HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Memo-Increasing the Miami Police Dept.'s Sworn ForceCITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
iNTER-OFF10E MEMORANDUM
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
items NA.1 on 01-10-13
Dwight S. Danie
City Clerk
TO
Johnny Martinez, P.E.
City Manager
Manubi Orosa
Chief f Police
December 20, 2012
DATE
Increasing the Miami Police
JEJEC
Department's Sworn Force
REFERENCES
ENCLOSURCS:
i.a
During the December 13, 2012 City Commission meeting, Vice Chairman Marc D. Sarnoff stated
that he intended to request that an additional 100 sworn positions in the Miami Police Department
be funded for the 2013-2014 Fiscal Year. In light of Vice Chairman Samoffs comments, my
Office conducted manpower and cost -benefit analyses of increasing the Police Department's sworn
budgeted force from 1,144 to 1,244 (including grant -funded positions). I present the following
report for your review.
CURRENT MIAMI POLICE DEPARTMENT MANPOWER
The Miami Police Department currently employs 2.6 sworn members for every 1,000 inhabitants,
placing Miami in the bottom 50th percentile in Miarni-Dade County in terms of sworn members per
1,000 inhabitants. To add some perspective, the Miami Police Department is currently on par with
the Biscayne Park (population: 3,072) and Virginia Gardens (population: 2,309) Police
Departments, both of which employ 2.6 sworn members per 1,000 inhabitants.
The demands of the Miarni Police Department, however, require a higher ratio of officers per
1,000 inhabitants than that of Miami's surrounding bedroom communities for the following
reasons:
The Miami Police Department is a full -service law enforcement agency, which provides
specialized police services not provided by many other local agencies.
o Most municipalities in Miami -Dade County do not maintain Homicide, SWAT,
Bomb Squad, Marine Patrol, or Sex Crimes Units, to name only a few. Instead,
they rely on the Miami -Dade Police Department to address those needs in the rare
instances where they arise.
o Because of their reliance on the Miami -Dade Police Department's specialized
police services, our neighboring cities dedicate most of their sworn forces to
uniform patrol functions.
The City of Miami's population and rate of officers per 1,000 inhabitants does not take into
consideration the City's daytime population (i.e., the City's residential population, plus the
number of persons working in the City, minus the City residents who work in the City):
o The City of Miami's daytime population is over 560,000.
o Unlike large Northeastern American cities, most of the persons who work in the
City of Miami do not live in the City of Miami, which results in the Miami Police
Johnny Martinez, P.E.
City Manager
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
items NA.1 on 01-10-13
Dwight S. Danie
City Clerk
Page
Department providing services to large numbers of City residents and non-residents,
alike.
The residents of Boston and New York, for instance, live and work within
the city limits at rates of 66 percent and 91 percent, respectively.
Only 45 percent of Miami's residents work within our city limits.
o The Miami Beach Police Department, which also has a large daytime population,
employs 4.1 swom members for every 1,000 inhabitants.
With the return of urban dwellers to Miami, the City's population is expected to continue
growing for the foreseeable future. Population growth in the Brickell area, for instance,
will require breaking the area away from the Coral Way NET Service Area and staffing it
with its own contingent of patrol officers, sergeants, and lieutenants. The Midtown and
Upper Eastside areas are also experiencing significant population growth.
POLICING MODELS: NORTH VERSUS SOUTH
When comparing Miami to the densely populated cities of the Northeastern United States, one sees
very different approaches to policing:
The New York Police Department employs 4.2 sworn officers for every 1,000 inhabitants;
Boston, 3.5 for every 1,000 inhabitants; Baltimore, 4.7 for every 1,000 inhabitants; and
Philadelphia, 4.3 for every 1,000 inhabitants.
The Southeastern model (as Vice Chairman Samoff noted) is typified by law enforcement
agencies with 1.5 to 2.7 sworn officers per 1,000 inhabitants, although some large
Southeastern cities such as Atlanta and Memphis have shifted to the Northeastern model
and now employ 4 and 3.76 officers per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively.
