Thread: Impact on Police forces from Iraq War and Economic Problems

Greetings and Felicitations,

Police face cuts as economy falters

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. police departments are streamlining patrols, reducing training and cutting back on some preventative programs as their budgets fall victim to the struggling economy.
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Naperville is not unique. A poll of 200 departments during the summer by the Police Executive Research Forum, which studies law enforcement trends, reported 39 percent of respondents said their operating budgets were cut because of the economy and 43 percent said the faltering economy had affected their ability to deliver services

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That survey of police agencies says 74 percent of respondents noticed increases in at least one category of property crime this year over the previous one, including burglaries and thefts. Law enforcement authorities don't know if the economy is directly to blame, but suspect it is.

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Naperville's Chief Dial says the nation is facing a crisis and fears crime will increase.
"I have been in this business for a long time, and I have experienced cutbacks in the past. Those, however, were done through attrition. I have never experienced the cuts that we are anticipating next year when we anticipate the very real probability of layoffs occurring in our community," he said.

We all, if we are honest, know that these kinds of changes are going to be a part of the economic downturn. In addition, there are the effects of having so many law enforcement people serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has already had an effect on the number of police available for service.
Impact of police being sent to Iraq felt on street

WASHINGTON — The deployment of thousands of police officers to Iraq, Afghanistan and other military reserve posts is costing local law enforcement agencies up to $1.2 billion per year, according to a new analysis of Justice Department data.

The review, prepared for a law enforcement trade journal by Justice Department statistician Matthew Hickman, found that the number of military call-ups is outstripping the pace of new hires at a time when agencies are struggling to find new recruits, and as crime is ticking upward after several years of historically low crime rates.
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"If I'm a manufacturing company, I can go to a temp service to fill slots I'm losing to call-ups," he says. "You can't do that in law enforcement. Our employees are required to undergo 22 weeks of training. The average employer doesn't have to face that."

Another problem is that organizations can't simply replace the officers who are missing. They have to keep their slots open for when they return.

As the officer in the first article stated:

"When people are hungry, they need to feed their families somehow," Hume said. "Not all those ways are always legal."

What is going to be the effect of the budget cuts with so many officers already unavailable. As the economy worsens the crime rate is going to go up. When the crime rate goes up they're going to be missing seasoned people to deal with the problem and they aren't going to be able to hire more people. The end effect is going to be that when we really need the officers we aren't going to be able to provide them.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

An Obama administration will help immensely here, as they will spend more on public things, which includes police, and will cooperate with the Iraqi govt's present desire to have us leave quickly, thus bringing more police home quickly

McCain will simply cut even more from them for tax breaks for the rich and further corruption for his cronies. In Iraq we'll probably end up going to war with our present allies just so he can keep troops there for the next century or so.