Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
^ hear hear
However, it's not like NOPD is some shining beacon of justice that's being strangled by a cheap mayor. There are quite a few bad cops that ruin the effectiveness of the department.
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Well, I don't think that anybody can dispute that bad cops, along with bad supervision and management have been a problem for NOPD. I think that any reasonable person would have to conclude that for the NOPD to be a model agency they need reform (which is happening now with the Consent Decree under the USDOJ), but to go along with that reform they need to be properly funded, equipped and staffed. Cutting their budget by 200-300 officers and not buying police cars for 3 years is a bad decision and is going to cause problems for ANY police department, good or bad, so while it is not the sole problem it sure seems counter productive to lowering the crime rate and/or providing good service to residents and visitors. I would not go so far as to say they are "Being strangled by a cheap mayor" but he is not exactly "putting his money where his mouth is" in terms of the crime issue. If anything he seems to ignore and be dismissive of many community, civic, and business groups that are continually demanding a greater police presence to help stem our crime rate. While there are many solutions to lowering our crime rate and making the city safer I dont think (in the short term) less officers on the streets is one of the solutions. If anything we probably need more officers on the streets until we find some effective non enforcement stratagies lower the crime rate. Once we have less of a problem I would be receptive to a leaner police force, as it stands "More with less" is not an acceptable way to deal with our crime issue. I also understand that it might be best to base the number of officers needed to properly serve the city less on our population numbers and more on the fact that on any given week or weekend (due to conventions/special events/festivals) our population is 50k-300k greater than the cenceus figures indicate. Just going on what Serpas has stated publicly on several occasions, all the statistical data indicates that to properly function and handle the volume of events the city experiences they need right at 1,600 police officers (I think the actual number was 1575).
Additionally, one of the reasons that the reforms instituted under Richard Pennington never stuck was that many of the tools to keep them in place were de-funded and as such fell by the wayside. When it comes to these things our former and current mayor(s) are famous for (as a friend of mine says) "Paying Toyota money for a used Ford, budgeting nothing for maintaince, then becoming suprised and upset when it does not win races like a Ferrari"
Bottom line is that I'm all for reform, transparency, and accountability (god knows they need it).......but holding them accountable without a number of the resources needed to be successful is just setting up failure all over again.
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