While the size of a city's police force is not enough to establish a causal link to crime rates, it is
worth noting that according to the FBI's 2011 crime statistics, the Northeastern United States has
the lowest crime rate in the nation, while the Southeastern United States has the highest (2,474 Part
I Crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, versus 3,800 Part I Crimes per 100,000 inhabitants).
THE COST OF CRIME AND INVESTING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT
In the RAND Corporation's report, Hidden in Plain Sight: What Cost -of -Crime Research Can Tell
Us About Investing in Police (2010), the author, Paui Heaton, identified an inverse correlation
between increases in police departments' sworn forces and their crime rates. Hidden in Plain Sight
is a meta -analysis of several scholarly works that have assigned a dollar value to the cost of crime.
By taking into account the tangible cost of crime (e.g., victims' lost wages, property loss, medical
expenses, criminal justice system costs, etc.), along with the intangible costs (e.g., lost quality of
life, fear of crime and disorder, psychological effects of victimization, etc.), Heaton assigned the
following dollar values to Part I Crimes:
• Murder, $8.6 million per incident
• Rape, $217.866
• Robbery, $67,277
• Aggravated assault, $87,238
Johnny Martinez, P.E.
City Manager
• Burglary, $13,096
• Theft, $2,139
• Motor vehicle theft, $9,079
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
items NA.1 on 01-10-13
Dwight S. Danie
City Clerk
Page 3
According to Heaton, funds expended by government agencies account for 15 to 30 percent of the
abovementioned crime costs. The remaining 70 to 85 percent of the costs are expended by
individuals and the private sector, thus highlighting crime's harmful effects on the local economy.
Based on the study's methodology, it may be hypothesized that a Miami Police Department fully
staffed at 1,244 sworn members (100 over our current budgeted allotment) would result in the
following benefits as a result of crimes prevented:
• A Part I Crime decrease of 2.8 percent (805 less Part I Crimes)
• A total crime cost savings of $116 million ($17.4 million to $34.8 million in actual
government costs)
Each additional officer above our current budgeted sworn strength would cost an average of
$73,000 per year but would provide a value (in terms of crimes prevented) of $710,965 per year.
Even when taking into account only the 15 to 30 percent ($107,000 to $214,000, respectively) of
the crime costs borne by the government (i.e., taxpayer dollars), each new officer's value still
exceeds the City's cost of employing himfher.
CONCLUSION
Should 100 additional sworn positions be added to the Miami Police Department, our total sworn
strength would number 1,244. A fully -staffed Miami Police Department of 1,244 sworn members
(including grant -funded positions) would increase the rate of sworn members per 1,000 inhabitants
from 2.6 to 3.06. If such an increase were to be approved, the additional personnel would be used
to create new uniform patrol positions, to fill vacant positions in the Criminal Investigations
Division, which is currently understaffed, and to create additional beat and bicycle patrol positions,
which are needed in the City's population centers. Additional police officers, of course, require
supervision, so I propose that the additional 100 positions, which would come at an estimated cost
of $7.3 million, be filled as follows:
Rank
Estimated Cost per Position
Additional Positions
Total Cost
Police Officer
$69,820
75
$5,236,500
Police Sergeant
$80,087
18
$1,441,566
Police Lieutenant
$90,428
4
$361,712
Police Captain
$103,720
3
$311,160
Total:
100
1
$7,350,938
Johnny Martinez, P.E.
City Manager
Submitted into the public
record in connection with
items NA.1 on 01-10-13
Dwight S. Danie
City Clerk
Please contact me if you have any questions regarding this matter.
MO:ara
cc: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Commission
REFERENCES
Page
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2011). Crime in the United States [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://www.tbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011
Florida Deparbnent of Law Enforcement. (2011). Criminal Justice Agency Profile [Data file].
Retrieved from http://www.fdle.state.flus/Content/getdoe./22d2a71a-a619-489d-bc14-
d015702199ed1test.aspx.
RAND Corporation. (2010). Cost of Crime Calculator [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://www.rand.org/jie/centers/quality-policing/cost-of-crime.html
RAND Corporation. (2010). Hidden in Plain Sight. What Cost -of -Crime Research Can Tell Us
About Investing in Police. Santa Monica, CA: Heaton, Paul.
United States Census Bureau. (2012). Daytime Population [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/data/daytimepop.html