Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Does Richmond Have a Police Shortfall?

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James A. Bacon
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Photo credit: Justin Morrison, Richmond Times-Dispatch

by James A. Bacon

Two billboards have popped up in the City of Richmond suggesting that poor pay and understaffing of the police department were putting public safety in jeopardy. Police Chief Gerald M. Smith responded in a public statement that, yes, violent crime is up this year compared to 2020 but that’s mainly because the COVID-19 lockdown kept people off the streets and out of trouble last year.

“We are not saying that violent crime isn’t going up,” Smith said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We are giving you a depiction of the overall, big picture. It is going up as compared to the asterisk year 2020.”

The group behind the billboards represents roughly 350 Richmond police officers. “It is a crisis when you have so many experienced officers leaving the department at such an alarming rate,” said spokesman Brendan Leavy, a Richmond detective. “There is a mass exodus of experienced officers quitting.”

Has the two-decade decline in crime rates reversed itself? That’s an important question. So is the issue raised by Leavey: Have low pay and low morale led to police understaffing? One might think that is an easy question to that answer. But there is a large discrepancy between the numbers reported by the City of Richmond and those contained in the Virginia State Police’s “Crime in Virginia 2020” report.

At full capacity, Richmond police has 750 sworn officers. It is currently understaffed, says Smith. And it has been for some time. In 2019, according to state police numbers, Richmond reported 734 sworn officers and 117 civilian employees.

But in 2020, according to state police data, the number of employees in Richmond leaped to 846 sworn officers and 202 civilian employees. Those numbers were consistent with the statewide police numbers reported for 2020, which increased 13% over 2019 (which I reported here). That surge is inconsistent with anecdotal news reports from localities around the state complaining of the same difficulty filling budgeted positions.

I will endeavor to explain the apparent discrepancy in a future post.

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40 responses to “Does Richmond Have a Police Shortfall?”

  1. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/GrunwaldRappaportArticle_s6branzy.pdf

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    So, one always wonders :

    1. – how many police SHOULD Richmond have?
    2. – How is that number determined?
    3.- Is that number determined objectively by independent means?

    Does Richmond have more or less police per capita than other cities?

    Is per capita a reasonable comparative metric?

    Do we trust the Police Union to look out for taxpayers? snicker….

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Larry, you often ask the question, “How many police should xxx have?” It is a legitimate question, but an unanswerable one. It remains me of the answer I got when I would ask how many correctional officers were needed to staff a prison. “There are never enough.”

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        However, we DO know there are multiple ones in many localities that could be compared – if nothing else to give an average… a histogram…

      2. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Number of prisoners plus one. Ideally, we’d have an Australia.

        If RPD needs cops, there’s 57 from Buffalo and 6 from Atlanta they could hire on the cheap.

        https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2019/11/11/mcfarland-california-hired-police-troubled-records-duis-fraud-banning/4169426002/

    2. Bob X from Texas Avatar
      Bob X from Texas

      A better question is how many active felons do voters want in the city committing their daily quota of felonies ?
      Are 50 active serial rapists too many or too few?
      Are 200 active armed robbers too many or too few?
      Are 1000 active dope dealers too few or too many?

  3. Baconator with extra cheese Avatar
    Baconator with extra cheese

    Who cares? The citizens of RVA will keep electing the exact same person for ever. Let them reap what they sow.

  4. kls Avatar
    kls

    The problem is not a lack of police…it’s a surplus of criminals walking the streets……. PROJECT EXILE!! This can be solved with one prosecuting attorney and a judge ‘who lives among the people’ willing to jail criminals.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      but doesn’t it cost out the wazoo to imprison people also?

      1. kls Avatar
        kls

        it’s actually cheaper than shooting them on sight these days- if you’ve seen the price of ammo….if you find the caliber.

        but seriously — “If it saves just one life” as the Brady Campaign use to say!

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          but the vast majority in prison are not killers, no?

          We have among the highest incarceration rates in the world,no?

          https://www.irp.wisc.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FF49-2020-Fig2.png

          1. kls Avatar
            kls

            Ask a victim what he or she thinks

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            we have more criminals and victims than other countries?

          3. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            As with gun violence stats, there’s a definite increase that skews south.

          4. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            other countries are safer than the US?

          5. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            No, I’m referring to the incarceration stats, which have Louisiana at the top with 980 per 100,000 incarcerated, and the usual suspects (Oklahoma, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama…) right behind. At the bottom of the list are states like Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Massachusetts (with 250 per 100,000 incarcerated).

            On a related subject, I was just thinking of how former Prince William County commonwealth’s attorney Paul Ebert has sent more people to death row than any other commonwealth’s attorney.

