THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9512280012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
No one knows how much gets stolen from the port of New York and New Jersey each year - except that it's a lot. The U.S. Maritime Administation estimates that annual theft there totals between $1.8 billion (3 percent of cargo) and $7.3 billion (11.7 percent of cargo).
In astonishing contrast, the three state-owned port of Hampton Roads terminals - in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News - reported $10,000 stolen last year (0.0004 percent). Most of that was personal stuff taken from employees.
Since a single sealed container may contain $2 million or more in goods and $24.6 billion worth of cargo crossed port of Hampton Roads docks in 1994, the $10,000 taken all year barely ranks as spare change.
Why do Hampton Roads ports have the lowest theft rates on the East Coast by a huge margin? Honest workers and a well-trained, decently paid 71-person port police department with hardly any turnover.
Gov. George F. Allen's budget-cutting task force has questioned whether the port authority's police department, all public employees, could be replaced by private security forces. In response, the Virginia Port Authority submitted a report to the General Assembly this fall comparing theft rates at different East Coast ports. The point of the report is that port police should be retained because they're effective.
The low theft rate matters because port officials can boast about it while wooing shipping lines to Hampton Roads. (``Do you want a substantial portion of your cargo stolen? Or none?'') Remember, competition for East Coast shipping-line customers is intense.
Staff writer Christopher Dinsmore reported Sunday that the Virginia Port Authority went so far as to offer to forgo the annual $9.3 million subsidy from the state general fund, partly because some of that money pays for the police force. If the legislature goes along, port police will be paid from port earnings, beginning July 1, and the port authority will be free to keep the present police force.
Replacing that force with a private security force would be a classic case of fixing what isn't broken. The current port police know their territory and the people who work there. A private security force might come cheaper, but surely its turnover would be greater and the level of its familiarity with the docks infinitely less.
Keep the port police and, in fact, give them all medals. The job they're doing is miraculous. by CNB