Cities in financial trouble across the country are facing difficult times. They're struggling with how to keep crime down (and the quality of life up) while being forced to raise taxes and fees, lay off employees and cut services. LA's City Council is being "creative" when it finds ways to produce headlines that seem to say we're still as safe as in the recent past. The fact is that under the Bratton administration the Department improved its reputation, increased its size, rededicated itself to "community based policing" and significantly improved the quality of life. Its been no problem keeping Police Academy classes full.
The LAPD has employees in two basic categories, sworn and civilian, and the full Academy classes will provide enough of the former to keep pace (or almost keep pace) with replacing the hundreds of retiring officers each year. But scores of civilians are being let go, and some of their positions, vital to supporting the work of the Department, will be turned over to sworn employees .. cops .. taking them off the streets. Those that remain will be severely restricted from doing any overtime work, and unlike law enforcement criminals don't watch a clock.
The State of California, also in dire financial straits, has begun releasing "nonviolent" criminals early, many of them unsupervised by any parole officers, in order to releave some of the expense of running the prison systems. And where do these convicts end up? Right back on our streets. With unemployment rates as high as they are its only natural that many released felons will return to their criminal ways to support themselves.
We can expect any number of "special programs" to be dropped or drastically reduced, too, as it becomes more and more difficult to find officers for basic patrol duties. Detectives services and gang-related programs will be among them.
At the LA Fire Department they've already begun to remove ambulance and EMT services from some of the city's firehouses, drastically increasing response time, and the likelihood of lost lives.
All of which is to say the headlines don't tell a complete story. Community policing folk need to understand the details of these issues, and be able to articulate the TRUE story when communicating with the public. Because as fewer and fewer officer are available for patrol, and community programs are cut, our quality of life in Los Angeles, and across the country, is poised to suffer. A reduction in public safety services will result in an increase of criminal activity.
Opportunistic criminals read these articles, too, and watch the local news. They understand that in times like these its easier to get away with crime.
LA Community Policing people are upset, as well they should be, to see the politicians work things out to suit themselves, while we know very well that the quality of life in our neighborhoods is quickly deteriorating. We need to keep the pubic informed about the full facts surrounding the issue.
NOTE: Please read the additional related articles, below, too.
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LA council refuses to freeze police hiring as city layoff plans proceed
The Los Angeles Times
April 14, 2010
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to reject a plan to freeze hiring in the Los Angeles Police Department over the next three months, even as personnel officials continue preparing to lay off as many as 383 civilian workers July 1.
The council sent the issue to a committee for more study, a move that would allow 90 officers to be hired by June 30 to replace those who plan to retire or resign. That vote came a few hours after Personnel Department officials told the council that they were moving ahead with plans to lay off at least 100 workers apiece in the Library Department and the Department of Recreation and Parks because of the city's budget crisis.
Still, several council members said they did not want to back away from a commitment made last year to keep the LAPD at 9,963 officers.
If “we renege on that 9,963, we're jeopardizing the people of Los Angeles, and we're putting a knife in the back of the chief of police,” said Councilman Dennis Zine, who is also a reserve police officer.
Some council members said they were torn by the competing priorities.
“I never thought I would be in a position where we're choosing between libraries and parks staying open, and a well-staffed Police Department,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who favored the continued hiring of police. “I don't really like making those choices."
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former LAPD chief who heads the Budget and Finance Committee, had argued that the city no longer has enough money to press ahead with its LAPD expansion plans. With the hiring moving ahead, he told his colleagues that he doesn't want to hear them tell distraught public employees that they are trying to save their jobs.
“When these folks show up next week and the week after and say, ‘Don't lay me off,' don't tell them you're fighting for their jobs,” he said. “Because with every police officer you hire, you have to lay off 1.5 or more civilians [because officers are more highly paid]. So don't tell them you're fighting for their jobs and the next day vote to hire police officers.”
The vote had been favored by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has pushed to expand the force by 1,000 officers since he took office in 2005. If he reaches that goal, the department will have 10,181 officers, according to the mayor's office.
Still, the LAPD has had to absorb other cuts, including the loss of scores of civilian workers and a dramatic reduction in overtime pay. Beck said that last month, those reductions in overtime were equal to having 292 fewer officers available to work.
