Portsmouth Police unveil gun-violence dashboard and mixed first-quarter crime trends

Chief Jenkins of the Portsmouth Police Department gave a detailed briefing on the department’s quarterly crime statistics and on technology and accreditation efforts designed to support prevention and transparency.

For the period Jan. 1–March 31, the department reported a 7.91% increase in total violent crime for the first quarter. Chief Jenkins said aggravated assaults had increased — with many driven by domestic-related incidents — and explained how victim counts differ from incident counts in departmental records.

At the same time, Jenkins reported that homicides are down 69% year to date: the department compared 11 homicides in the previous comparable period to four this year. The department also reported reductions in property crime and overall crime in other aggregated comparisons: a 19% reduction in property crimes and a 15% reduction in overall crime for the first quarter, with an 18% reduction year to date as of the nineteenth (department figures).

To support intervention work, Chief Jenkins outlined a new public-facing gun-violence dashboard that will show neighborhood-level counts, time of day and “days since” the last gun-related incident in an area. Jenkins said the city expects to be among the small number of U.S. jurisdictions deploying a front-facing dashboard that tracks gun-related incidents in near real time. He told the task force the dashboard “pulls directly from our [department] records system,” and cautioned that the data are dynamic: new information or updates to reports (for example, when a wounded person later dies) will change earlier tallies.

The department is also developing a mental-health dashboard to better track behavioral-health responses (including 988 referrals) and has begun planning to integrate those data with police dispatch information. Jenkins said collaboration with behavioral-health partners is ongoing and that some referral flows (for example, 988 clinician responses) currently do not always loop back to the department.

Jenkins described the department’s service-level agreement — a public-facing statement of response expectations — and said a Power Engage module will allow residents to receive surveys and offer feedback following police interactions; implementation of Power Engage was estimated at roughly 60–90 days.

On accreditation, Jenkins said the department has completed an online assessment and is undergoing an on-site evaluation for advanced CALEA accreditation, an assessment of 406 standards. He said few departments have attained accreditation and framed it as a step toward aligning departmental policy and practice with national standards.

Chief Jenkins framed the role of violence-interruption staff in the city’s strategy and said interrupters need current information about where incidents occur so they can be deployed strategically. “If we want to solve and cure this disease, we have to go through people who understand it better than anybody else,” Jenkins said, describing the rationale for hiring credible messengers and interrupters.

Jenkins and task force members discussed operational issues including tracking stolen guns, the value of store-based QR code outreach, and support for officer wellness (quiet rooms, chaplains and work to limit traumatic-call exposure for individual officers). Jenkins asked the community and partner organizations to amplify positive news and publicize reductions and programming so residents see a fuller picture of city efforts.