The Public Safety Citizens' Advisory Committee (PSCAC) submits this preliminary Public Safety Recommendations report to the Takoma Park City Council for the City's use prior to the release of the final version of the report, later this year.

The City is moving toward Community Oriented Policing (COP) that emphasizes crime prevention in addition to the traditional law enforcement. Today, the Takoma Park Police Department provides our City with excellent service using a mix of the traditional and COP approaches.

The recommendations are based on a broad range of comments and suggestions made by the citizens in our City. This report focuses on all aspects of public safety, slanted strongly toward continuing implementation of COP.

PSCAC recommends the following to the City Council:

• Beat officers should be empowered to prevent crime, in addition to continuing their current law enforcement responsibilities.
• First line management in the Police Department should increase their mentoring of beat officers.
• Use of specialized COP assignments should be expanded.
• Performance reviews should be strengthened to include accountability for new COP responsibilities.
• The Police Department needs to gather more information from the other City Departments.
• All City Departments must work together to achieve COP goals.
• All City Departments should budget for public safety expenses.

• City Council should seek an independent review and recommendations for improvement of rental housing in the Takoma Park.
• Improvement of the commercial gateway districts should be planned and started.

• The City should move to develop more resources for the youth of Takoma Park, such as providing a centrally located youth facility.

• The Police Department and Economic Development section must strengthen ties with adjoining and overlapping jurisdictions.
• The Police Department must continue to identify high-risk neighborhoods and increase targeted response in these areas.

• A grant specialist should be created within the City administration, responsible for the oversight of all grant requests.

• Police communications equipment should be upgraded to support inter-jurisdictional communications.
• The Police Department should continue to use the resources provided by the Department of Justice's National Institutes of Justice.
• Training should remain as an important developmental tool for our City's police personnel.