BUFFALO, N.Y. — Law enforcement officers don't want to just solve crimes. 

They want to stop them before they even happen.

Officers in Erie County took part in Problem Oriented Policing, or "POP" training at Erie Community College Law Enforcement Academy on Thursday, learning how to look for the underlying problem in a situation so it can be prevented from happening again - or altogether.

Police say this training teaches officers to scan all the information that creates the problem, analyze that information, respond to the problem and then reassess the information to see if the problem was eliminated, also known as the "SARA" model.

The state-sponsored program isn't mandatory for officers, but they say training like this is what keeps them up to date. 

"Training in our department is a really big focus for us. We provide all kinds of training to our officers throughout the year. There's always new things coming up in policing and in community policing especially and new ways to do the job and better ways to do the job and we're always looking for ways to continue to offer that to our officers," said Steve Nichols, Buffalo Police Captain of Community Policing.