Canton Township Makes Public Safety Upgrades

In their ongoing effort to continuously monitor, and improve Canton's public safety infrastructure, The Canton Township Board of Trustees approved a couple of items at their last couple of meetings. They have purchased some new police cruisers, as well as replaced some radar units. They also purchased some interesting software.

Canton Township has a Crime Data Analyst, and one of the functions of this position is to use all of the new technology to help solve crimes, as well as prevent crimes. This officer will be using an approach called DDACT (Data Driven Approach to Crime and Traffic.)

The crime analysis software they purchased will help police in a number of ways.

It will identify and highlight criminal, and suspicious activity, revealing crime patterns that may be emerging. By taking all of the data imputed, it can reveal potential hot spots for crime. Think of how advantageous it would be, to be able to predict possible locations of future crimes.

With 36 square miles of area to patrol, and finite assets to use, Canton Township is using these methods to be able to locate their assets in spots where they can be the most effective.

This software also has many other uses, and these include building specific data bases covering everything from demographics and crime, school locations and sex offenders, stolen vehicles and the locations where they are recovered, as well as identifying traffic issues.

These types of things are the new wave of crime fighting, and Trustee Pat Williams indicated that “It is my desire that Canton Township stay on the cutting edge on public safety.”

Treasurer Melissa McLaughlin stressed to me that, “We don't want all of the good reasons that people moved to Canton for, to ever be adversely changed by any upticks in crime. We want to be proactive in that.”

I agree with both Treasurer McLaughlin, and Trustee Williams. I think that this is money well invested, and I think that it not only keeps citizens safe, but I think it will keep officers safer as well. Any time that law enforcement can be ahead of the curve in crime fighting, can only be a good thing for everyone.

I also applaud Canton Township for their systematic approach to public safety infrastructure. Too many communities do not have ongoing infrastructure plans in place. Although, economic situations can affect the timeliness of purchases, the fact that they have a plan, and study these things on an ongoing basis, ensures that things don't sneak up on them, putting them in the unfortunate position of having to completely overhaul large portions of their public safety infrastructure.

Sure, a police cruiser, radar unit, or crime fighting software is not as sexy as some of the things other communities are now spending their money on, but they are necessary, and the decision is prudent. On this issue, Canton Township definitely have their priorities in order...