Hampton honored for crime-prevention work; state plaque cites community programs and data transparency

The City of Hampton received a plaque confirming its recertification as a Virginia certified crime prevention community, a state official told the council during the meeting. Rick Arrington, the state crime prevention program manager, said the program recognizes communities that partner across civic groups and law enforcement to prevent crime.

Arrington said the certification recognizes long-running local programs and new approaches the reviewers called strengths, including Hampton’s Triad program for seniors and the Police Explorer scout post that provides youth outreach. "This program has been in existence since 2001," Arrington said, adding reviewers commended Hampton’s use of open police data and a successful community corrections program. He called out a drop in the city's pretrial failure-to-appear rate — from 2.6 percent in 2014 to 1.7 percent in 2015 — as “astonishing” to the committee reviewing the application.

City leaders received the plaque at the meeting and council members thanked public-safety staff for the work that supported the application. The presentation noted the statewide program recertifies communities every three years and that Hampton is one of about a dozen certified localities in Virginia.