As Sugar Land continues to grow, the city’s police department has managed to keep crime rates low.

According to the department’s annual report released Feb. 16, the number of crimes committed per
1,000 residents rose from 17.65 in 2014 to 17.84 last year. However, the number is a nearly 12 percent decrease from 2013, and violent crimes saw a nearly 23 percent drop in 2015, the report states.

To help the police department train its officers, the city of Sugar Land has begun designing a public safety training facility to benefit both the police and fire departments. Officials said they hope to open the facility by 2020 to coincide with the city’s planned annexations.

“The target is 2020 [because] between now and then we would move forward with the annexation of Greatwood and New Territory, which would increase the need to increase the size of the police department and certain aspects of the fire department,” City Manager Allen Bogard said. “[The annexation] would take us to a 100,000 population, and that is really the trigger of when we feel like we need this facility operating by.”

The police department has used several new technologies over the past few years to improve its effectiveness, such as license plate and body cameras, but Sugar Land Police Chief Doug Brinkley attributes his force’s success to tactics that do not always rely on advanced technology.

“Mostly it’s just old-fashioned police work,” he said. “[We] try to stay active and visible in the community. Some of our most successful tools are public education tools, like Facebook and using the Internet to talk about trends that we see.”

The department was able to reduce the number of car break-ins by reminding individuals to keep their valuables out of sight if objects were left in their cars. Officers attended neighborhood meetings and left notes on cars in commercial districts cautioning visitors and residents, Bogard said.

Brinkley said he also frequently communicates with law enforcement in Missouri City to review crimes occurring in the community. The chiefs typically meet once a week, and there is a larger meeting once a month with each department’s investigative teams, he said.

“We will talk and see if we have the same group of crooks breaking into Radio Shack or Verizon, and we just share info,” he said. “As basic as that seems, we have one of the best relationships with area police chiefs and sheriffs and have enjoyed that for some time.”

New technologies

Brinkley said the police department has owned license plate cameras for the past nine years but started using them in a different way in 2015. Several cameras are now deployed in stationary positions throughout the city, so when a vehicle passes the camera it captures the license plate. That data is used as an investigative tool to help solve crimes that involve a hunt for a specific vehicle.

The city’s red light cameras continue to be successful in terms of changing traffic behavior, he said. Traffic stops continue to decline with 33,962 stops in 2015—a decrease from 53,063 in 2011, according to the department’s annual crime report. In terms of actual car accidents, the No. 1 cause for collisions is a driver’s failure to control his or her speed. There were 363 collisions in 2015, which is down from 376 in 2014 and 397 in 2013, according to the report.

Since SPD first received body cameras three years ago, more officers have received a camera each year, and the force is nearly fully equipped, he said.

“[The cameras] are more for us and for the protection of our officers but also a tool of the community so they can have trust in our officers—especially with everything that is going on worldwide with communities not trusting their officers as much,” he said.

Returning to the scene of the crime[/caption]

Brinkley said there will be a bigger emphasis on reducing shoplifting in 2016, including officers working more closely with area big box retailers and commercial areas to educate security officers.

The department also aims to increase officer visibility at Sugar Land’s major intersections where the most accidents occur—typically at Hwy. 90A and
Hwy. 6 and also by Hwy. 59 and the Grand Parkway, he said.

“There is going to be so much evolving technology … but good old-fashioned police work is far and above the most successful tactic,” he said.

Training facility

Sugar Land’s public safety training facility is in the design phase, and the city is still finalizing its specifications, Bogard said. City officials are in the middle of negotiating with the Texas General Land Office to acquire about 238 acres south of the Sugar Land Regional Airport—at Hwy. 90A and Hwy. 6—in the north and west quadrants of the intersection.

About 22 acres would be used for the training facility, 121 for a potential business park and 95 acres for airport expansion, Bogard said. A cost estimate for the city-funded training facility has yet to be determined, but Bogard said construction would be a gradual process to keep the construction costs within the city’s annual budgets. He said the city hopes to complete the facility by 2020.

“This would be a facility we develop over time as the financial resources come available,” he said. “We would have all of the land we would need for future training needs of our departments and would like to include things like a driving track, indoor and outdoor shooting for the police department and training buildings for the fire department where they can use their trucks to put out fires.”