Councilmember Brooks' Mistake
on Police Understaffing

Councilmember Desley Brooks writes in the fourth article of a series she has released:

"There has been a huge effort to recruit new officers to this understaffed department. The City is analyzing the jobs within the department to determine which areas can be staffed with civilians, rather than sworn officers. There has also been an effort to entice retirees to come back and work in specific jobs. However, despite these attempts, there is still a huge shortage of officers available to meet the City's demands."

The councilmember's reasoning reminds us of the man who stood on the visitor platform at the bottom of Hoover Dam. He wanted to throw a stone over the dam into the lake behind it. He threw the first stone, but it went up only about one-tenth of the dam's 726-foot height.

"Guess you can't do it," said a bystander.

He replied, "Hey, I got 75 feet up. If I throw nine more times, that should do it."

Oakland cannot recruit police officers because the city council has no commitment and no solid plan for hiring up to the 1,100 officers we need. Oakland has half the police per population that Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, and most major cities have. Any officer contemplating a job with Oakland can find that out. Why join a department when you know the officer who should be backing you up and sharing the calls is not there? Instead, the rate of resignations and retirements in OPD is rising, as more officers decide they cannot endure endless mandatory overtime with no fundamental relief in sight.

Councilmember Brooks might be accurate when she says that the department is trying to substitute civilians for some tasks, bring back retirees, and other marginal measures. We have met OPD people involved in recruiting, and they seem dedicated to tackling their huge assignment. We have seen the recruiting signs on the back of AC buses and in BART stations.

OPDjobs.com welcomes applicants (Click on photo for website)

Despite authorizing incremental efforts, the council has not committed to bring OPD up to at least 1,100 officers. Indeed, the council imposed a hiring freeze for nearly three years earlier in this decade; staffing did not improve for a decade while the city added 357 other positions to the City budget. Right to today, the council has not spelled out a plan. Until that happens, councilmember Brooks can throw as many stones at Hoover Dam as she wishes – which would be better than scapegoating the working police and their union in a series of stone-throwing commentaries.

3/12 Schedule No Substitute for Enough Police

Councilmember Desley Brooks, instead of confronting the need to make a major commitment and a solid plan to raise the police force to at least 1,100 officers, advocates a different work schedule for the officer. She wrote:

Alternative work schedules include a "3/12" schedule [three 12-hour days, plus occasional extra shifts to get to 40 hours per week on average], and a "5/8" schedule. Although the 5/8 work week is familiar to the majority of the working world, it is uncommon among law enforcement agencies. A 3/12 schedule has been successfully adopted by a number of other large cities, including Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Pasadena. ("Shifting gears," part four of four-part series)

Not so. A new study shows that in Los Angeles, 3/12 has failed. Specifically:

• Time spent on enforcement activities to reduce crime dropped 14 percent
  
• Arrests overall dropped 10 percent
  
• Sick time hours taken increased 7 percent
  
• "Fatigue is always an issue," says an official at the Los Angeles county sheriffs, which tried 3/12 scheduling but gave it up. The schedule made it hard for deputies to attend required training and make court appearances. Sometimes, deputies reported for duty exhausted from spending a day in court after a 12-hour shift.
  
• "You don't get the police officer who is well-rested, who can think out a problem and resolve a problem," says the president of the Vernon/Main Neighborhood Council.
  
• Having officers off the beat four days a week is "one more thing that is keeping us from getting the police protection we need," says Hattie Babb of the West Adams Neighborhood Council.
  (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 2006)

Oakland has half a police department. The councilmembers need to address the public safety crisis. It does no good to attack the working officers and dangle non-solutions in front of people.