The council's budget committee voted Monday for the LAPD hiring freeze. The following day, LAPD brass began telephoning council members to urge them to keep hiring. Police Chief Charlie Beck said he did not order the calls but relied on the command staff to use their best judgment.
“I told the command staff that they needed to make the department's opinions and positions known to the council,” he said. That message, Beck said, was: “We need to maintain police hiring to maintain public safety in this city.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/la-council-refuses-to-freeze-police-hiring-as-other-city-layoffs-proceed.html#more
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LA council OKs hiring 90 cops to replace retirees
The Associated Press
MercuryNews.com
04/14/2010
LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles City Council has approved hiring 90 new police officers now in the police academy in order to maintain the force at its current staffing level.
Police Chief Charlie Beck told the council Wednesday the new hirees would replace officers leaving the force by June 30.
The new officers will cost the department an additional $1.4 million, but Beck said the department has slashed overtime by $60 million.
The chief also said that 240 officers are spending some of their workdays on civilian duties because of layoffs.
Councilman Bernard Parks objected to hiring new cops until the city's revenue stabilizes.
The city faces a $222 million shortfall for this fiscal year.
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_14883911?nclick_check=1
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LA Police Protective League (LAPPL)
Press Release
April 15, 2010 |
LAPPL: Residents cannot afford further cuts to public safety
LOS ANGELES, April 14, 2010 -- As the impact of cuts made to the budget begins to diminish the effectiveness of the LAPD, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) today called on elected officials to end talk of further reductions to police personnel and resources.
"Elected officials have been using the total number of officers employed by the LAPD as a smokescreen to hide from the public the severe cuts that have already been made," said LAPPL President Paul M. Weber. "The number of officers deployed has actually been drastically impacted by budget cuts. Over 200 sworn officers are being pulled off patrol and other law enforcement duties daily to fill in for civilian support personnel, whose jobs have been chopped by some 25 percent. This is the equivalent of 60 patrol cars. In addition, officers whose duties lead them to work overtime are being forced to stay home once they accrue 250 hours, as the City has chosen to reduce both patrol and detective ranks rather than pay overtime and have a fully staffed force."
The effective cuts to the LAPD budget this year include:
-- A loss of about 286 officers per deployment period (28 days) due to increased usage in forced compensatory time.
-- Projected loss of approximately 600 officers per deployment period by mid-summer.
-- Standby time reduction, which has resulted in decreased availability of SWAT, K-9, homicide detectives and other essential personnel.
-- Reduced gang, narcotic and vice units' investigation efficiencies due to the 250-hour compensatory time-off cap.
-- The likelihood of 21 community station front desk closures.
-- Reduced efficiency in civilian support functions such as crime analysis, administrative operations, jail and property responsibilities due to furlough days.
-- Impact on the operability and availability of emergency vehicles due to a lack of replacement parts. |
"The LAPD is being hollowed out by these ill-advised budget cuts," Weber concluded. "Disingenuous officials, citing the total number of sworn officers to call for further reductions in police personnel and services, are not only endangering the safety of our residents - by adding to the instability and insecurity of our city, they are also endangering our chance of achieving a strong economic recovery."
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LAPD is not exempt from budget cuts
Officers increasingly deskbound as city cuts civilian workforce
LOS ANGELES, April 8, 2010 -- Drastic cuts to the LAPD civilian workforce are forcing LAPD officers to increasingly fill civilian jobs instead of patrolling the city's streets and neighborhoods, the president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) said today. These widespread cuts - in combination with forced time off for overtime worked - are resulting in significantly reduced police deployments throughout the city that threaten to create a public safety crisis this summer.
"It is a myth that the LAPD has been exempt from budget cuts due to the city's financial crisis," said Paul M. Weber. "The impacts are very real, as officers are forced to stay at home because of overtime concerns and fill in for furloughed civilians or vacant civilian jobs. City officials need to carefully consider the impacts of budget cuts and realize the consequences to public safety of any actions that increase police response time and decrease patrols in our city."
