in an effort to reduce crime in Newark Rutgers Newark is collaborating with City officials and communities to Target crime hot spots the group Newark Public Safety collaborative uses police data to look at patterns not people to determine what trends exist in targeted neighborhoods and how to change them the group says having information about where the crimes are occurring gives the community insight into how they can start to prevent it and they say the proposed strategies are geared at prevention and reduction rather than reacting to a crime correspondent Ted Goldberg met with the head of the collaborative about where some of those hot spots are and how community members feel about the strategy we're standing actually in front of a bodega that the community knew was problematic but the data definitely confirmed it that data comes from the Newark Public Safety collaborative a group at Rutgers Newark that crunches numbers from police data to find crime patterns they send out students like Yvette Castillo to build a rapport with business owners especially if they're in areas with high crime you're concentrated in the Hispanic Community there's people that you know demographics that were not able to reach and let's go out here and try to make connections so actually this Bodega is one of those connections the owners that you know Latin he's Latin he speaks Spanish some of that information might surprise you it says that two-thirds of newark's murders happen within two blocks of a bodega Community organizer Warren Thompson says no one is pointing fingers at the owners it's not the bodega owner obviously the bodega owners in it to make business Not only was he aware but he actually was very you know very afraid one of the things is that his daughter actually is one of the people that attends to a story the collaborative says the vast majority of newark's violent crimes happen in just five percent of the city the group recommends focusing resources on specific intersections rather than neighborhoods and encourages police and Community groups to stay in contact with business owners dealing with crime people will gather around here and you know a lot of times we have schools in the area so when the school's let out you'll get a lot of teenagers hanging here we have uh social workers that work with us and we come out we Engage The individuals that are hanging around here the group's data has led to other changes around Newark that might be a little easier to notice for instance if you walk around Lincoln Park you'll see new lights strung up throughout the park the idea being that more light equals less crime we probably have done about maybe 40 to 50 light poles in this community to change that uh to to give the appearance of not their parents but it makes people feel safer when things are lit up whenever there's lack there's less lighting it's easier for an offender to uh to commit a crime Alejandro Ximena Santana leads the collaborative he says better lighting can drastically reduce violent crime we saw 47 decrease in areas covered by those new lights so we are talking note about life not about crime going down by 47 across the city we are talking about areas where those lights were other than increased lighting other simple changes have led to decreased theft in these areas like not leaving cars idling having police check-ins with bodegas and encouraging those stores to have cameras Ximena Santana says the collaborative analyzes crime data and presents it but he stresses that no one is looking to put bodegas out of business the analysis is only the first part of the puzzle crime is not random crime occurs uh is is highly uh clustered in some parts of the city mayor Roz Baraka has supported this initiative it is a more uh kind of prescriptive way that we began to reduce violence and crime in our city and not this kind of broad-based thing which at its core is really about racism uh and that we begin to focus our attention on those neighborhoods by understanding what spaces are connected to Crime what we can do is to start uh having a conversation that's where the community comes in a community working with police looking for new ways to make their cities safer in Newark I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]