Before we jump into this, first some quick statistics that Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa gave the other day, in his presentation, with some other city officials’ statistics, as a metric narrative. Also please note before continuing that a lot of the metrics will be rounded to the nearest ten, hundred, etc. for simplified mathematics, this is meant to give a rough overview, not intended for academic accuracy. My opinion will be provided after the metrics.
‘A million dollars would buy us 5 cops’ later clarify that it would actually get him roughly 4.8 cops. Meaning that one patrol cop is roughly 200k in direct cost and indirect cost.
Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa also noted that the OPD is currently a 615-patrol department. That’s a 123m budget for the department, on street cops.
He advocated for 900 patrol, a roughly 50% increase in both patrol and budget.
In the adopted FY 2013-24 budget of Oakland the outlined “Graduate two police academies each year and increase sworn officers from 633 in FY 2012-13 to 707 by June 2015 (10 of which are funded by the newly received COPS grant after the budget adoption”
Obviously these are slightly different numbers, than what Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa offered, but they’re not significant for our purposes. Still that’s roughly a 1/6 increase to the department, or roughly 20m to their budget.
In the same adopted budget it was said that in the last six years the city has “…[r]educed sworn police staffing by 27% (from 837 to 611 officers) and civilian staff by 34%.”
Keeping all this in mind, remember that Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa also stated that the homicide rate has held constant, over a long 20+yr span. The homicide rate was stuck around 100-110 deaths per year.
Meaning that as patrol numbers have drastically changed, crime has held constant. So from strictly a mathematical perspective this seems indicative that police patrol are not a dependent variable in crime.
I’m not alone in this view, the City Council of Oakland, asserted as a priority that a safe city “…is defined by more than just police.”
So there is this dichotomy between the city’s commitment to public law enforcement, on one hand city council is outlining that the safety of the city does not solely mean a robust patrol force, however there is this budgetary increase and monetary commitment to the department.
Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa stated that the department was in flux with operation ceasefire, as the department’s budget leans, they’re moving towards more data-driven, community style, highly-focused police measure, that is geographically concentration, to the areas of highest violent crime density.
This leaning of the budget is echoed in the adopted budget, which is riddled with mentions of Federal Sequestration (keeping in mind that Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa stated that federal aid supplemented the OPD), the sun-setting of local tax measures, and reduced business revenue.
Interim Assistant Chief Paul Figueroa mentioned that Oakland’s crime problem deterred business ventures in Oakland. But he did not provide any metric as to how this would be illustrated, so this will be explicitly ignored as a normative claim by a party with an inherit interest in the claim.
Now then, moving to the opinion portion of this, when evaluating the Oakland police department, you see a starved department, with compounding budgetary restraints, both federally and locally, that is being forced to evolve to new, cheaper, just-as-effective police measures. Additionally, the department is more-or-less constrained by this continuing legitimacy crisis, as the public remains unwilling to vote in new taxes to pay for the department’s wants, or elect local officials that will support the department either. All the while, the crime rate remains constant.
Just as a running counter-example, San Jose, which is roughly synonymous in size and police force as Oakland, deviating in +200k residents, and currently has the police forced that Oakland had 6 years ago, has remained at a fractional homicide rate. Oakland is at 105, San Jose remaining around 35, a factor of 3. Again, as police budgets have declined the crime rate has remained constant.
All of this in mind it seems indicative, that police patrol numbers are not a driver of lowering crime, and by extension, if police are to be viewed as having an effect on the crime rate at all, it is their police measures that effect it, not their numbers.
Lastly, (the least important and hyper-extended argument I will make) if you accept the conclusion that police are not a crime suppression force, and that patrol numbers are not correlated with criminal deterrence, and that police patrol is a public safety institution that answers to crime. It would seem axiomatic that a city planner should identify and address the drivers of crime, instead of increasing spending on it’s effects.
Sources:
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/OPD/o/OfficeofChief/
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/cityadministrator/documents/policy/oak045824.pdf
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?nid=2801
http://sanjoseca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/12826
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25387775/san-jose-police-will-lose-another-100-officers
http://www.sjpd.org/crimestats/crimestats.html
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/6689
This is a very interesting blog post which shows that increasing the number of cops will not necessarly reduce crime and the reduction of budget was not to be seen as a direct cause of crime growth, contrary to the common wisdom.
ReplyDeleteThis matter of fact makes the choice of policy even more complex. At least, increasing or decreasing the number of cops on the field is simple to do. But defining a strategy which corresponds to the local context, explaining it to the frontline workers and to the population are much harder tasks.
Romain MILLARD
This is a great post with a lot of statistical evidence drawn into a clear conclusion. I really enjoy this type of blogpost especially since you also included a counterexample to illustrate the opposing side. It's clear that the number of cops deployed is not the answer to curbing the crime rate in Oakland. However I feel that in an optimistic light this is progress toward finding a real solution as the police are one incorrect solution closer to understanding the problem. I think that the police should experiment with their methodology as much as possible to find the best results even though it may not reap the best results in the short run.
ReplyDeleteMichael Wu
Wow! Very cool approach to the blog assignment; kudos my friend. This post was so informative and attainable! My favorite take-away was, “from a mathematical perspective this seems indicative that police patrol are not a deponent variable in crime”. I think this is great kryptonite in debunking Figueroa’s pitch (and others that claim) more cops is equivalent to more crime suppression. As I mentioned earlier in section today, I think that highly decorated/high-ranking police officers play a dual role: policeman and politician. This specific skill-set is essential for the faces of police departments to possess since they need to employ rhetoric as a mechanism to sway the uninformed masses that whatever their departments interests are ought to be the interests of the public they are trying to protect. - Chelsea Goddard
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing your blog presentation in section last week, I began to wonder about the statistics that you were using. I liked that you presented the constant crime rate in Oakland even though the patrol numbers dwindled. This does show that the Oakland PD is becoming more cost-effective and efficient in its policing strategies as the years go by. I do not, however, agree with your comparison of oakland crime rates and police ratio to that of San Jose. Even though these towns may be of the same size with a similar size police force, that does not mean that the communities being policed are the same. The could be made up of extremely different demographics (racial make-up, income levels etc) that influence the crime rate. San Jose might also just have other types of crime that are habitually and culturally more prevalent than murder is in Oakland. This being said, I would like to say that I would be careful in making the generalization that more police will never mean a lower crime rate. Each community responds to policing styles differently.
ReplyDelete- Colleen Johnson, Discussion 102
I really appreciated the extent of data you provided in your article. Though I realize the potential value of this approach in evaluating the efficacy of increasing patrol officers, there are too many variables (ie. population size, demographics, economy macro and micro) involved to be able to confidently support either side. Nevertheless, researching on your own instead of blindly accepting facts promoted by politicians and other officials is a healthy step towards choosing a course of action that minimalizes overall cost, whether that be financial or social. Oftentimes, people are unwilling/unable to question official statements made by authorities, believing that their title legitimizes them as knowing what is best.
ReplyDeleteAbove comment by Annie Choi
ReplyDelete