Almost a year of research indicates that police need more time
and manpower to prevent rather than respond to crime, but the data
also portrays discontent rank-and-file officers who want louder
voices and more accountability for their supervisors.
Almost a year of research indicates that police need more time and manpower to prevent rather than respond to crime, but the data also portrays discontent rank-and-file officers who want louder voices and more accountability for their supervisors.
As of January 2007, an average of 6.5 sworn officers were on duty at any given hour of the day, according to the report by Matrix Consulting Group. More often than not, they respond to calls rather than initiate incidents, and the nearly 25,000 calls for service in 2006 were mostly non-emergency reports of disturbances, suspicious behavior, barking dogs, loud noise or alarms.
Even though the 104-member Gilroy Police Department’s overall response time surpassed the department average in the western United States, the report said officers consequently had little time to patrol proactively: targeting known gang areas, addressing traffic congestion, and preventing theft or property damage. Doing this all with goals in mind increases accountability and allows elected officials to objectively evaluate law enforcement, the report states.
In addition to the calls last year, patrol officers initiated 15,264 incidents – about 42 events per day – ranging from vehicle to pedestrian stops. That number needs to be higher, the report states, and this means more officers deployed more efficiently.
Most department personnel surveyed said they agreed, and Pipkin said Matrix distributed and collected the surveys during the same time that the secret retirements and re-hirings of the chief and assistant chief became public knowledge in February.
Various city officials have said this was a blow to department morale, but confidence aside, the city keeps growing.
For this reason, the report gives the police department, city administrator and city council a buffet-style of millions in expenses and savings that will improve department efficiency.
So what will they pick?
OUT IN THE STREETS
Combining reactive and proactive patrols require hiring more officers and consolidating patrols under one captain rather than splitting them between two of the three captains, the report suggests.
The city council, police chief and city administrator could all determine the amount of time that officers should spend seeking rather than responding, but the report says officers should spend 45 percent of their time being proactive. Matrix figured this percent from years of research, according to Senior Manager Byron Pipkin.
An officer’s proactive availability is 39 percent between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. because of overlapping shifts and high call volume, the report found. This number would be even lower if it were not for community service officers handling less pressing calls.
“For a community like Gilroy that wants to have a proactive police force – one that is visible, that they can see directing traffic and present downtown at the mall – you need to have a 45 percent proactive rate,” Pipkin said.
Dispatching calls could be in jeopardy, though, if a countywide effort to modernize and link emergency service communications falls through. The project should come to fruition within three to five years with U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants, but in the meantime Gilroy’s communications system will remain sub-par, the report finds. Hence a $1.3 million backup plan that the city could use to fund its own communications renovation.
UNION THOUGHTS
The Police Officers Association, Gilroy’s police union, would have to approve extending officers’ shifts from 10 to 12 hours, which the report recommends.
Although he said he has not completely reviewed the report, Gilroy Police Department Detective and POA Vice President Frank Bozzo said “I’m not overly impressed with the review.”
Detectives handle different case loads, but Bozzo did not comment on the report’s recommendation to spread cases among them more evenly, or the fact that GPD lags behind the national average for solving property crimes while it is on par for violent crimes.
But he did say he’s received mixed comments from the rank and file on the report, adding that he had never heard of a consulting firm auditing GPD before.
Not true, though, said City Administrator Jay Baksa, who said a separate consultant audited the department in the mid-1990s, and other city departments also receive outside reviews.
Pipkin, who will present the report Friday morning to the council, said his job was not to please or dissatisfy anyone, but to call it how he sees it.
“We get paid to be objective, know how a police department runs and should run, and ways to go about that,” said Pipkin, who has more than 30 years experience after retiring as a Bay Area deputy chief.
Baksa agreed and admired the amount of control the report gives to the city council as far as identifiable benchmarks and goals are concerned.
“The most important item (in the report) is the methodology it recommends for the council to use,” Baksa said. “It takes out the subjective and puts in the objective.”
Councilman Craig Gartman said he welcomed the idea of giving GPD more goals to avoid a sedentary force, but he described the report as overly positive at points.
“This is just one organization’s opinion on how we should change the way the police department operates,” Gartman said, adding that he thought the secret retirements deserved more attention. “The report essentially said the management was good.”
At least it did to a certain degree.
COMMUNICATION issues
Better communication with the public and among its own is a key finding of the report, along with establishing goals and performance standards as part of a long-range planning process.
But Councilman Dion Bracco agreed with Gartman and said he did not think much of the recommendations.
“The report basically seems to say that the department’s doing a good job and everything’s running fine,” Bracco said, adding that the council would be “spinning its wheels” if it sought to influence Police Chief Gregg Giusiana or Baksa since both are about to retire and cleanse the department of any resentment left over after the secret retirements.
As for the new chief, Matrix recommends he or she revise the current once-a-month meeting policy among GPD managers and start meeting with union representatives. The department also lacks a formal representative to broach officers’ concerns with the chief, according to the report.
Matrix twice distributed surveys to department personnel beginning in February and received 67 responses that reflect the department’s overall mood.
The results shows that 64 percent said the communication of information throughout the department was not good; 60 percent said decision are not made in a timely manner and appropriately communicated to department members; and 52 percent said department personnel are not held accountable when their performance is sub-standard.
Increasing accountability will remedy “the absence of a performance management system (that) leaves a gap between the funds allocated to a police department and the expected results for city management and residents of a city,” the report reads.
Baksa said applicants for the chief position have lauded the report.
“Every one of the candidates we talked to said, “If you hadn’t done the Matrix report now, the first thing I would’ve asked you to do is a study,’ ” Baksa said.
Perhaps if the city had waited, then the results would have been more positive.
“I don’t think there’s any question that the survey results were somewhat tainted by that being right at the time of (the surreptitious retirements),” Baksa said. “Would the results have been different at a later date? Probably.”
