Police Deprtment (Salt Lake City, Taylorsville, Millcreek: low crime, home, law)

[cottonwood2420]

Which police department in Utah has the best response time, success rate, etc?

[DP525]

OK, I give up. Which one?

[eggalegga]

How do you measure their success?

[cottonwood2420]

Originally Posted by DP525

OK, I give up. Which one?

I don't know.

[eggalegga]

For a while after Taylorsville got their own police department, I saw them on the news constantly.....apprehending criminals, chasing stolen vehicles, etc. Do you pose this question because some area (sorry, forgot which one) of eastern SL valley just voted to create their own PD? I think it was Millcreek or Cottonwood or something like that.

I read or heard somewhere in the recent past that South SL had the worst crime rates in the valley. Not sure what that was based on.

I felt bad for Salt Lake City's PD when the voters didn't pass the bond or whatever it was to build them new offices. Theres were/are falling apart and they've run out of room. I think there were too many other "extras" in that proposal and voters didn't want to pay for it.

[cottonwood2420]

Originally Posted by eggalegga

For a while after Taylorsville got their own police department, I saw them on the news constantly.....apprehending criminals, chasing stolen vehicles, etc. Do you pose this question because some area (sorry, forgot which one) of eastern SL valley just voted to create their own PD? I think it was Millcreek or Cottonwood or something like that.

I read or heard somewhere in the recent past that South SL had the worst crime rates in the valley. Not sure what that was based on.

I felt bad for Salt Lake City's PD when the voters didn't pass the bond or whatever it was to build them new offices. Theres were/are falling apart and they've run out of room. I think there were too many other "extras" in that proposal and voters didn't want to pay for it.

That was my city. Cottonwood Heights City Council voted last week to break away from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and form it's own police department.

[Aerorick]

Saw a news story on that the other night. They were interviewing a representitive from the Sheriff's department apparently right after the vote. I remembered it because the Sheriff's spokesman was expressing what a mistake it was. Because a new two or three member city police department could't possibly do as good a job protecting the citizens as the Sheriff's department could. Seemed a little irresponsable and very unproffesional to say that publicly even if he was right.

[SergeantL]

Cotton—

Go to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR). There is a significant amount of information contained in the data files. You will not find average response times.
Law enforcement success can be measured in a number of ways.

One commonly used indicator of success is found in the number of crimes committed in various crime categories within a specific jurisdiction. I personally don’t like this measurement, because I don’t believe low numbers are an indication of agency efficiency unless there is a measurable and sustained drop from prior levels. In my opinion and the opinions of many criminologist, sociologist, and economist, low crime rates are more closely associated with demographics and the economy.

Another measurement, and one I actually believe is more relevant, is clearance rates. This is the percentage of crimes that were cleared by an agency. This measurement gets muddy in that there are various definitions of clearance. As an example: If a suspect commits a burglary and the police department eventually arrests him, this is counted as a clearance, even though little or no property is recovered. Many departments will also clear a burglary case if there is a partial property recovery and no arrest is ever made.

Legitimate clearance rates use the following:

In the case of property theft, clearance rates indicated the percentage of property recovered. As an example: You suffer a 10K burglary at your home. The police department recovers 7.5K of your property. That’s a 75% recovery rate. It’s then up to you to decide whether a 75% recovery rate is sufficiently successful.

Crimes against persons are legitimately measured by arrest and successful prosecution rates. It’s not enough to simply identify and arrest the suspect. Efficiency is also measured by how well the agency prepares its case for successful prosecution.

I am simply going to tell you what I observed over 35-years of law enforcement experience. Stats are a game played by Chiefs, who are at-will employees and politically joined at the hip with mayors or city councils. I have seen more twisting of stats during my career than a candy cane maker sees in a lifetime.

In the case of your city, the Council will soon find they will not see any significant reduction in crime by forming its own PD. I can only surmise that someone in the finance department crunched the numbers and found a savings by creating a local police department. Next, a new small PD absolutely does not have the resources of a larger agency, so I predict clearance rates will plummet. I also suspect your city will not be able to supply competitive pay and benefits, so the quality of personnel will suffer. Small low paid agencies are notorious for two common phenomenons. First, they attract young and inexperienced officers, who will work for lousy pay just long enough to become certified and then move on to greener pastures. Second, they attract officers, who shouldn’t be trusted with anything sharper than a warm crayon, but they are the morons who respond to your home at 0230 hours, when your wife hears a noise downstairs.

I can only tell you what I firmly believe in my heart. Do not trust your safety to any police department. Your home and your family is your responsibility when there is a bump in the night. Police departments do a pretty good job of cleaning up after the fact, but no agency can really help you during the pucker factor moments.