ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – Hoping to spend more time preventing crimes and less time solving them, police officials plan to nearly quadruple the amount of time officers spend on so-called proactive policing.

“(It means) getting out in the field, so to speak, and actually attacking crimes and trends or what could potentially be problem areas. Just getting out there, making contact with people and deterring crime,” said police Capt. Jeffrey Taylor.

Currently, Rochester police officers spend about 12 percent of their patrol hours doing such work, which can include business checks, additional patrols and traffic stops, Deputy Chief Michael Allen said earlier this month. He wants to see that increased to 45 percent.

“I think a lot of it is a philosophy change. We’re changing the way we have been traditionally thinking of what we need to do,” Taylor said. “We want to get back into proactive and get away from reactive. We’re looking at different ways we can do that.”

For example, traffic stops. Taylor said preventing crimes requires digging below the surface.

“Don’t just stop at someone having a taillight out; look into the thing. Maybe they’re under suspension. It could be any number of things,” Taylor said. “A lot of serious crimes have been averted or stopped as a result of that type of simple enforcement.”

As part of that, the department hopes to equip cruisers with laptops so officers can check driver and vehicle records at the scene.

The change in philosophy also will require scheduling changes. One possibility being considered is assigning one officer from each shift to focus more on community policing.

“More visibility out there is going to have an effect,” Taylor said. “It’s going to drop crime levels, because you’re actually out there in the public eye and you’re going to deter some crime. Not all of it, but some of it.”

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Information from: Foster’s Daily Democrat, http://www.fosters.com