Arrest rates

A regular reader, Mr. Wilson, just pointed out a few minutes ago that the charts in my previous post are incongruent, in that the crime graph on the right is expressed as a rate per population, whereas the arrest graph on the left is not a rate—just the raw numbers. He is quite correct, and I had that same thought right after I posted it this morning. I knew that a graph for arrest rate would be slightly flatter. At any rate, here’s a couple of different rate graphs, Mr. Wilson. Nice catch!

Could these be related?

Following up on yesterday’s post, have a look at these two graphs of the past fifteen years. Do you suppose these trends could be related?

click image for larger version

The Part 1 Crime graph depicts the number of offenses per 1,000 population. Part 1 crimes are Murder and non-negligent homicide, forcible rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, auto theft, and larceny-theft.

Questionable solution

An interesting editorial by the Lincoln Journal Star on Sunday caught my eye, “Look at the cost of petty prosecution." The editors lament the cost of prosecuting misdemeanor crimes:

“John Wesley Hall, president of the trial lawyers’ organization, told the National Law Journal, ‘It’s a huge waste of money when you think of the huge fundamental costs that go along with misdemeanor prosecutions — the prosecution’s time, the judge’s time and jail incarceration time — these are mostly hidden costs.’ The group’s report recommends revising misdemeanor crimes into infractions that carry penalties such as fines or community service.”

The editorial notes that in some jurisdictions local prosecutors have stopped charging misdemeanors due to budget cuts.

If misdemeanors aren’t prosecuted, what shall become of the drunk drivers, sex offenders who invite teenage runaways to crash at their pad, thieves who break into cars to steal purses, those who shoplift cigarettes, commit third degree domestic assault, abuse their children, smash rear view mirrors for sport, continue to drive after their license is suspended, stalk their ex-girlfriends, use fake police badges to impress women at the bar, window peek, expose their genitals in department stores, climb the fence to defecate in the public pool for a few laughs, dump their old roofing material in Wilderness Park, change their oil by draining it into the gutter, etc., etc., etc..

Fines and community service are the answer, suggests the Journal Star. I’m not as optimistic about that as the editors. While removing the possiblity of a jail sentence from misdemeanors means that defendants would not receive the services of public defenders, I think it would be wise to consider the implications of dropping the possiblity of jail, and punishing such offenses exclusively with fines and community service.

What do you suppose the chances are of this guy ever paying his fines really is? And what will we do about the thousands upon thousands of misdemeanor defendant’s who don’t show up to their court appearance, ignore their ticket, and default on the time payment plan for their fine? If jail’s off the table, it’s more-or-less the honor system for misdemeanants. And do you really want this fellow doing community service, even if he could organize himself enough to show up at the appointed place and time?

About 15 years ago, New York City’s police chief (now the L.A. chief) Bill Bratton, made a startling discovery: if you pay attention to the small stuff, you can reduce the more serious stuff. At LPD, this revelation was meant with a collective “Duh.” Hard to believe something so basic sells books. As previously noted in the Chief’s Corner, we make a large number of misdemeanor arrests here in Lincoln. The editorial quotes Lancaster County Public Defender Dennis Keefe:

“Keefe noted last year that the city misdemeanor docket was ‘out of control,’ logging a 56 percent increase in the number of misdemeanors in the past five years.”

Around 99% of the City misdemeanor docket would be composed of arrests by the Lincoln Police Department. Somehow, I thought that was our job. I most definitely think it has contributed to our low rate of serious violent crime, and to our general quality of life.

I don’t completely disagree with the conclusion reached by Mr. Keefe and the editors. I’m all in favor of reducing costs with things like tightly supervised house arrest and electronic monitoring, and I’ve been pleased with the work of Lancaster County Community Corrections, which oversees these programs that have significantly the reduced jail population in Lincoln, and saved a bunch of money. I'm also in favor of diverting first time offenders, or offering them probation for most of those first misdemeanor convictions--sometimes even for a second or third.

But the editorial fails to acknowledge the fact that probation and fines are already the typical sentence for City ordinance misdemeanors. Jail is rarely in the mix unless the judicial admonitions, probation, and fines have not worked in previous cases. I’m just not sure more fines or community services is really much of a solution for many of our regular customers or for the kinds of offenders that are being sentenced to jail for municipal ordinance vioaltions.

Can't make this stuff up IV

This one hit the news wires and has become quite a phenomenon.

Run it like a business

How often I've heard that refrain from critics of government. I am usually silently thinking of those stories about CEOs with multi-million dollar compensation packages. I digress: if you're going to run it like a business, you make decisions on how to spend your revenue in a way that produces more of your core product: profit. In our case, the core product is safety and security. How do we spend our revenue to maximize that? It's not quite as easy in policing as it is in some private businesses, because the production function--the link between our inputs and the desired outcome--is not quite as direct. Nonetheless it's a great way of evaluating what you do, and it's a practice we try to engage in as we prepare our lean budget.

