Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network

Massachusetts Police News, Information and Discussions on MassCops

Posted by: Andy0921

New London — An understaffed police department is compelling officers to work extended overtime hours and some toseek work elsewhere. But staffing levels don't mean the city is unsafe, officials say.
“We're understaffed,” police Chief Bruce Rinehart acknowledged recently. “But there is always an essential number (of officers) on per shift to safely protect our city.” Rinehart said the department uses overtime to cover staffing shortages.
Police Lt. Marshall “Chip” Segar, president of the New London police union, said that method of filling the gap, however, has its own drawbacks. “The problem is, there are too many overtime hours,” he said. “There is more overtime than officers can effectively work.”
Overtime is typically voluntary, he said, but when there are not enough people on duty, the streets are patrolled by mandatory overtime. “That's not the preferred way to do business,” Segar said. “Some guys just want to work their 40 hours and go home. ... And I think the public ought to know that the situation will get worse before it gets better.”
In the last fiscal year, the department saw a 64 percent increase in overtime shifts.
Current staffing equals a roster divided among three shifts a day, seven days a week. It includes 55 patrol officers, seven detectives, 10 sergeants, three lieutenants and two captains.
Three other officers — a captain, a sergeant and a patrol officer — are assigned to the department's support staff, including the city's crime prevention officer, William Edwards.
Staffing was about 76 officers last year, down from 79 in 2002 and 92 in 1994, an all-time high.
Segar said as many as six officers are eligible for retirement between now and next spring. He said he is aware of at least another six officers who have applications pending with the state police and other departments.
'I'm talking about very good, young police officers,” he said. “And who can blame them for going where they will get better pay, benefits and working conditions?”
“We're in a position where we could use seven to nine new officers in the next four or five months. We hired four or five people in the past year, but they replace people we lost in 2004.”
Rinehart said the department, along with others across the state, has had difficulty recruiting new officers. Once the department decides to hire an officer, he said, it can take up to a year until the officer actually begins work in New London. Right now the department is dealing with eight vacancies — about 10 percent below its full complement — and anticipates six more officers will leave before the end of the fiscal year. Rinehart hopes to send four or five new recruits to the police academy this month.
He said vacant shifts and overtime can come up for any number of reasons, including an unusual caseload in a given year, vacation/sick time and city-hosted events requiring extra officers.
•••••
The city could use a 100-officer staff, said a veteran officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You need that many if you want to be a proactive department,” the officer said.
Many of the problems, especially in the city's public housing complexes, are fairly well under control, but high-rise public housing is still a problem, the officer said, calling the drug trade there out of control.
“The dealers can set up shop and pay a poor tenant 100 bucks a week to use their apartment to run their operation,” the officer said.
Segar said patrolling the high-rise is a problem because it is a self-contained community that police can't drive through and patrol the way the city streets and other housing complexes are patrolled. “There are pockets of crime all around the city,” he said. “But the high-rise is conducive to crime by design. It is not conducive to effective law enforcement.”
Segar said the department is not really controlling crime in New London.
“We curtail criminal activities,” he said “We manage the crime. The best we're able to do is dissuade the criminal element from working in a certain place. Hopefully, we can dissuade them from working in New London.”
The officer speaking anonymously had another take on getting some of the crime out of the city.
“If the other communities took on a fair share of public housing, the problem would be spread around, and each town could take part in managing it,” the officer said. “There are plenty of drugs in those communities, but you can't walk across the hall or up the stairs and make a buy or a sale.
“What are they going to do in Waterford, stand on the corner in front of the Hess station?”
•••••
Rinehart acknowledges the current manpower is less than the city has seen in the past, and less than Rinehart would like. In his most recent budget proposal, he requested funding for six new officers. The City Council, which Rinehart said does the best it can to support the department, rebuffed his request.
Rinehart said the department is actively recruiting officers but has had to compete with other departments across the state who may be able to offer sign-on bonuses and other incentives New London cannot.
Norwich Police Department recently produced a video touting the rewards of law enforcement work, and Windsor has spent $10,000 on print and radio advertising for recruitment and held an open house earlier this year, according to a recent article about the problem printed in “Connecticut Town & City.”
Rinehart recalled the early 1990s, when the city had more than 90 officers on patrol. Back then, 10 New London officers were financed by a Safe Neighborhood grant from the state and federal government.
He said the grants like those that provided the Safe Neighborhood squads, which operated during the late-night and early morning hours, as well as the more recent and currently active Anti-Violence Team, are drying up.
Still, Rinehart said his officers are vigilant and diligent.
“We've got good bunch of guys and women. And they're doing a great job,” he said. “We do the best we can with the resources we have.”
Segar said the easiest part of an officer's day, or night, is dealing with lawbreakers. But the perpetual poverty of the city has basically numbed the officers, he said.
“Dealing with the city and with the internal stuff is a struggle. That's what's most frustrating. Most cops don't want to worry about budgets and mill rates. They're trained to catch the bad guys. They are not trained to deal with budgets and layoffs.” Day Staff Writer Julie Wernau contributed to this report.

---

Posted by: Andy0921

Goes with article

---

vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
vB Easy Archive Final ©2000 - 2008 - Created by Stefan "Xenon" Kaeser