            Is that because Paul Ebert is that good, or that Prince William County is that bad?

          6. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            So the US is better at putting bad guys away but other countries are safer than ours if we compare violent crimes per capita?

            https://i.insider.com/55831d8eeab8ea357072f8b8?width=1136&format=jpeg

          7. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            No, I think there are more bad guys in the USA, and there are more of them in places like Louisiana than there are in places like Minnesota.

          8. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            We have more bad guys overall than other countries?

          9. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            Yes, and many of them are elected every few years.

          10. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            but not often jailed… 😉

          11. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            Unless they’re the Governor of Illinois…

          12. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Paul Ebert and Jim Plowman have a lot in common. The political leanings of Loudoun and Prince William changed making it impossible for them to remain as Commonwealth’s Attorney. Both were respected and now missed.

          13. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            Paul Ebert was and always has been a Democrat. If not for his age, he likely would have continued to be re-elected. As I recall he declined to run again due to his age.

          14. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Ebert might have been the last old school conservative Democrat in Northern Virginia. He served Prince William well. Elected CA in 1967. Hard to believe a Byrd Machine relic lasted so long. Classic example of courthouse politician styled by Harry Byrd.

          15. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            He wasn’t able to get a conviction on either of the Bobbitts.

            And there have been several things that suggest that he may not have been the most ethical prosecutor out there.

            But hey, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?

          16. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Manassas will forever be connected to John Wayne and Stonewall. Prince William needed a Paul Ebert. If you were around in the 1970s, 1980s, and 90s somebody had to check the Dodge City atmosphere that made infamous trouble for Prince William.

          17. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            Yea, I was around in the late 80 and 90s. And that was entirely due to the trash population of Prince William County. Dealing with it at the back end doesn’t work too well. And to this day, Prince William County is nothing more than a place that is “as close as you can afford to live to DC”.

            By the way, I recall that in the late 90s the police chief of PWC was claiming that PWC did not have a gang problem. Perhaps PWC needed to teach their old dogs some new tricks, or get new dogs.

          18. Brian Leeper Avatar
            Brian Leeper

            Virginia excels again. Virginia’s incarceration rate is 680 per 100,000.

      2. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Not if you use private prisons.

  5. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    “Police Chief Gerald M. Smith responded in a public statement that, yes, violent crime is up this year compared to 2020 but that’s mainly because the COVID-19 lockdown kept people off the streets and out of trouble last year.”

    Okay. How does it compare to 2019?

    Also, there are only a few police officer positions being advertised on the city’s web site. If they were understaffed, you’d think they would be trying to fill the vacant positions.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      According to the article, the number of violent crimes is below year-to-date levels dating back to at least 2016.

      1. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        Thanks. I guess I should have read the entire article…

  6. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    This sounds like a lobbying campaign by police officers for higher pay and, perhaps, trying to set the stage for collective bargaining.

    It is also an example of poor journalism. It should not be the role of reporters to just quote both sides without asking a few questions. “Mass exodus” of officers? Really? How many, exactly?
    Police are “understaffed”, says the police chief. How many vacancies? How many positions are filled, but the officers are in training? Such questions are just journalism 101.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      in a perfect world! 😉 as soon as I hear the words “mass exodus”, I don’t need the reporter to “interpret”. 😉

      This is what employee groups DO!!!

      Up our way – the big boogeyman is that police officers will flee to NoVa for higher pay – if we don’t pay them “comparably” and I have to say, it’s very effective, especially when they cite the attrition rate! Never seen elected no-tax Conservatives fold so quickly!

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        I wasn’t expecting the reporter to interpret. I was expecting him to report. How many have left in the last six months? 12 months?

  7. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    The use of billboards in an election year does, by definition, make it a political ploy.

  8. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    One of the central things that police do is “eyes and ears” and technology is being used more and more by not only police but civilians.

    Cameras – both passive and real time are ubiquitous. They are even mobile on the ground and in the air. Over and over, bad guys are apprehended because they were caught on camera – even bad cops now are caught on camera! The advent of doorbell cameras (that can be linked via internet) has also changed things. License-plate “readers” also. Drones ditto.

    The law & order fearmongering though is a tried and true political tactic over the years and still works.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      And when it doesn’t, just beat a cop with a pole… blue lives matter flag optional.

  9. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    “Smoking or vaping on the boardwalk isn’t an arrestable offense, but the refusal to provide identification prompted the arrest, he said.”

    It is an “escalatible” offense. Escalatable? What’s the rule on “ible” v “able”? Surely one of you communications types know?

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