Baltimore is a city of 630,000 people. They have 3100 sworn officers and sergeants with 550,000 police calls for service per year.
Seattle is a city of 580,000 people. They have 1200 sworn officers and sergeants with 300,000 police calls for service a year.
The city I work for has a population of 560,000. We have 875 sworn officers and sergeants with 400,000 police calls for service a year.
Now, I will underwhelm you. My city has 3100 people with 5 total officers.
Posted by: historic pup | May 28, 2008 at 09:32 PM
Baltimore is a total shit-hole. Let that be a compliment to the drastically overworked, yet effective, PDX cops.
We have similar problems (on a smaller scale) here down south. The city had to start dipping into emergency funds to keep the 911 service running...and people STILL complained about mis-management. When the hell will people figure out that if they refuse to pay taxes they won't receive services!? Please folks...pay your share of taxes and give the cops a break for keepin' yer asses safe.
Posted by: Peter | May 28, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Now Peter, how is that to fit into my one issue politics of tax cuts?
I thought that is all you had to do to govern anymore...
/sarcasm
-C
Posted by: Bunny&Claude | May 29, 2008 at 12:19 AM
Hey historic pup, you know the difference between your officer to population ratio (besides the fact that yours is higher than RD's)? All of your officers work the street and take calls. The biggest problem with RD's number of officers and sergeants is that out of that base number of 875, only about 45% of them take calls on the street. That means that those 400,000 calls are handled by under 400 officers.
The biggest problem, as I see it, with your small agency is the lack of cover officers. With such a small agency, you could often be the only person working. If the shit hits the fan, you'd be relying on a neighboring agency for cover. I think I prefer RD's situation.
Posted by: h. | May 29, 2008 at 09:45 AM
I agree h.! I wish J had backup. Most the time county units are on the other side of the county. And who knows where a Stater will be. I guess there's always the BLM enforcement officer that shows up more to help J out on stops.
Posted by: ToeKnee | May 29, 2008 at 01:56 PM
That is rather frightening, TK...
Posted by: Bunny&Claude | May 29, 2008 at 09:07 PM