number of offense in an attempt to provide investigative leads, help solve crimes, and clear cases after apprehension and arrests.