Quote:
Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND
Swimmer.
you're retired from law enforcement, right?
You see no possible correlation between the number of crimes and the number (and ability to cover ground) of police in an urban area? I'm not saying it is 100% cause/effect, but I don't think it is outside the realm of possibility....
What if he had said the cuts closed X firehouses and there were Y more damaging fire b/c of increased response times...
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There is absolutely a correlation between the two. I wasn't going to respond before, because I figured I would hear from the cynics about all the new hires being found in various coffee shops along thier beats.
Years ago when I first came on we were assigned walking beats in the town I worked. The town was out of control at the time. Some nights we got our asses kicks and some night we didn't. Over all we were employees added on to the department to supplement the officers allready there because of crime. The five new guys managed to bring things back under control, (don't know how looking back), but only additional people can solve what your talking about. Read the book "Broken Windows" by Kelling and Cole. It is simplistic in nature, but explains everything rather well. Stopping crime is also taking the criminals off the streets after thier arrest using things like high bail, jail sentences, unheard of in Massachusetts anymore. In the eighties at one time things were so bad with house breaks a bunch of judges got together and took about 40 key players off the street and sent them to jail as opposed to giving them any kind of break and property crimes in the count plummeted. Its not just how many cops there are out there. To say that crime wont occur because more cops are hired is dubious. Although in cities like New York some guys walk beats thier entire career on the job. I can tell you first hand that catching someone in the act of breaking into a business wont happen unless a cop is in the area. To use the "I'll get more cops on the street" line to get elected is poop. It degrades the effort by department administrators to add additional people. Look at our own state police, they are 500 troopers down through attrition. It has been six years since an academy class went through. How many troopers do you see out on patrol. How many people do you see doing 90 m.p.h.There are more fatal crashes on our highways than ever before.
In Brockton, right now, today, if you had a property damage car crash with another vehocle or a tree with now injuries it would take an hour or better to get a cruiser there. Somes day the only thing the department will send is a wrecker if you tell them the car is undriveable Imagine getting into a crash and no cruiser response occurs.
I remember when the first ever layoffs occured in police departments years ago. I met a Brockton cruiser for a shuttle and he said he was the only officer on the street that night. 115,000 people and one officer. How about those odds. Abington P.D. had layoffs years ago and thier residents started calling us to handle thier problems. They were really pissed when we would not send cars. Thats called scabbing.