Twenty Recent Hires and Trainees To Boost Patrol Numbers Above Thirty-Four
LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE by clicking the arrow on the soundbar below
You can find and hear the previous six interviews, each covering different policing topics of importance, by scrolling down the news page. This edition updates our police staffing report from last year.
Chief Joshi updates us from his desk in this interview, with recording device in the forefront.
PREVIEW OF AUDIO INTERVIEW
By Larry Freeman
As APD climbs steadily, though not rapidly, out of its long standing shortage of sworn officers, still below the City Council’s current authorized maximum of 88. The Department has added about twenty new officers over the past year, with four more coming soon, especially for patrol assignments.
The increased number should shorten police response times, aiding in patrol and deterrence functions.
The increase also helps with APD’s ability to expand Community Outreach capabilities, traffic enforcment and other services, according to APD Chief Nishant Joshi in this in depth audio interview.
Possibly, as short term, recent data suggest, the rise in force numbers correlates to a significant drop in Alameda’s largest category of crime, property crimes involving burglaries, car thefts and shoplifting and so on if recent data trends hold.
In this interview, Chief Joshi notes that additional enforcement had at least one tangible, positive effect in that regard.
“While every city sees an increase in crime, during the (latest) Holiday Season we actually saw…a twenty percent decrease…in the business district,” he said.
While the target number of 88 officers is a long way from the department’s one time peak in 2005 of 112 sworn officers, the rising number of officers, in place and on deck as trainees, appears to correlate with greater police effectiveness, and clearly enhances APD’s ability to better provide for overall public safety as the chief will tell you.
This interview, though, goes into greater detail beyond the basic numbers.
It explores the calculus related to those numbers and examines the pros and cons of APD’ potentially adding more foot patrols in higher crime areas, the prospect of bike patrols, motorcycle police to increase traffic violations, the disconnect between more stops leading to any statistical increase in identification of criminals, future plans, targeting “hot spots” of crimes and much more.
ANN invites you to leave the tether of the screen and the news page, and take a listen to this seventh in the series of in depth audio interviews with The Chief.
A few Interview Highlights:
“What we can accomplish with more people is… respond to ‘in progress calls’ in a much more timely fashion…and do more directed patrols.”
“We recognize that property crimes are the driver of crimes in Alameda. Violent crimes are not.”
Regarding APD’s vast crime data driven intelligence led approach to assist deployment strategies: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
“The priority right now is to prioritize patrol. When people dial 911, they want a patrol officer. ”
“From my experience as a police officer, foot patrols certainly work… and we encourage our officers to do that when they have the free time to do that. Right now we have three Community Resource officers ” who do foot and bicycle patrols. Three more are on the way.“
“We develop maps that show where a concentration of crime is occurring. We have specific strategies to be in those locations (‘hot spots‘) to deter crime.”