From left, Mayor Mark Mallory, City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. and Police Chief James Craig outline changes coming in the Cincinnati Police Department following an internal audit. Photo by Dan Yount City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. and Police Chief James Craig on Monday outlined five areas of future focus in the Cincinnati Police Department, stemming from a three-month audit.

Strategic Policy Partnership, a nationally known consulting firm headed by Bob Wasserman, assessed the current structure, operations and systems within the Police Department against national standards to assist the Administration in identifying areas that were effective and those that needed strengthening.

"We are focusing on initiatives that support our commitment to communityoriented policing and to being more efficient and more responsive," said City Manager Dohoney. He and the Chief announced the audit would be a key first initiative when Craig was hired to lead the department in July 2011.

The recommendations are inter-related and work together to emphasize neighborhood policing efforts, improve the quality and effectiveness of investigations, change the work environment for department staff, redesign the organizational structure, and invest in technology for efficiency.

"We must find a way to push community-oriented and data-driven policing at every level, said Craig. "That's why we're pushing more resources into the districts, eliminating redundan cy, and building our capacityfor the future."

SSR conducted numerous visits, interviewing command staff and special unit leaders, riding with officers in the districts, and reviewing departmental data and records.

According to the SSR audit report, "Overall, the department is a police agency that has made significant strides toward excellence in a number of areas over the last five years. A number of notable initiatives have beenundertaken, such as the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence, which has won several national awards. The quality of police officers with whom the review staff interacted was notable, having a strong commitment to Cincinnati and its future. Since the riots that occurred some years ago, the department has worked hard to build trust with the Cincinnati community experiencing substantial success."

Some of the major components of the audit include an emphasis on neighborhood policing efforts and strengthening police community partnerships that began with the implementation of the Collaborative Agreement that was drafted after the 2001 riots. This calls for renaming the Patrol Bureau to Neighborhood Policing Bureau to /reflect commit ment to Community Oriented Problem Solving policing effort and reorganizing some special units to allow for 50 sworn personnel (40 officers and 10 supervisors) to return to districts. Other measures include deployment evaluations, focusing resources based on data analysis, and renaming Vortex to the Safe Streets Unit to better reflect its role in the community.

Craig noted that the elimination of the D.A.R.E. drug and alcohol prevention program in schools does not mean the police department has given up on working with youth. “In fact, we are expanding our work with youth in the city,’’ he added.

Craig also noted that there has been a 12 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes since he became the new police chief about a year ago. Yet the department has seen a reduction of more than 100 officers since 2009, he said.

Emphasis also is being placed on improving the quality and effectiveness of investigations. That included placing all detective functions under Investigations Bureau Commander to facilitate communications, intelligence gathering and sharing, and better utilization of investigative resources, and focusing on violent crimes and their causes.

A number of organizational changes to make the department less top heavy and to eliminate redundancy and duplication of activities are to be implemented as a result of the study.