Can the Police Budget Save San Diego from a ‘Crime Wave'?
Your bosses said you needed to get a shot, a bunch of you said: “Let’s Go Brandon”
On Thursday, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria called out the troops to stand with him in front of Belmont Park and announced that the city was doing something about crime in the coming year’s budget.
Hizzoner said: “I’ve been clear: lawlessness will not rule the day in our city – and this budget reflects that.
From the official press release:
The Mayor’s proposed “Ready to Rebuild” budget for fiscal year 2023 fully funds the San Diego Police Department with $584 million to support personnel, equipment and facilities. This is an increase of $13.8 million over the prior year’s operating budget. The enhanced resources for SDPD include an additional $5.5 million for overtime in the department to help ensure the necessary patrol coverage.
It also anticipates pay increases likely to result from contract negotiations under way now with the bargaining units representing police, firefighters and lifeguards. This is illustrative of the Mayor’s commitment to make compensation for the City of San Diego’s first responders competitive with that of other regional agencies in order to bolster recruitment and retention of public safety personnel.
The proposed budget also provides funding to support a concerted recruitment and retention effort to address SDPD’s chronic understaffing. Currently, staffing at the department is higher than eight of the past nine years; however, the department is trying to fill 200 remaining vacancies in order to achieve full staffing in order to respond more quickly to calls and maintain a calming presence in areas experiencing a surge in crime.
Council members Raul Campillo and Dr. Jen Jen Campbell, along with business representatives from Mission Beach and downtown praised the budget.
You know who wasn’t quoted in the press release?
Anybody from the San Diego Police Department. Maybe they didn’t get the memo. Or maybe showing support for an increased budget didn’t mesh with the campaign to convince voters throughout California that things are bad, really bad.
San Diego has been and is one of the safest cities in the country. Stories about a “spike” in crime rates begin with 2019 as a benchmark, as opposed to broader historical trends, like those shown in this SANDAG report with 41 years of crime rates.
Some crime rates haven’t declined over time, like rape and aggravated assault. Homicides are up in San Diego, especially those with guns. Police and their supporters have been all over the news, playing the fear card and blame game, when the reality is that these increases in crime are a national problem.
San Diego’s police union singled out City Council pro Tem President Monica Montgomery Steppe, head of the Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee, in a recent news release about the rise in violent crime at city parks. The statement said Montgomery Steppe wants to divert police funding, which she said “articulates a fallacy” of the work her committee has done. “Until we address the root causes of violence and crime, we will continue seeing the exact same issues in our city and in our systems,” she said.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, supports the allegations and insinuations by the Police Officers Association that alternatives to policing and better community programs merely being considered by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee are somehow responsible for increased crime.
There are staffing problems for the San Diego Police Department. Officers are quitting at an unprecedented rate, and to hear the copaganda, there are reasons, besides the fact that less people are interested in the job:
From USA Today:
After at least 16 years of growing police agencies, the nation lost more than 23,000 officers from 2013 to 2016, according to a U.S. Justice Department survey, bringing the total down to about 700,000. Two-thirds of 397 law enforcement agencies reported in a December survey that they have seen a decrease in applicants compared to five years ago.
Problem #1 for the SDPD is the fact their pay isn’t up to par when compared with other departments from around the region and the state. As much as they might like to blame Democrats for this problem (I’m sure Fox News does), the neglect in compensation came under two Republican mayors, one of whom was a former police chief. Maybe the rank and file could consider the other party at the negotiating table, namely their “union.” Just saying.
Problem #2 for the SDPD are their acts of solidarity with those who would sell themselves as victims to the insidious campaign led by George Soros, the lizard people, and the Illuminati to get the American people inoculated against COVID 19.
Your bosses said you needed to get a shot, a bunch of you said: “Let’s Go Brandon” or some nonsense like that. So when there were consequences (remember those from third grade?), cops quit in droves, perhaps because not obeying orders would call their manhood into question. And cops with such thin skins about their manhood were probably better off somewhere else, anyway.
Virtually every claim made by the so-called anti-vaxxers has been debunked. Facts matter, and you’d think any group of people dedicated to collecting evidence as part of their job would see through the 12 people responsible for the misinformation in circulation.
So now, the head of the Police Officers Association, who could have –maybe, perhaps– weighed in on the side of sanity and public health, is standing in front of tv cameras pointing the finger at everybody but himself.
Problem #3 is, in fact, a real problem. It’s cell phone cameras. Stuff bad cops used to get away with is getting an audience and they wonder why they’ve got a public relations problem.
One need look no further than police departments blasting music in the presence of cell phones recording them, so they can complain about copyright violations and get videos banned from YouTube.
Less people want the job with a badge, and who can blame them? Officer Friendly has become an officer hiding his badge number with black tape, just in case he gets a chance to wail on protestors.
I suppose one could say this is all stuff being made up by pro-crime forces, except for all the judgments juries are awarding to people with the gumption to sue. Those darn cell phones have broken down the automatic favoritism juries used to have for law enforcement accused of misconduct.
Problem #4 is imaginary, namely the accusation that cities all over have been defunding the police. If anything qualifies as copaganda, this is it. It’s so not true.
Contrary to many popular media narratives, the police were never defunded. However, many outlets like CNN, USA Today, Politico, and The New York Times have blatantly lied and created an urgent narrative that cities were defunding their local police forces and causing an increase in violence against police. Data shows that about 20 cities reduced their police budgets by a few percentage points, while nationwide, over half maintained or actually increased budgets. Cities where police budgets were reduced by a few percent were framed by the press as completely defunded, without mentioning the vital context that police spending had nearly tripled over the previous four decades.
As is true with just about everything about police and crime rates, the situation is nuanced. This article from the Brookings Institute, Seven Myths About Defunding the Police Debunked, explores many of the assumptions common to any discussion about policing.
Do more police make a difference in crime? The numbers aren’t there, one way or the other, but whatever direction they go, cops come out ahead. When crime goes down, it’s “great, let's give these guys a raise.” When crime goes up, it’s “hey, we need more cops on the street.”
Getting back to the local scene, the subtext to all this hubbub as of late is the implementation of additional police oversight via the Commission on Police Practices, passed by voters in 2020 by a 3 to 1 margin.
It’s midway thru 2022, and various ‘obstacles’ (some real, many not) have delayed the will of the voters. Nobody wants to talk about this, lest the police union walk away from the negotiating table and start funding campaigns to unseat incumbents.
As the Mayor’s press conference proved, with its cheerleading for what it says was more support for cops, we’re not likely any time soon to have a rational discussion about what it really takes to have safe and secure streets.
The answer to the question posed in the headline is no, money can’t buy public safety. It’s not a matter of quantity so much as quality.
In the meantime, you can see how the SDPD are being misused just about anywhere homeless people are to be found. Collecting shopping carts and dumping tents into garbage trucks does seem like a waste of money. But, hey, think about the overtime.
Photo by Michael McConnell via Twitter
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com