THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505070041
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
It seems like a simple equation: more cops equal less crime.
Former Norfolk Police Chief Henry Henson wants the city to hire 306 more officers in the hopes of reducing crime and public fear.
But in Houston, the nation's fourth largest city, neither happened.
In 1992, Houston's new mayor, Bob Lanier, made good on a campaign promise and expanded the police force by 655 officers. By 1994, after $70 million had been spent on new officers, the rate of crime had dropped 24 percent.
But a statistical analysis of crime rates and police staffing over that time period showed crime rates didn't change because more officers were added to the force.
According to basic statistics, if two things are connected they should rise or fall at approximately the same rate - the drop in crime should parallel or lag slightly behind the rise in number of officers.
The two trends, compiled with information from the Houston Police Department and the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Reports, were examined at the monthly, quarterly, annual, regional, statewide and national levels. None showed a connection between number of officers and change in crime.
For instance, while Houston's crime dropped 24 percent, nearby LaMarque's dropped 30 percent. Houston had added 655 officers, LaMarque's small department had lost one.
According to the Uniform Crime Reports, Chesapeake's crime rate rose 14.2 percent between 1992 and 1994, while the number of officers per 1,000 residents rose 5 percent; Norfolk's crime rate fell nearly 8 percent in the same time period while its per capita number of officers fell 4 percent; and Virginia Beach's crime rate increased 24 percent while per capita officers slipped by 4 percent.
In 1992, Washington had by far the most police officers per resident of any city in the country, but also the most murders.
Houston's example also suggests that extra officers will do little to reduce residents' fear of crime.
The Houston police department expansion appeared to give residents more faith in their police department: 60 percent of respondents to a 1994 poll said they believed police protection to be good or excellent, compared with only 40 percent two years earlier.
But three-quarters of the respondents to the 13th annual Houston Area Survey, conducted by Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg, said they thought crime was the biggest problem facing Houston.
A third said they didn't feel safe enough to walk in their own neighborhoods after dark. And 55 percent said they felt ``more uneasy about crime'' than they had a year earlier. And all that was almost two years after the force was expanded.
The analysis of Houston's crime figures shows adding officers may have some merit, however. The extra officers did seem to help bring down the number of robberies.
Robbery is the kind of crime police are already good at combatting, because robberies are premeditated and committed by people likely to act again.
If a robber is arrested after only 20 robberies , instead of 50 or 150, a few arrests could have a positive impact on the robbery rate.
So, while adding officers isn't likely to reduce crime overall, or cut residents' fear of crime, it could help put a few more career criminals behind bars. MEMO: Karen Weintraub, a member of The Virginian-Pilot's Public Life Team,
worked for The Houston Post from 1991-94 and compiled this information
while pursuing a master's degree in political science from the
University of Houston. by CNB