Detroit Crime Letter, Detroit Free Press, January 11, 2011

Cut crime with better use of police

In order to put more officers on the street, Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. plans to establish “virtual precincts” that will provide limited service during specified hours. How this is going to combat our city’s embarrassingly intractable high crime rate is beyond me.

I’d like the chief to explain why other cities with fewer police officers per capita have had great success in cutting their crime rates. Why, for example, does Los Angeles now have fewer crimes than it did in 1957? Why has Los Angeles, with 4 million people, been able to reduce its murders from 1,000 per year in the early 1990s to fewer than 300 homicides per year today? That’s fewer than in Detroit, a city of 700,000.

   
Putting “more cops on the street” is meaningless unless the police are actually doing something.

   
Unfortunately, I have little confidence in the Detroit Police Department to actually make a dent in the crime rate. And this is in spite of many excellent, ethical and motivated officers. It’s time to bring in someone from the outside to implement effective policing.

Thomas E. Page Retired, Los Angeles Police

Department Law enforcement consultant 


Detroit