I've got plenty of problems of my own, so I don't really need to defend the Lincoln Public Schools, but there is a great example of this in the news lately. It is one that I've blogged about before. Last week, Pyrtle Elementary School was burglarized. Twelve laptop computers were stolen. The story in the Lincoln Journal Star unleashed a flurry of criticism in the comments directed at LPS for not either alarming all the schools or (alternatively) staffing overnight janitorial crews to deter burglars:

"They just don't get it. Put custodians in the schools at night. Geesh."
"...the administration still does nothing to tighten security."
"How many times does this have to happen before they start installing alarm systems?"

Last year, there were 18 burglaries at Lincoln Public Schools, with a total loss and damage of $40,539. The numbers are trending down. The average since 2000 is 33 annual burglaries, with loss and damage of $46,329. Pyrtle Elementary was the fifth burglary of 2009 (we are making good progress on that, by the way).

Exactly how many custodians do you suppose you could hire for that amount? What do you think the monthly fee to an alarm company would be for 70+ buildings? Forget the false alarm fines, and don't even bother with the seven-figure costs of installation. Just think about the monthly service charge.

Now, how would a business make this decision? Simple: what is the impact on the bottom dollar. Does the loss justify the expense?

Thanks for the memories

Yesterday we hosted a luncheon at headquarters for our retirees. We had a nice turnout, and I think everyone had a good time. The group includes several people whose service dates back into the 1950's, such as Capt. Lowell Sellmeyer, and Lt. Bill Satterthwaite.

Although it was primarily a social event, I gave a short talk to show them some of the new developments in policing. When you stop to think about it, some of the changes have been pretty dramatic. They creep up on you over time, so you may not realize it. I told them that I had not been to the Records Unit to look at a report a single time this year: all the case files and reports are available at your desk on your computer. I showed them a mugshot of a suspect that every one of us knows, and explained that all those, too, are at your fingertips. I wonder what the detectives in the group were thinking when I created a suspect list just by entering a few parameters.

At the core, though, policing is the same today as when they were all rookies. The critical skill of connecting with people, and the characteristics of compassion, ethics, humor, and dedication still define excellent police officers. Our 2009 retirees, Ofc. Marlan Hohnstein, Sgt. Roger Schmidt, Ofc. Sid Yardley, and Ofc. Mike Engel will be joined by Capt. Dennis Duckworth, who punches the clock for the last time today, about right now. You would be hard pressed to find a group of police officers who have exemplified those characteristics more than these. We wish them all well in their next careers.

ALPR coming soon

We are in the process of acquiring a couple automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems. Basically, ALPR systems use cameras and optical character recognition to read license plates by the thousands, and look for matches in a computer database of wanted vehicles. There are a growing number of these systems in use in police departments, and the technology is proven. It will be nice addition to our capabilities, and I expect (like other agencies) we will have some early and ongoing successes in recovering stolen cars, wanted fugitives, and so forth.

Bids were solicited earlier this year, and we are in the process of evaluating the responses. We have meetings set up this week with the vendors, and should be selecting the system we prefer this month. Acquisition, installation, and training will take place over the summer. One of the most important steps—developing the “hot list” database that plates will be checked against—will also be a work in progress. I expect we’ll be fully operational this fall.

Rummaging through the inbox

We’ve got a new spam filter on our enterprise mail here at the police department. It lets users manage their own quarantined mail, and adjust their allowed/disallowed lists. Previously, your blocked email was just gone. It’s been interesting for me to see the huge volume of stuff that gets blocked from my incredibly-clogged-anyway inbox. I’ve also discovered just how many legitimate emails haven’t been getting through. It’s not huge, but it is nice to have the chance to retrieve those that would previously have been lost.

Boy, do I ever get the email. The volume is huge. But the inbox can serve as the source of blog posts when writer’s block strikes, or when time is short. Sometimes, an email message will just hit me as worth sharing, like this one from Friday:

“There is this lady who walks her dog by my house every night and she lets it use my yard and kids toys as a toilet. She never cleans up after her dog and then she puts out her cigarettes out in my grass? and leaves them there as well. Is there something i can do to make her stop or is there a law she’s breaking? If someone could email me back i would appreciate it.”

Here is my reply:

“Lincoln has a city ordinance (6.08.155) that requires you to pick up your dog poop. Flicking a cigarette butt is technically littering, as well. I suggest you politely tell her you would appreciate it if she and her dog would both stop littering in your yard. This really doesn't need to involve Animal Control or the Police Department, in my opinion. If you're not comfortable talking to her, print and highlight the sections from the ordinance, and mail it to her with no return address.”

Regards,

Tom Casady, Chief of Police

Is it really necessary for the police to be involved in every kind, type, and description of boorish behavior? Are we so estranged from one another that we can’t just politely ask, or are we really that afraid of our neighbors? Hopefully, that’s what this correspondent does.