San Jose's Understaffed Police Department

By Ed Rast

Did you know that San Jose in 2005 had the lowest ratios of sworn and civilian police per resident of the 23 U.S. cities with populations between 500,000 and 1 million?

At the time, San Jose had only 1.48 sworn officers and 0.40 civilian staff per 1,000 residents while the average of those 23 large cities was 2.64 sworn officers and 0.72 civilian staff per 1,000 residents.

Mayor Gonzales in his 2006-2007 budget message directed the San Jose Police Department to prepare a Five-Year Staffing Plan to close that gap and deliver to the community the high-quality, innovative, and efficient police services we have come to expect.

It was estimated in 2005 that 597.5 additional personnel were needed — including 332 sworn patrol officers, 146 sworn staff in investigative, preventative and administrative positions, and 119.5 civilian staff. But this would still not bring San Jose to the 23-city staffing average.

Unfortunately, San Jose’s sworn and civilian police ratios have only gotten worse. To date, the City has added only 40 new staff of the 597 proposed in the five-year plan. A proposed addition of 25 officers in FY 2009-10 went unfunded. Meanwhile, our population continues to grow, and the police workload right along with it.

SJPD’s understaffing problems began with an economic downturn in 2001 and continued through eight straight years of budget deficits. For four of those years, there were no staffing increases to offset increases in population, development, service calls and administrative workload.

Officers were shifted from proactive prevention activities and community policing to primarily reactive Patrol Division calls for service. Limited investigative personnel gave priority to crimes against persons.

This shift in priorities resulted in significant increases in auto theft (111%) and burglary ( 52%) from 2000-2005. Increasing property crimes — as predicted — jeopardized San Jose’s “Safest Big City in America” status.

Staffing reductions in 2005 nearly brought the SJPD back to 1998 levels (1,343). But between 1998 and 2005, San Jose’s population grew 10% to 910,528. That’s an increase equal to an entire council district.

As estimated by the California Department of Finance, San Jose’s population increased 10.6% (or 111,949 residents) from 894,943 in the 2000 census to 1,006,892 in January of 2008 — two years ahead of an estimate by the Association of Bay Area Governments.

The long and the short of the story is this: We need more police, and we need them now.

Many residents do not understand how adding new officers, staff and improved technology like a proposed computerized records system as well as increasing — not decreasing — community policing activities can help our understaffed police department prevent, investigate, and solve crimes.

If you’d like to get a better idea for yourself, have a look at SJPD’s proposed Five-Year Staffing Plan for 2007-12. Police and staff comparison charts can be found in graphics 9 and 10 (or pdf pages 16-17).

Next week, we’ll compare San Jose’s police staffing and crime rates to local cities. Enjoy the summer with your family and friends.