The Lynn Police Department (LPD) will use $528,321 in Massachusetts Municipal Public Safety Grant (MUNI) funding, to hire a crime analyst, along with new officers for their drug unit, gang unit, and bicycle unit.
Lynn was one of the 10 communities that collectively received around $4.8 million in MUNI funding for police and fire departments. Municipalities that qualify for the funding have a population of at least 60,000 people and a police department with an operating budget of less than $200 per capita in 2010.
In previous years, the department filled the Crime Analyst position with a lieutenant. Due to staffing shortages, Lt. Michael Kmiec said the department can no longer dedicate a lieutenant to fill the position. Crime analysts, Kmiec said, play a crucial role in the policing process, as they analyze crime trends in the city to facilitate focused police action.
“The department and the city have agreed to try to hire a crime analyst,” Kmiec said. “What that person does is he kind of looks at all our crime statistics. They’ll monitor where crime is happening, what type of crimes are happening, and obviously get timely information out to the officers on the street, so that if there’s any patterns or trends that we’re seeing with crime, the officers can respond to that.”
The department’s Central Business District Bike Patrol Team, which recently received a citation from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department for their role in recruiting at-risk community members to the county’s STAR rehabilitation and education program, will likely gain an additional officer.
Kmiec said that by hiring additional officers in LPD’s Drug Task Force and gang unit, the department aims to crack down on gun violence in the city, and expand youth engagement programs to keep children from crime’s lure.
“We’ll also have extra people on the drug task force in the gang unit to combat the issues that we’re having, especially with the gun violence,” Kmiec said. “Having these officers allows us to be proactive when it comes to these issues, it’s not so much that we’ve seen an increase, but anytime that we have extra officers in there, it just allows us to be more proactive and go out and get in touch with the youth and try to divert them away from those types of activities.”
State Sen. Brendan Crighton, in a written statement, thanked LPD for their role in protecting the community.
“The men and women of the Lynn Police Department go above and beyond to protect our City,” Crighton said. “We must continue to make investments like this to ensure that they have all the support needed to safely and effectively do their jobs.”
Gov. Baker in a statement said that the funding aims to ensure that municipalities across the commonwealth can maintain emergency response staffing levels necessary to ensure safer communities.
“Ensuring that law enforcement and fire departments have the funds necessary to maintain adequate staffing levels is a top priority. I’m incredibly pleased that we’re able to provide this grant funding to help these departments retain their valuable uniformed and civilian employees,” Baker said.
