We Need Less Policing

The Milwaukee Police Department takes up a disproportionately large portion of the City budget.  In the latest budget proposal, the mayor is proposing not filling about 60 positions to help close the budget gap and to use some of the savings to pay pension commitments going forward.

Milwaukee Police Chief Warns Loss Of 60 Positions Could Mean Cutting An Entire Shift

The police department seems to have endlessly increasing costs.  Their budget can never be large enough and the number of officers is never large enough.  More, more, more.  Whether it's their general budget or lawsuits brought against the department, their costs seem to be exponentially rising.  (Scott Walker exempting the police from Act 10 also allowed the police to not have to pay pension contributions and to continue to "bargain" for pay increases every year.)

One glaring omission from the article, there's no comparison or benchmarking.  How many officers should there be for every 10,000 citizens?  What is the typical department size for similarly sized cities?  Does Milwaukee already have more than enough police officers?

Note to journalists - put your topic in context.  Decisions, policies, correct understanding of any issue needs context.  Otherwise, you're just operating in a meaningless vacuum.

Luckily, I previously looked into some of the numbers.  As I discovered, Milwaukee has 42 police employees for every 10,000 people in the City of Milwaukee.  Ranking Milwaukee 14th in the U.S.  The average in the U.S. for cities with a population over 500,000 is 24 police employees for every 10,000 people.  The population of the City of Milwaukee ranks 30th among the 100 largest cities in America.

Milwaukee has almost twice as many police employees as other similar-sized cities.

According to the average of 24 police employees for every 10,000 people, the Milwaukee Police Department should be able to function with roughly 1,440 police employees.

Seems like reducing 60 positions would be a good start.  The City should look at reducing even more in the future.  The costs associated with the police department are not sustainable.  We need to find more cost-effective ways.

And, as Alex S. Vitale, Professor of Sociology, has found:

As Alex S. Vitale proclaims, We Need Less Policing. His research into the issue concludes: 

Any real agenda for police reform should not look to make the police friendlier and more professional. Instead, it must reduce their role and replace it with empowered communities working to solve their own problems. We don’t need community control of the police. We need community control of services that will create safer, more stable neighborhoods and cities. 

In We Don't Just Need Nicer Cops. We Need Fewer Cops Vitale continues: 

We have to take steps to dial back our reliance on the police as the primary tool of resolving neighborhood crime and disorder problems.

Just as almost everyone else has had to, it's time for the police department to start figuring out how to do more with less.