The San Jose Police Department is pleased to announce its newly established Department Direction, “RCITI” (pronounced “Our City”). Through RCITI, the Department seeks to simplify its mission in light of the many fiscal, staffing, and crime challenges it currently faces. The two main components of RCITI are “Core Priorities” and “Core Competencies.” The acronym “RCITI” actually represents the Department’s newly established “Core Priorities.” Additionally, the Department has identified two “Core Competencies” which represent two specific areas of focus.

SAN JOSE POLICE DEPARTMENT’S CORE PRIORITIES:

– Respect, Empathy & Professionalism
– Crime Reduction
– Investing in our Employees
– Transparency & Accountability
– Innovation for the Future

Respect, Empathy & Professionalism
The past two years have been difficult for the Department and for residents. In challenging times like these, a renewed emphasis on a high level of professionalism and customer service is necessary to ensure that our officers are always striving to create positive interactions and strengthen trust with members of our community.

Crime Reduction
Our Department is committed to taking a proactive approach to reducing both violent crime and property crime in our City. We understand that reducing crime in our City requires a strong partnership between the Police Department and the community. Our Department is committed to improving our many crime prevention and problem solving strategies while also exploring new and innovative ways to utilize information to solve community crime problems.

Investing in our People
The San Jose Police Department has a proud tradition of producing some of the finest police officers in the country. Though the Department continues to face retention challenges, we want to reassure the community that we are committed to investing in our Department’s most valuable resource: our employees. We understand that an investment in our employees is an investment in the community. Providing a positive work environment, succession planning, employee recognition, training and leadership opportunities and soliciting candid feedback from employees are all ways we can improve morale and ensure that the men and women of the San Jose Police Department continue to wear their uniforms with pride.

Transparency & Accountability
Embracing transparency, both internally and in the community, is necessary if we are to maintain a high level of trust and accountability. We will strive to ensure that Department messaging to our officers is consistent, factual, accurate and timely. We are also exploring ways to message to our officers in real-time, even when they are not at work. Likewise, we will continue to explore ways to be transparent and accountable to the community. These efforts include messaging on Facebook and Twitter, as well as maintaining an open and positive working relationship with the Office of the Independent Police Auditor and the Chief’s Community Advisory Board.

Innovation for the Future
The Department will focus on utilizing technology as an accelerator to accomplish its RCITI priorities. Recent examples of innovation within the Police Department include our “Captain’s Corner” postings on www.sjpd.org, as well as our new partnership with Nextdoor and the offering of the SJPD CityConnect application so that residents can easily access Department services and information directly from their smart phone. Patrol Captains use their “Captain’s Corners” to keep residents that live in their division up to date on issues in their neighborhoods and also highlight exemplary police work being done in patrol. CityConnect is an iPhone application that allows residents to utilize a virtual carousel of icons that link to various SJPD resources. Additionally, SJPD will distribute “social media” business cards to advertise SJPD’s use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the SJPD.ORG website, and podcasts.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Great customer service
The Department will continue to enhance its use of technology, marketing, advertising and social media in order to educate residents and increase awareness. Increased community awareness can have a big impact on property crimes, which are the crimes most susceptible to prevention through the reporting of suspicious activity and the sharing of neighborhood information. Though the use of technology is extremely important in our quest to provide great customer service, it can not replace the value of a positive interaction with a live police officer or crime prevention specialist.

Gang Enforcement
Reducing gang-related crime and protecting our City’s youth from the dangers of the high-risk gang lifestyle is a top priority for the Police Department. Though the Police Department’s collaboration with the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force continues to be a great success, we are constantly exploring new and innovative strategies to conduct outreach and education regarding the dangers of gangs. These outreach efforts include partnerships with local schools in order to safeguard our City’s youth. The Department recently began a podcast entitled Gangs 101 that features an experienced gang investigator talking to the community about gangs. The podcast is the first in a series that will cover gang recognition, prevention tips and safe alternatives to gangs.

The Department will continue to utilize a high level of focused enforcement to reduce gang crime in our neighborhoods. Since February 1st, there have been encouraging downward trends in gang-related crime in San Jose including the following:

+ This February, violent gang-related incidents fell 41% from the previous month and 26% when compared to February of 2012

+  This March, violent gang-related incidents fell 45% from the previous month and 67% when compared to March of 2012

+ Since the implementation of RCITI, SJPD has taken over 43 illegally possessed guns off the streets of our City (26 of those guns were seized during gang suppression efforts)

+ Violent gang-related incidents between January and March have dropped from 90 in 2012 to 65 in 2013, representing a 28% decline in violent gang crime in the first quarter of 2013

Additionally, we know from experience that gang members are often responsible for many different crimes in our community, including robberies, burglaries, vandalism, auto theft and various other quality of life crimes. By aggressively enforcing gang crime, we will reduce these other crimes as well.

The Department has trained over 160 patrol officers in the recognition and enforcement of criminal street gangs in an on-going effort to increase the level of institutional knowledge of gangs in our Patrol Division.

“We are off to a great start with RCITI and we are committed for the long term,” said Acting Chief of Police Larry Esquivel. “Our message to the community is clear: though your Police Department has faced challenges and uncertainty over the past couple of years, we are still very much focused and engaged in reducing crime. It’s about improving the quality of life for the people in our City.”