A six-month effort by the Dover Police Department through the city's Quality-of-Life Initiative to address persistent community issues produced limited results, prompting Chief Thomas Johnson to call for systemic reforms beyond city limits.

The program, which ran from November 2024 to May 2025, aimed to tackle ongoing concerns such as drugs, prostitution, and public disorder while helping connect people in need to social services.

Chief Johnson said the initiative was an all-out effort to support the community.

"I'm sounding the alarm. We ran the playbook for half a year exactly the way the universe around here is constructed, and it's not working. We need change. We need a shift in ideas."

During that time, police recorded 326 service calls, contacted 480 people, filed 159 charges, an

See Full Page