PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Portsmouth Police Chief Stephen Jenkins wants to hire up to 50 more officers this year while cutting crime by 15%.
Those were the goals he shared during a quarterly forum.
“We are looking for good people to help us take us to the next level,” Jenkins said.
He wants to get 40 to 50 officers into the police department, at one point even asking the crowd to refer their talented friends.
“If you know anyone looking for a job,” Jenkins said, “[and] you think they would be a good police officer, don’t send them anywhere else. They need to be a police officer right here in this city.”
This is something Mayor Shannon Glover said is a good thing.
“I think it’s a good number,” Glover said. “You know, Chief Jenkins is very methodical about how he does things, and he’s in order. So, if he couldn’t attain a goal, he probably wouldn’t have stated it, and so I think it’s a great thing. The more that we can get out in our community policing and working with our community to build relationships, the better off we’ll be.”
Jenkins also wants to add more Flock technology to the city, address officers’ mental health and focus on accreditation.
Jenkins touched on a new program modeled off of a police department in Nebraska called Omaha 360, with Portsmouth dubbing their program Portsmouth United.
“This is an opportunity for us … to all come together to understand what the problem is and to be able to address those things collaboratively,” Jenkins said.
Glover said it allows the police department to use proven methodology to deter crime.
“It’s an effort that will be led by primarily the police department to look at how crime impacts the community, use proven methodologies to put in place so that we can make sure that we’re doing everything to identify where the crime is coming from to intervene,” Glover said. “Getting involved, we will prevent more crime from happening and that’s the overall focus of the Portsmouth United program.”