At the end of the last fiscal year (June 2009), 3,958 civilian positions were authorized for LAPD. For the current budget year, LAPD civilian positions were reduced to 3,587 - then hundreds more of those authorized positions were eliminated due to budget cuts. Today the Department has less than 3,000 civilian employees. With an additional 60 civilians slated for early retirement by June, the number of LAPD civilian personnel is expected to drop below 2,900 - over 1,000 civilian jobs eliminated.
Weber said civilian personnel perform duties that are crucial to effective law enforcement, such as taking 9-1-1 calls, warrant processing, data entry for suspect booking, grant writing and crime statistics analysis. If civilians aren't available to fulfill these critical roles, the responsibilities are shifted to sworn officers.
"For every 100 officers who are pulled from field work to backfill vacant civilian positions, it is the equivalent of removing about 30 police cars citywide," he said. "And that has a dramatic impact on our ability to respond to calls for service and keep crime down. On a daily basis we are getting reports from our officers that they are spending increasing amounts of time in the station performing administrative tasks, rather than fighting crime on the streets. The backfilling of civilian duties by sworn officers threatens to reverse the LAPD's historic crime reductions in recent years.
"The city cannot tolerate any further reductions in the civilian LAPD workforce," concluded Weber. "Many of the positions already cut need to be reinstated on a priority basis."
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About the LAPPL: Formed in 1923, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) represents the more than 9,900 dedicated and professional sworn members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPPL serves to advance the interests of LAPD officers through legislative and legal advocacy, political action and education. The LAPPL can be found on the Web at www.LAPD.com
For Immediate Release Contact:
Eric Rose (805) 624-0572 or
Paul Haney (626) 755-4759
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Calif. returns 656 parolees to active supervision By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
The Sacramanto Bee
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California is changing how it applies a new law allowing some parolees to go unmonitored after their release from prison, and will return 656 of the parolees to active supervision after learning they are at high risk of committing new crimes, prison officials said Wednesday.
Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told The Associated Press that upgrades to a computerized risk-assessment program found that some parolees had committed more crimes than officials previously believed.
So far, 6,667 ex-convicts have been placed on non-revocable parole under the new law that took effect in January.
The improved computer program developed under contract by the University of California, Irvine, found nearly 10 percent were at higher risk than originally projected. The improvement means the computer program can more accurately read court files and police records, Cate said.
"It's got better data to make decisions now," Cate said.
The revelation means that 442 recent parolees who were not being monitored will be actively supervised. Another 214 who were set to go on non-revokable parole were also found to be at high risk of committing new crimes.
Those ex-convicts on non-revokable parole don't have to report to parole agents and can only be returned to prison for committing new crimes.
The AP disclosed last week that some of those released under the non-revocable parole program had been convicted of violent or threatening crimes.
Cate said he didn't know if any of those now deemed a high risk had been convicted of those crimes, though all are considered nonviolent, nonserious and non-sex offenders under the legal definition set by the law. The law was passed last fall to ease prison crowding while cutting an estimated $500 million from the prisons' budget this year.
The more rigorous computerized risk review will also be used for future parolees, Cate said.
Cate disclosed the decision a day after the AP filed a Public Records Act request asking about problems with the computerized program.
The department decided last week to change the status of the 214 recent parolees who were still being processed, he said.
It decided this week to retroactively change the status of the remaining 442 parolees previously placed on non-revocable parole, Cate said. The department is only now beginning to notify those individuals that they will be actively monitored by parole agents, typically for three years, and can be returned to prison for parole violations.
"It's something we're trying to do to be as conservative as we can on crime," Cate said.
He acknowledged parole agents may have trouble finding some of the parolees, and said reinstating the individuals to supervised parole may prompt legal challenges.
"This just seems like an ongoing fiasco that potentially continues to put the public at risk," said Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, a leading critic of the program. "These are individuals now who Corrections has signed out of any kind of supervised parole. They don't know where these individuals are. Now they're going to try to find them."
However, Nick Warner, who represents both the California State Sheriffs' Association and Chief Probation Officers of California, praised the department for deciding to take past probation violations and a broader criminal history into account.
"It really, really improves their ability to gauge risk," Warner said. "If there's a better way to do it, they're going to try to find it."
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/14/2679396/calif-returns-656-parolees-to.html
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