Lawrence put up a post yesterday on Austin’s murder rate, which is “up nearly 80 percent from the same time last year”.
I’m not totally convinced on the “understaffing the police department” argument. It kind of seems to me that the police basically come along and clean up after the murder’s already been done. Even with more cops on the street, what are the odds that one of those cops is going to run across the guy with the knife raised in time to stop him from stabbing a woman to death?
The flip side of this is the “broken windows” theory of policing: by concentrating on reducing disorder in neighborhoods, serious crime can be reduced. When disorder increases:
(Hattip to the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy for the link.)
This probably isn’t news to most of you, but I bring it up here because of a second item, from yesterday’s Statesman:
This ties back to an earlier police beat post, about the city budget process and what APD asked for as opposed to what’s actually in the budget.
I kind of glossed over this in the previous post, but what I hear (through the CPA alumni association) is that some of those officers that they want to replace with civilians are “district representatives”. Here’s the description from the APD website:
The District Representatives are called upon to do a myriad of activities which include, but are not limited to: enhancing patrol efforts, attending neighborhood association meetings to provide input or answers, attending school functions to educate children about safety and crime prevention, assisting the community in solving non-emergency problems and helping the community become self-reliant. All District Representatives are patrol officers and augment patrol and crime prevention activities as well as respond to natural and man-made emergencies in support of patrol operations.
The key here for a lot of folks is “patrol officers”. The District Reps are sworn APD officers. Is this a good thing? The argument I’ve heard is “yes”: sworn officers know how the department works and who to talk to. When district reps are talking to other officers, everyone knows that both sides have been there, done that, and seen the elephant (so to speak).
And civilians also know they’re talking to been there, done that people, too. If you’re John Q., who would you rather talk to: the person who is a sworn officer, who “knows people” in the department, and who, if they have to, can go out and make arrests or write tickets on their own? Or the citizen, nice as they may be, well trained as they may be, but who doesn’t have “time on the street” and the knowledge and connections that come with that?
Isn’t this the way “community policing” is supposed to work? If you replace sworn officers with civilians, even well trained and qualified ones, do you get the same benefits?
And do you really save that much replacing sworn officers with civilians? Everybody still gets paid, right? I haven’t been able to figure out how long you have to be on the force before you can become a district rep (I don’t think there’s any set time limit; it appears to be more a matter of “is there an opening and can you make a case for yourself?”) but an officer with 10 years on the force is making a base of $81,580 a year. What do they propose to pay civilians?
Which is also understandable. I keep thinking about the story I read (last year? I don’t think I linked it at the time.) where a woman was complaining that she voted in favor of every bond initiative and every spending proposal and everything that she thought would make the city better…and was shocked at how high her property taxes were. How much more am I willing to pay for community policing?
The part of this that sort of goes unspoken is that the APD is already having trouble finding qualified people to join the force. I had heard the department was 100 officers under authorized strength: according to this article, it is actually 174. And the last few academy classes haven’t been full: who wants to wear a uniform, patrol the streets in 102 degree weather, and run the risk of getting shot at for $57,530 a year?
(Actually, that doesn’t sound like bad money, and there are some pretty good benefits, but a substantial chunk – I disremeber exactly how much – goes towards your retirement fund. Then again, you can retire after 23 years and make 73.6% of your salary. Start at 22 with a BS in criminal justice from someplace like Texax State, get that sweet $220 a month extra, retire at 52 with 96% of your salary…it doesn’t sound that bad. Except for the heat. And the cold. And the getting shot at. And the dealing with the scum of the earth. And seeing people at their worst every damn day.)
Point being, even if the city council wanted to add 100 more officers yesterday, the city can’t pull new police officers out of its neither regions. I’ve heard (again, through the CPA alumni grapevine) that the next few scheduled classes are indeed full, which is good news: and that the city has relaxed eligibility standards some, which may or may not be so good. (I don’t have any specifics on what, exactly, may have been relaxed.)
It’s a hard problem, and I don’t have really good answers. But the questions are worth asking.