Two proposed initiatives from the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association hope to solve understaffing by increasing law enforcement hours and redrawing precinct boundary lines, which would add a new downtown precinct.
At a press conference earlier this month, PLEA President Joe Clure outlined the “reorganization plan” that was created to solve understaffing issues that led to a severe drop in Phoenix law enforcement officials. In 2009, Phoenix averaged 12.8 officers per squad, or officer unit, but currently there are only 7.8 officers per squad, Clure said.
“The Phoenix Police Department does not have enough officers to proactively and effectively provide essential public-safety services to our community, nor provide a safe working environment for our officers,” he said.
In an email to employees, Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia wrote that the police department has over 500 vacancies. To combat this, the proposed Public Safety Act Initiative will create a “minimum-staffing plan” that would require the city of Phoenix to provide an increased weekly average of law enforcement hours per 1,000 residents. This would begin with 83 average total law enforcement hours per 1,000 residents beginning Oct. 1, 2015 and would increase to 100 average law enforcement hours on Oct. 1, 2018.
“I’m very supportive of this,” Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio said at the press conference, calling the initiative a “reasonable plan.” DiCiccio said the Phoenix police budget cuts and understaffing issues have created a “pressure-cooker” situation in Phoenix.
Phoenix is currently the sixth largest city in the country in terms of population, but is 21st out of 25 cities in terms of police officers per 1,000 citizens, DiCiccio said. The Phoenix Police Department’s officer ratio per 1,000 citizens is 1.94, compared to Chicago at 4.47 officers per 1,000 citizens.
If passed, the Public Safety Act Initiative would raise the current officer per 1,000 citizens ratio to 2.5 officers per 1,000 citizens and would enable the department to “go back to a fully staffed police department,” Clure said.
The other proposed initiative is a plan submitted by a re-boundary committee with input from all precincts that would reduce the number of precincts from 8 to 7 in an effort to increase the number of officers per squad. The plan would create the downtown Phoenix precinct and consolidate the Estrella Mountain and Maryvale precincts.
The new downtown Phoenix precinct is something the Phoenix chief of police really wants to focus on, Clure said. It will combine the existing Central City Precinct and the Downtown Operations Unit, according to the association’s proposed Patrol Division Staffing plan. The precinct’s boundaries would be the Interstate 10 to the north and south, the I-17 to the west and State Route 51 to the east.
Downtown Phoenix “was a ghost town,” but is now “revitalizing,” creating the need for a specific downtown Phoenix precinct, Officer Franklin Marino said. Following the press conference, Marino said the downtown precinct would be a positive addition as the downtown area continues to grow, though he noted it would not entirely eliminate the problem of understaffing in the Police Department.
The initiative needs 24,000 city-voter signatures to be put to ballot, Clure said following the press conference. He said PLEA has hired a service to help gather the signatures necessary to get the initiative on a ballot within two years, with DiCiccio adding that he hopes members of local government will help in the effort to obtain them.
Contact the reporter at Samantha.Shotzbarger@asu.edu
