Program targets high-crime areas - Daily Comet

By Dan Copp Staff Writer

While struggling under tight budget constraints, Terrebonne Parish leaders had to think outside the box to fight crime.

“We were struggling with the budget last year to find the money to hire additional police officers,” said Parish Councilman John Navy. “We were trying to do everything we could as far as recruitment, but we were strapped. We don’t have additional funding, but we needed to do something to deter crime.”

So Navy made lemonade out of lemons and got together with the Houma Police Department and Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office to launch the L.E.N.S. (Law Enforcement-Navy Safety) Program in 2016.

“We took money from unfinished projects and from finished projects that had additional money left over to get the program started,” Navy said. “We got with HPD and the Sheriff’s Office to target these high-crime areas. We looked at data to determine which time of the day crimes occurred in these areas.”

After identifying the parish’s more crime-prone sections based on the frequency of calls, law enforcement officials made their presence known in them by increasing patrols.

Closed circuit television cameras were also strategically placed in areas where they were believed to be most effective including city centers, car parks and densely populated sections of the parish, Houma Police Capt. Bobbie O’Bryan said.

The $150,000 program uses a proactive policing strategy to prevent crime as opposed to a reactive strategy that makes arrests after a crime has been committed, O’Bryan said.

“It’s enabled us to have a partnership with HPD and the Sheriff’s Office so we all can be on the same page when looking at these high-crime areas,” Navy said. “We have to be non-traditional at times, and this is a non-traditional process that I think is keeping Terrebonne Parish safer. I want to see the program continue in the years to come.”

Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said since the Sheriff’s Office became involved with the program in April, his deputies have already seen a marked improvement in parish neighborhoods.

“We’re working two-man teams in high-crime areas, which is helping deter crime in those places,” Larpenter said. “The deputies are not answering complaints. They’re patrolling, mingling with the people, talking to the kids and networking with the neighborhoods. It’s been a good program.”

The initiative allows deputies and officers to follow up on cases by getting feedback from victims who file reports, O’Bryan said.

O’Bryan said that the presence of surveillance cameras also increases perceptions of safety, encouraging more people to use public spaces they know are guarded by such technology. In addition to functioning as a deterrent, cameras can alert police of crimes as they happen and increase response times.

The Terrebonne Parish Council recently approved an additional $60,000 for the program, Navy said.

--Staff Writer Dan Copp can be reached at 857-2202 or at dan.copp@houmatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter@DanVCopp.

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