Does Baltimore have too many police officers?
Earlier this week, as the city police union continued to speak out about their frustration over wages and benefits, WBAL-TV reported a brow-raising figure: Baltimore is flush with cops, with literally hundreds more per capita on the street than the next highest comparable city. The station reported that Baltimore has 610 officers per 100,000 people, compared to 377 officers per 100,000 people in Detroit and 472 in Philadelphia, and said legislators cited the story in questioning whether the city gets its money's worth.
There appears to be one significant flaw in the numbers, however. The reporting said that Baltimore has 3,900 employees, then translated that into the number of officers per 100,000 people. But "employees" do not equal "officers." As commenters on that first story pointed out, the BPD has hundreds of civilian employees from dispatchers to the crime lab technicians.
According to figures The Sun received from the city last year, Baltimore had 3,100 actual "sworn" officers in 2010. Those are just funded positions; with vacancies, the city has about 2,900. That's down from 3,300 in the early part of the decade, the figures show.
[City and police officials said Friday night that the station's figures were incorrect, but in an email WBAL's news director stood by the report. "She did not overstate the numbers," director Michelle Butt said, saying the station compared like data sets among cities. "Jayne and the WBAL news room continue through their reporting to raise questions and start debate about the direction of our community."]
Here's the upshot: even using the correct figure, Baltimore sports about 480 officers per 100,000 people, which is still more than the other cities WBAL compared it to, as well as a couple others that I picked out, which raises the question - given the state of the city budget, does Baltimore have too many police officers?
Could it pare back to the levels of Detroit and St. Louis, and focus on issues of compensation? Is public safety getting too much focus here at the expense of other areas of need? Or do we have appropriate staffing given the city's historical struggles with crime and officials' priority of making communities safer? Post your comments below.
For her part, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told WBAL that there's an argument that "maybe we could do without as many officers," but said that's not what the public wants.
"They want more patrolmen on the street. They want more police in the neighborhood," Rawlings-Blake said.The Austin American Statesman, on its Politifact web site, reported this recently on the issue of comparing the size of police forces:
Comparing staffing levels of different police departments can be tricky. The usual basis for comparison is the number of sworn officers per 1,000 residents. Those ratios vary widely across the country and even from city to city. Based on the most recent numbers available, New York's ratio in 2008 was 4.3 officers per 1,000 residents; the national rate was 2.5.
“It’s often like comparing apples to carburetors because there is so much difference in how departments use people,” said Craig Fraser, director of management services for the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit research and consulting group in Washington. In some cities, police officers do jobs that are performed by civilian personnel elsewhere. Some police departments have fewer officers because other local law enforcement agencies, like a sheriff’s office, pick up slack.
Comments
A question is, do we want to be like St. Louis and Detroit?
Obviously, no. Both those cities are disasters, even by Baltimore standards.
I seem to recall the ratio issue being brought up a few times about 10 or so years ago, and we were near the middle or slightly down from average. I also recall evidence that shows crime generally decreases as the ratio of officers increasing. Clearly, Baltimore has high crime and justify more officers on those grounds.
Also, the number of officers per person seems to decrease as the density of a city increases, as any one officer is in closer proximity to a potential crime, that is, in a place like NYC, there's less territory to patrol per beat.
Posted by: Nate | February 4, 2011 9:15 PM
Why don't we ask the familes of the 15 people that were murdered so far this year in Baltimore or the 222 from last year.
Better yet, how about when the Mayor tells you that the Police are here to protect you, when someone puts a gun up to your head and tries to rob you why don't you ask yourself "where are the police?"
Until Baltimore resolves it's violent urban problem there is no way anyone could say Baltimore has too many police officers.
Looking for funding? How about instead of spending $250,000 on Senate Bill 378 why not help out the police.
Posted by: Phillip | February 4, 2011 10:41 PM
How did I know talk was going to turn to this...if we start following this trend of law enforcement downsizing hitting places like Newark and Camden...we're in trouble...
Posted by: John | February 5, 2011 1:02 PM
The number of sworn officers is about the same now as when there were 300,000 more citizens in Baltimore. One doesn't need to look outside Baltimore for a good comparative analysis.
Posted by: Gordon Leitch | February 5, 2011 3:05 PM
Trust me, we need more police in Baltimore. The police force was larger some years back. The only people that would benefit in down sizing our police department would be the thugs on the streets. To even entertain such an idea is crazy and irresponsible. City Government needs to keep public safety a priority.
Posted by: Bill | February 5, 2011 4:27 PM
Why in the hell would we decide based on what our neighbors are doing instead of our deterrence on crime, and our ability to investigate crimes that happen? We're improving, but anyone who thinks Baltimore is ready to downsize of all things, well, you need to reevaluate your calculations.
Posted by: John | February 6, 2011 12:20 PM
If we're willing to reduce their workload... we could cut their number in half and still have all the "public safety" we can stand.
How?
Most of (75-90%!) the murders and shootings and agg assaults and of course the property crimes occur in the context of one very simple factor. This reality then makes these crimes a *symptom* of the problem and not the problem itself. Follow?
Follow the crime to it's source and deal with THAT. Today.
We can't afford to keep pretending that the criminal justice system game of "whack a mole" works.
It doesn't.
Posted by: MrRational | February 6, 2011 12:45 PM
In my 27 years in the Baltimore Police Department and a former member of its command staff, I had the opportunity to interact with police from throughout the nation. What I learned was Baltimore is a particularly unique and difficult city to police compared to other cities of similar size or larger. I learned we worked harder and longer to accomplish what others could with less time and effort utilizing similar tactics and resources. I would proffer, if you reduce the number of officers in the Baltimore Police Department, the downward trend in crime will cease and you may see crime increase. The question then becomes is the decrease in funding worth the increase in crime you will sustain. Most city residents I interact with would say the one thing they do not mind their tax dollars spent on is public safety, and if funding is decreased, I would wager that surrounding jurisdictions may well also see an increase in crime.
Posted by: Mike | February 6, 2011 3:26 PM
The problem with this study is that it neglects major population shifts that occur over time and fails to consider the role other police agencies have in their respective cities. Baltimore, as an independent city, does not receive assistance from a county police/sheriff the way Phila or Det might. Also, those cities have lots of highways, which means state police are likely to be more present. Then consider mass transit police.
Next, you have to look at the geography of the cities. St Louis is a mere 66 sq mi, jwhile Baltimore is 200 sq mil. For comparison sake, Disneyworld is 47 sq mi. Also, many cities have large physical boundries that keep large portions of the city pacified (Philadelphia has a big river that separates crime-infested West and North Philly from the population dense, and safe, northeast section. Baltimore is a continuous 200 sq mil block with no physical boundries to cordon off criminal elements, giving police alot of ground to cover.
Good points all, Josh. -JF
Posted by: Josh | February 7, 2011 1:31 PM