[image-1]Yesterday, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, the union representing rank-and-file officers, endorsed City Councilman Zack Reed in the upcoming mayoral election.
“Councilman Reed has been consistent in his concern for rising violent crime rates and the need to improve police staffing levels in Cleveland,” wrote Union President Steve Loomis, in a statement, “while the current administration has neither acknowledged nor addressed these issues.
“For instance the Division of Police is currently 163 active police officers and 28 dispatchers below BUDGETED staffing levels with no relief in sight. This type of leadership exposes officers and law-abiding citizens to unnecessary risk and has a dramatic impact on everyone’s quality of life.”
The CPPA endorsed Frank Jackson’s opponent in the 2013 mayoral election as well. (If you’ve forgotten who that was, no matter. But his name was Ken Lanci.)
Both Reed and Jackson have called for an increase in police officers on the force. Reed has suggested that 400 new officers will do the trick. Jackson has called that number unfeasible — and Cleveland.com has too — though Jackson himself has suggested adding 300 officers between 2018 and 2020.
But will increasing the number of police officers really solve the problem of rising violent crime? Will it even help?
In data analysis published yesterday by a local independent researcher and Twitter celeb, the answer is no.
Tim Kovach found that Cleveland’s current number of officers (1,444) isn’t even all that low. Compared to the 429 other U.S. cities that the FBI analyzed in 2016, Cleveland ranked 9th for number of officers per 10,000 residents (37.4). Phoenix, for example, has about 17 officers per 10,000 residents. San Antonio has roughly 14. San Jose has only nine.
And though Cleveland’s police force has indeed shrunk, so too has the total population, so the number of officers per 10,000 residents hasn’t deviated significantly since 1995.
Kovach ran correlations on a number of different variables, both in Cleveland and in the United States, and found that adding more police officers does not correlate to reduced crime. He also suggested that Cleveland needs to move beyond “easy answers” when tackling questions of crime and policing, particularly in communities of color.
“Ultimately, the weight of the evidence suggests that hiring hundreds of more police officers will do nothing to alleviate Cleveland’s crime woes; on the contrary, it could even exacerbate them,” he concludes. “None of this should be taken to say that police don’t play an important and personally dangerous role in securing our communities. Police officers are a necessary but, clearly, insufficient tool in a much broader toolkit to combat crime.
“Obviously much of the impetus for deploying more police is coming from residents themselves, including those in communities of color struggling with rising crime rates. But we should expect our elected officials to make decisions that are in the best interest of their constituents and are based on evidence, not fear mongering.”
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2017.
The violence isn’t going to be stopped until progressives enter reality and acknowledge the fact that inner-city culture is deficient. That is as obvious as can be, but instead of helping he inner city, progressives champion false narrative, nonsense causes such as BLM, which does nothing to help blacks whatsoever. Progressives make big fusses about gun control when there are isolated incidents of the white mass shooters/domestic terrorists, but are silent as innocent blacks are blown away by each other with guns on a daily basis. Not only is it hypocritical, but it’s sad that progressives don’t actually care about helping the inner city communities but pretend like they do. Identity politics isn’t going to help anything. We already know it doesn’t. These children in the inner city need a better option than gangs.
As far as the statistics about hiring more police, obviously the article looks fancy because of all of the statistics, but it is pretentious. How were the extra police deployed and used in those cities? If we hired police specifically with the intent of having them reach out to inner city communities and develop relationships with those in the communities as opposed to having them check speeding or something, I would think that would be beneficial. Now, you might have problems finding people brave enough to take on a role like that, but if people could be found, I think it would be helpful. They should hire more police specifically as a community building task force with strong accountability.
Just as with Zack Reed I am not satisfied with the performance of the Cleveland Schools
and its inability to teach our children the basics of reading, writing, speaking and
listening. I am not satisfied with the anemic job growth in Cleveland especially
the blown opportunity of failing to land the Amazon Fulfillment Center which
ended up in North Randal. I am not satisfied with the lack of discipline and
training in our police department resulting in the unnecessary deaths of Cleveland
citizens when it clearly could have been prevented. I am not satisfied when
Cleveland is ranked at the top of the list in poverty while crime is rampant in
our city. I am not satisfied with the catering to owners of sports teams by
Cleveland officials when they know in their own conscience it is the wrong thing
to do.
I believe it is time to get the City of Cleveland moving again. We have stagnated
for the last 12 years under a political philosophy of “it is what it is”. Never let
it be said that this was the time the tide ran out on Cleveland but rather was the
time the tide finally came in. Zack Reed is that tide and represents the pro-active
change Cleveland needs during these challenging times. Right now Cleveland is
a ship without a captain {and a rudder as well}. Zack Reed will be that captain
if voters make the right choice on November 7, 2017.
The question before the voters of Cleveland is: are you safer than you were four
years ago?
Less single mothers, missing fathers of the baby, and one way tickets out of town will solve the violence problem. Banishment will help. Longer jail sentences. And stopping the propaganda of the ghetto lifestyle as something to be proud of will help.
Extra police will help in the near term.
If Zack Reed wins, it will not be because “the ghetto” got behind him and voted him into office. Are you kidding me? Do you honestly believe its residents even bother to vote? Look at the anemic turnout in the primary. What was it? Twelve per cent of voters city wide/ Sixteen? Twenty?
And the people who actually got off their couches and got their asses off the couch and out the door and to the polls were mostly on the opposite end of the city. My end. The ones who actually bother to vote in elections. The mostly white voters who are fed up with the uptick in crime, the break-ins, the burglaries, the smashed storefronts, the carjackings, the stolen vehicles that disappear from driveways. Mostly-white crime victims on the West Side will decide this election, and they just might put your guy in office.
Forget the school issues. Forget the wingnut noise about thug culture, and blaming progressives for glorifying it. Many of us hate it as much as you do. Crime is the issue this year, and that is why Zack Reed is running on a “Safety First” platform. It just might work.
A fulfillment center is just a glorified name for warehouse, and a stupid one at that. They simply needed a HUGE space near a major interstate, so North Randall got it. How is that a case of Cleveland blowing it? It’s not exactly in Toledo or Pissburgh. Still in the area, fer chrissakes.
Chuckles the Clown