Jackson Free Press

Leslie McLemore is anxious to see the police chief's plan for fighting crime. This isn't the first time the council has been impatient. The same council—or at least four of them—kept the heat on former JPD Chief Robert Moore until he produced his Five Points Plan months after coming to the department. The council is getting jumpy after nearly two years waiting for a plan this time, however, and what the chief has offered so far centers around the construction of a misdemeanor jail and a focus on retaining officers by paying them better—even as the mayor has not presented a plan to pay them more.

Anderson told the council recently that her plan to increase pay would cost an extra $3.6 million. She suggested funding the measure through an increase in taxes on hotel rooms or by increasing fees on everything from getting copies of accident reports to conducting background checks.

The mayor told The Clarion-Ledger that he also wants to increase the city's officer head count with new recruits until he gets 200 new officers. Last year, though, he proposed shifting police academy dollars to funding a boot camp for "troubled teens," but that plan was quickly shelved after an outcry from the Children's Defense Fund and other advocacy groups.

Now, Melton says he is considering different ideas to pay for the extra cops, including privatizing the city's bus system.

Though Council President Ben Allen and other council members say they support both increased numbers and pay raises for the police department, they've expressed concern and frustration that Anderson has asked for an $3.6 million in the middle of a budget cycle. City Council passed the budget, which did not include raises for officers, in November 2006. In 2005, Melton proposed raising taxes for a police pay raise, but he immediately yanked his own proposal before City Council could even deliberate.

Because of a contract made with the fire department's union under Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. two years ago, any police pay raise must be matched by raises for firefighters. The five-year contract is into its second year, and is up for re-negotiation in three years. Allen described the contract as "terrible," but Firefighter Union Local 87 President Brandon Falcon said that was scapegoating.

"I've got tons of research showing that the fire department leads the city in terms of workman's comp injuries every year," he said. "I don't think the people will be giving us dirty looks because of this."

Still, the short-staffed police department may not be the end-all problem for the department. Johnson's administration worked with only a 20-officer lead over the current administration's head-count of 435, but still suffered considerably lower, and steadily dropping, crime in every major category.

"Yeah, we had pretty good numbers with the people we had, but this doesn't mean that I don't advocate raising the police presence," Johnson told the Jackson Free Press. "I'm the guy who had two training classes a year, so I was pretty committed to getting more officers out there."

Johnson added, though, that how you use the officers is at least as important as how many you have. "The deployment of those officers is extremely important, and for them to have some kind of operating procedure is helpful as well," he said. "That can certainly make up for not having reached your goal in terms of the number losses."

One longtime JPD officer, who asked not to be identified, was even more critical of the emphasis on raising both the officer pay and the officer numbers.

"Better pay doesn't fix everything. As a civil employee, you can give us a pay raise, and we'll curse your name the next day. That's the nature of people," the policeman said. "And the argument that we need more officers is not a legitimate argument. That's a cop-out. It's one of the easiest smoke-and-mirror dances that's been done in law enforcement in the last 50 years. What it really comes down to is do you need more officers, or more out of the officers that you have?"

The officer complains that the JPD administration does not provide well-articulated goals. "The orders have got to be beat-specific and person-specific and unit-specific. The patrol officer patrolling the Queens, if he has 15 burglaries in that area, then his goal is to reduce the number of burglaries in his beat. You give him goals and objectives, like high visibility, and you can measure that by the number of people that he stops and interacts with, which means he's actually out there interacting with people. You can't hide if you're out there interacting with people," the officer said.

Some neighborhood association leaders and council members say the police chief is already off to a bad start by witholding the city's crime figures from the public.

"Those crime figures, no matter how much they might hurt, are the method by which we judge our progress. City leaders, community leaders, and the people of Jackson need to have up-to-date information on where the criminal activity is happening, and we need to know whether or not the methods used by the police department are working," said Ward 6 Councilman Marshand Crisler, who said withholding the numbers undermines JPD credibility.

Previous Comments

ID

80922

Comment

I think Shirlene's plan just got put on hold. I am thankful to the officers who take the streets every day while this madness is going on within their leadership.

Author

pikersam

Date

2007-03-02T23:19:38-06:00

ID

80923

Comment

...and I think that you are correct, pickersam. There is a saying that goes: "YOU CAN'T GIVE WHAT YOU AIN'T GOT. The sad thing is that there are so many people in melton's administration who have absolutely no clue as to how we find the right folks and how to develop the right type of program(s). Sherline Anderson has ignored the obvious. Johnson, though trained militarialy, admitted that he was no police officer and wasted no time commissioning Lynde Maple to develop a plan for the City's police department. These guys were two of the best know planners in the country and had done work for departments much larger and with crime stats that were much higher. Sherline nor melton will not mention this study and its recommendations/effectiveness. They will not tell citizens that instead of increasiing numbers (officers) over the past 2 years, they decreased the force. Now crime has skyrocketed and they are putting a gun and a badge on anything that will wear one, including frank's dog. Johnson had a plan; however, melton's plan is to mess up that plan. It is as if there is a personal vendetta to mess up everything that Johnson put his heart in. This makes me sad!

Author

justjess

Date

2007-03-26T13:35:15-06:00