KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department announced Sunday that it has shifted approaches when it comes to responding to property crimes.
Instead of each patrol division taking a generalized approach by geographic location toward property crime investigations, specialized sections within the department will take charge of the investigations city-wide, depending on the crime.
Three new sections, which were formed in mid-September, consist of an auto crimes section, a burglary section and a stealing section. The economic crimes section remains unchanged.
The change in the department comes after national research involving nine other police departments, that are of similar size to KCPD.
"This research pointed to the advantages of a specialized citywide approach to investigating property crimes," said Sgt. Jake Becchina, a KCPD spokesperson.
KCPD says research indicated the following benefits:
- Increased focus toward property crime patterns
- Improved identification of offenders responsible for a significant amount of property crimes
- Allows for adjustment of staffing based on crime trends
- Detectives may have increased expertise in fields
- Detectives can work more closely with assigned prosecutors
- Detectives have the opportunity to build stronger connections to "citizen groups they service"
- More specialized training is available to detectives
While investigator offices and locations remain unchanged, they will now be grouped based on specialization.
The phone numbers for each section can be found below:
- Auto crimes section: 816-413-3406/3412
- Burglary crimes section: 816-413-3430
- Stealing crimes section: 816-413-3435
- Economic crimes section: 816-413-3431
