A new report out shows in the past 10 years (2008-2018) Madison added 10.6% more officers, the highest in the state.The report is a quick 2-pager and easy to read if you want to take a look. Here’s the web version.
WHAT’S IN THE REPORT
Brought on by budget debates in Milwaukee and Madison, the Wisconsin Policy Forum did a report on policing called “Police Spending Rises, Staffing Levels Fall” and the conclusion they reach is that policymakers need to look at the appropriate levels of local spending and property taxes and state aid to cities and villages.
However, given the priority that is typically given to public safety, the fact that police staffing in many large cities is not keeping pace with population growth could be a sign of intensifying fiscal constraints.
This trend is one more element to consider in the ongoing conversation about appropriate levels of local spending and property taxes as well as state aid to cities and villages in Wisconsin.
They also note:
Our findings lend context to tough budgeting decisions and show how police spending can outpace inflation even as staffing levels fall. They may also provide insight into how cities are handling core public safety duties during a time when they face limits on property taxes and little to no increase in state aids.
There are many ways to look at police staffing levels. This report looks at population and number of officers per 10,000 residents. This report compares the top 10 ten cities in Wisconsin. It also looks at the violent crime rate and has more details.
HOW DID MADISON RANK?
Population: 252,546 (2nd highest behind Milwaukee)
Number of Sworn Officers: 482 (second highest behind Milwaukee)
Officers per 10,000 residents: 18.6 (fourth highest behind Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, )
Violent Crime rate: 429.9 (fourth highest behind Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay)
While the state averaged a 3% decrease in officers per 10,000 residents. Madison only decreased 1.1% which was the least amount of decrease. Janesville, Oshkosh and Racine saw increases in officers per 10,000 residents. The Wisconsin average of 3% decrease in officers is also the national average, so we are doing better than the national average as well.
FLAW?
I’m not a fan of measuring officers per 10,000 residents because the results end up flawed in Madison. In this report they used the definition of “individuals who ordinarily carry a firearm and a badge, have full arrest powers, and are paid from governmental funds set aside specifically for sworn law enforcement.” Typically they only count the Madison Police Department officers. However, they count the population of UW-Madison in our population, and then they forget to add the UW Police Department. And, we also have the Capitol Police here as well. And the Sheriff’s department. This report only counted the Madison Police Department (MPD) officers. So, our spending is even higher and our number of sworn officers and officers per 10,000 residents should also go up. Overall, we are doing even better than the report suggests. Without adding all the other police we are at 1.86 officers per thousand. I was on the police staffing study committee in 2003 when we went from 1.8 to 1.9 officers per thousand as a measurement and argued that they needed to count all the police in Madison in the calculation. I lost that argument, but I think its valid. I think the Madison Police Department knows this too (or did) and they dropped their “officers per population” measurements and went to a different measurement to determine how many patrol officers we need. So when MPD argued for more officers in the last budget, they were using a different measurement than this study uses. They were looking at how many patrol officers we have and trying to get them to spend 50% of their time responding to calls and 50% of their time doing “proactive” work. They didn’t look at the other half of the police department and what they were doing. Of our 428 sworn officers, only 224 are assigned to patrol according to the police department report at our last Public Safety Committee meeting. Our patrol officers are about half of the total sworn officers. It would be interesting if the report had only looked at patrol officers to see what the difference might be.
