One of the things Tom Knight brought to Sarasota County when he was elected sheriff four years ago was a commitment to statistics-based policing. The big idea? Better to analyze trends and try to prevent crime than chase suspects after the fact.

The approach seems to be effective. A number of programs — “operations,” in police lingo — have been put into place under the “Intelligence 2 Action” umbrella. The department now has seven to eight employees whose job is to analyze data and focus on prolific offenders — the 6 percent of the population believed to commit 60 percent of all crime.