The pension SNAFU in Dallas and anti-taxation sentiment among Houston voters have halted and reversed growth of the number of sworn staff at both police departments, observed the Texas Tribune.
Dallas is where the real problem lies. Seasoned officers are fleeing because pension benefits that promised to make them all millionaires are now all evaporating, while low entry pay makes them uncompetitive with other Texas departments.
Houston's so-called shortstaffing, however, isn't really shortstaffing. The union says they should have 1,000 more officers, but after a one-time loss of about 200 officers before the latest pension deal was cut, they're not witnessing an ongoing exodus like in Dallas. Regardless, Grits believes that it's fine if unsustainable increases in police staffing cease in the wake of two decades of declining crime. There are plenty of officers in both cities, they're just being assigned to work that should be performed by social workers, mental health professionals, civilian techs, call-center employees, code enforcement, robots, the private sector (e.g., answering false burglar alarms), etc..
Redefining police roles and reconsidering 911-driven patrol patterns are the best solutions to perceived shortstaffing. Just increasing the number of the city's most expensive employees ad infinitum in the face of declining crime isn't a sustainable approach.
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8 comments:
Albuquerque could use all the officers that are fleeing Dallas and Houston and then some.
HPD has fewer officers now than it did 15 years ago, reports that tens of thousands of thefts, burglaries, and other crimes are ignored for lack of manpower each year are only the icing on the cake. Even with Houston's decriminalization of pot (under 4 ounces) and DWI's (first offense), the juggling of the books is telling, among those hundreds of extra officers retiring this past year was the entire command staff except one new to the position, more to follow when the new chief implements a policy of forcing high ranking employees to work on holidays and weekends without additional pay. Contrary to what the article implied, Dallas still pays better than Houston, HPD officers hired since 2004 have no deferred retirement program and get smaller pension benefits that require them to wait until they are 55 years old to start collecting.
Houston's situation is actually worse than being 1000 officers short of what is needed for their population, the city commissioned an independent study that showed many more officers would be needed unless wide scale policies were changed. Remember that when the single officer answers a high priority call for service and "fears for his life" for lack of backup, his response to the threat will be to lawfully shoot someone that in a fully populated department might have been afforded other opportunities. Those who believe the aggregate quality of recruit is comparable no matter what the compensation are laughably naive too, keep telling yourselves that as the city becomes exactly the kind of place those in rural suburbs have always believed it was, or when your business is broken into and your insurance denies your claim because of the illiterate report suggests it was an inside job. Given society expects cops to do more than ever and be well versed in all sorts of alternative solutions, you're playing with fire to save a few bucks.
@4:09, you can just about bet your bottom dollar that the author of this blog does not view thousands of thefts, burglaries and other crimes being ignored as a bad thing. In fact, he probably views that as progress.
Easy 4:09pm and 4:50pm as he'll call you a red parakeet or red seagull.
Police should be privatized so that they only work where the people are able to pay for the service---and want it.
Why can't the cops work on the principle of "billable hours" like lawyers do? Fire and ambulance types as well.
Right about now, there are a great many people wishing Houston and surrounding communities hadn't banked on low manpower to save a few bucks. Blog writers are notorious for embellishing their comments while writing from a place of relative safety, public safety personnel proving their worth over and over again during Hurricane Harvey without regard to race, religion, or any of the other BS accusations they face from the privileged crowd.
Sure are a lot of Trump Chumps posting comments here.
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