February 1, 2008
...What I Learned During My Ride Along in the 17th District
It was 3:45 pm on a Wednesday afternoon in January when I found myself strapping on a bulletproof vest in the main room of
Philadelphia’s 17th Police District Headquarters. Maybe it was the waiver I’d just signed, or it might have been the corporal who said that he’d try to find a shooting for me to see,* but as the officers finished roll call, I felt a bit nervous about what was to come. I was about to spend the next four hours on a police ride along in one of the districts with the highest crime rate -- which also happens to be the district that I live in.
But what ended up capturing my imagination during the ride along was not, in fact, the police work. Rather, I was compelled (and slightly horrified) by the very things I spend my time thinking about at my day job: strategy, operations, and resources.
Let’s start with the basics—equipment and facilities. In 2006, the City Controller’s office audited Police Department Facilities (the report and related video is
online) and found problems including, “water damage, electrical hazards, fire hazards, miscellaneous safety hazards, dirty conditions, unsightly conditions, broken or nonfunctional equipment or facilities, and structural issues.” The Controller identified four key contributing factors: 1) the Department of Public Property, charged with Police facilities maintenance, is inefficient and heavily backlogged; 2) poor maintenance procedures by the Police Department itself; 3) a shortage of custodial staff; and 4) an ever-growing gap between capital investment and dollars for basic upkeep.
Over a year after the audit was released, all of these problems remain visibly apparent within and without of the 17th Police District building at 20th and Federal Streets.
I was paired with Officer B, a 12-year veteran of the PPD. We walked across the street after roll car to get a patrol car; it had a flat tire. Later when we responded to a call about a shooting, we learned that the car’s siren didn’t work. Near the end of the night, I mustered up the courage to ask Officer B about the computer on board the cruiser. Throughout the evening, the computer had not been on, and Officer B kept a hand written log of all the calls we responded to. Officer B informed me that when the system is up, officers can run tags and enter information about calls responded to. But the system, which often is down, cannot transmit that information anywhere out of the car.
The information management issues and their impact on officer efficiency were apparent from the first call we responded to in the afternoon. We arrived at a school where a student was reported missing by her older sister. Officer B asked her a series of questions and called the information on the missing person into dispatch. After completing the report and getting a photograph of the student from her sister, we then had to head back to District 17 to file the hand written report with the operations staff who would enter it into a computer. Then, we took a photocopy of the report and the photo of the missing student to the South Philadelphia Detectives Unit so that they could enter it into another computer system. All-in-all, taking the report on the missing person took about 20 minutes, but filing it by hand at two different locations added nearly an hour to the process. In a case involving a missing person when the first hours are most crucial, this couriering of documents could make a huge difference. And the inefficiency of this process meant an hour during which one less officer was policing the district.
But, this wasn’t the only time I saw inefficiency in the use of our Police Department’s valuable human resources. When we arrived on the scene of the shooting I mentioned earlier, there were upwards of 20 officers from a couple of different districts. While five or six were actively engaged in police work, the rest were just standing around and chatting with one another. Similarly, eight officers eventually were present for a landlord-tenant lockout dispute that initially had only two.
Many people have suggested that what Philadelphia needs is more police officers. I’d point out that per capita we have a larger police force than almost all other U.S. cities, and our crime rate is still much worse. (FBI data from the mid-1990s shows that only Chicago, Washington, DC, Baltimore and New York have more officers per capita.) After my ride along, it’s clear to me that what we need is more strategic and efficient deployment of our police force, and we need them to be better equipped to do their job and communicate with one another.
I am heartened to hear that Commissioner Ramsey is emphasizing improvement in operations and administration in the
Crime Fighting Strategy he presented this week. While this component of the report might not be as compelling to the media as intelligent policing, collaboration, or prevention components, Chief Ramsey recognizes how imperative it is for us:
…[to] look for best practices and adapt them to our situation, that we eliminate or reduce bureaucracy where feasible, that members are trained in current policies, procedures and operations, that equipment and facilities are in optimal condition, that technology is appropriately applied to solving problems and improving operations, and that people are assigned to functions that best fit their talents, skills, and knowledge.
Based on what I witnessed, we can hire more officers and deploy a much higher percentage on foot patrols, but until we invest in infrastructure, equipment, and technology, and streamline our communications and deployment systems, our police force will continue to be at a disadvantage in their efforts to ensure a safe Philadelphia for all residents and visitors.
* Gallows humor—as would seem necessary in a city that reported nearly 400 murders in 2007 and like the rest of the country, is seeing an increased number of officers being shot by civilians is a necessary and understandable part of the officers’ camaraderie.
-- Alison Gold, Director of Strategic Initiatives
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