"More cops on the street:" not the answer to crime

Earlier this week, Detroit's Mayor Bing and Acting Chief Chester Logan announced a restructuring of the DPD. The primary restructuring consisted of closing done the gang unit and the Tactical Mobile Unit. The stated purpose was to put "more cops on the street." My letter to the Detroit Free Press is in response to this issue.

Re: Detroit Police Reorganization

Dear Editor:

Believing that putting more "cops on the street" will significantly impact our City's embarrassingly high crime rate is akin to believing that simply having more teachers will make students smarter. Just as it is with teachers in the classroom, it's what the officers do while "on the street" that matters. 

Do we continue with a failed EMS style of policing in which the police role is primarily reactionary, responding to calls for help or service? Or preferably, do we adopt a data-driven problem solving approach in which patrol officers and their supervisors seek out crime and criminals, and are held accountable for implementing strategies, including making arrests, to combat crime in their districts? 

The data-driven approach should also be partnered with so-called "broken-windows" tactics. in which crimes such as vandalism, graffiti, metal scrapping, and traffic violations are given a priority. As a police lecturer once said, criminals drive like criminals. Criminals do "drive-by" shootings, rarely "walk-by" shootings. 

The minor reorganization of the Department announced by Mayor Bing and Acting Chief Logan will have little impact on crime unless it is accompanied by real change in the tactics of patrol officers. Efficient policing has had a huge impact on reducing the crime rate in many U.S. cities. For too long, our city has been the outlier.

Thomas E. Page