Plummeting arrest numbers. Rising crime. A perception that overworked police officers were no longer able to do their jobs.
As similar as it sounds to Denver’s current situation, all of that actually occurred in Nashville, Tenn., in 2001.
But rather than dipping into the budget for more cops, Nashville chose to change the way it used the police officers it already had, and the results have been dramatic.
Arrests are up in nearly every category, some by as much as 142 percent. And the new chief responsible for the change is pushing for even more productivity.
Crime is down, and the Tennessee capital is paying for fewer officers than it had seven years ago.
If Denver were to attempt the same with the identical ratio of officers as Nashville, the Police Department would have nearly 300 fewer cops than it does now.
“I’m astounded by that,” Denver Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie said. “I wouldn’t say our officers are doing worse than others in our metro area, but it sure seems that we’re tossing more cops at the problem and taking the easy way out.”
While the Denver City Council agreed Nov. 8 to hire 19 additional officers, other cities of similar size are bearing the pressure of having to do more with less. And some are still cutting.
The percentage decline in Denver police arrests since 1998 – between 32 percent and 36 percent, depending on the source – is greater than in cities such as Portland, Ore., and Phoenix, where arrests are also declining.
Yet those towns have fewer officers per resident than Denver and rank just as high in the number of reported crimes.
However, some say it matters little what’s happening elsewhere.
“It’s far less important to me what’s happening in Phoenix; I’m concerned more with what’s happening in Denver,” said Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, whose public safety committee analyzed the department’s arrest data and concluded there are too few officers to handle the job well. “My constituents want and expect good police service here.”
Mayor John Hickenlooper is negotiating to hire one of the nation’s best-known criminologists to evaluate the department’s efficiency, a move likely to cost thousands of dollars.
Denver police union president Mike Mosco has said there are myriad reasons behind the arrest decline, much of it from procedural changes requiring additional paperwork for once- routine arrests.
Mosco has also pointed to jail overcrowding, understaffing and poor morale. No one has said officers are not working hard, although it’s been suggested by some officers that the harsh scrutiny that comes with citizen complaints can be avoided by not taking risks on the street.
While Nashville is doing more with fewer officers, statistics indicate Denver police just aren’t arresting as many people as before with practically the same number of cops on the job. In 1998, the department averaged 73 arrests an officer. In 2004, it plummeted to 46. Each year, the city had about 1,400 officers, FBI statistics show.
The same problems can be found in other cities, such as Phoenix.
Phoenix has a police force twice the size of Denver’s, but officers there say they are so bogged down by paperwork and increasing calls for police that overall arrests are down 25 percent in the past seven years.
As in Denver, officers in Phoenix say their manpower – about two officers per 1,000 residents, while Denver has from 2.35 to 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents, depending on who’s talking – doesn’t match the need. Although the crime rate was relatively the same in 2004 as in 1998, the police force can’t keep up, Phoenix spokesman Sgt. Lauri Williams said.
“You can’t make too many arrests in a day if the paperwork takes up two or three hours at a time,” Williams said.
Without adding officers, Police Chief Jack Harris, appointed last year following a 30-year Phoenix police career, demanded something that sounded unusual coming from police: Arrest criminals.
“It’s as if people had forgotten what we do,” Williams said.
Not long ago, officers waited up to two hours to jail someone they had arrested, Williams said, causing some officers to shy away from making arrests that would keep them off the street.
“They’d cite them (the offenders) instead,” she said, echoing similar sentiments in Denver where officers complain of paperwork logjams taking time from patrol. “Who wants to arrest someone and then wait in line?”
In Phoenix, law enforcement officials eased the backlog somewhat when they re-commissioned old-fashioned paddy wagons to pick up people as they were arrested.
“Our chief is very matter-of- fact: Catch criminals and jail them,” Williams said.
Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman did not return requests for comment. He has requested additional officers.
In Portland, police have watched as officials trimmed the budget eight consecutive years.
With a one-time strength of more than 1,000 officers, the city enjoyed a reputation of safety and prosperity in the Pacific Northwest – yet the number of reported crimes has barely budged in the past seven years. The number of officers to handle those crimes, however, has indeed budged – downward. Today, the force is at 965 officers for a city of more than 545,000 people.
Put in perspective, Denver’s authorized force of 1,405 officers would have to be reduced by about 410 cops to match Portland’s officer-to-citizens ratio.
With projected cuts of 3 percent in the coming budget year, the Portland department is expecting additional reductions of its manpower, spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said.
The department already has 45 fewer detectives than it did seven years ago.
Not surprisingly, arrests are also down – but only by 11 percent since 1998, crime statistics show. While not as significant a drop as Denver’s, officers are just as frustrated.
“It’s hard to see consecutive years of budget cuts knowing how it’s decreasing your effectiveness,” Schmautz said.
Contributing to the arrest decline was the dwindling number of available jail beds, an issue that caused police to intentionally not arrest felons such as burglars and car thieves, he said.
“We couldn’t book them into any facility, so we wrote them tickets,” Schmautz said.
Nevertheless, Portland officers wrote 8 percent fewer traffic tickets in 2004 than in 1998, statistics show.
The number of traffic tickets dropped by 31 percent in Denver for the same time period.
In Nashville, where its police chief is a former Washington state highway patrol commander, they are up 56 percent.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-820-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
2.35-2.5
Police officers per 1,000 residents in Denver, which stations 100 of its 1,405 officers at Denver International Airport
2.8
National ratio for police per 1,000 residents for cities with more than 250,000 population
46
Arrests per Denver officer in 2004, down from 73 per officer in 1998
