Bad Economy Affecting Police?
By Wyatt Earp | October 23, 2008
In Philadelphia, detective divisions, are expected to lose their internet access. Oh wait, we don’t have internet access.
Well, we are expected to lose our voice mail. Oh wait, we don’t have voice mail, either.
Well, we will surely see our “mouse allowance” decline. Only one mouse per building from now on.
WASHINGTON — U.S. police departments are streamlining patrols, reducing training and cutting back on some preventative programs as their budgets fall victim to the struggling economy.
Many police chiefs are warning deeper cuts may be coming.
Naperville, Illinois, a middle-class city of about 145,000 people, has a force of 189 officers and 114 civilians. Because of a reduction in real-estate and property tax collections that pay for public safety services, Chief David Dial is cutting nine vacant positions, including three officers, and $60,000 out of his training budget.
“We’ve gone through the non-personnel related expenses in our budget, and we’ve cut everything that we possibly can in there,” Dial said. “Some of our training monies have been drastically reduced, and there is virtually nowhere else to cut … except in the personnel area.”
The community, which has repeatedly ranked as one of the best places to live in the country, will see the effects, Dial said. (H/T – CNN)
A lot of departments are now relying upon the help of the community to keep crime rates down. Heh, good luck with that. In Philly, our “community” is too busy trying to kill us (and each other) to report other crimes. I’m just sayin’.
Topics: The Job | 8 Comments »
Here is an anecdote for you. A week or so ago, someone called into 610 WIP and said he worked for the city and was at the Obama rally in the northeast.
I forget why he said he called but he mentioned there were about 50 city employees at the rally!!
If they can afford to send 50 drones to a political rally, they can afford a few to give you guys the tools you need. It is disgraceful when you guys don’t have email, internet access or voicemail.
Oh but Fat Eddie suspended prison paroles for what 3 weeks? He is to blame too for the contuniung waste in city hall.
Get out of the city as soon as you can Wyatt.
You’d think one of these no-good bigshot politicians would be reading blogs like yours once in a while to see what is actually going on.
You’d think, AJ, but they don’t read blogs like this because they don’t give a rat’s ass about people like Wyatt. People like Wyatt only matter to then when they are campaigning and need fodder.
Next thing will be hitting up the bad guys for ammo, since the department can’t buy any!
I bet they start making the officers buy gas for the patrol cars.
Bullets will be replaced with harsher language.
You guys may be kidding but on the west coast, we had two towns cancel all patrols after gas hit $4/gallon. They said they would only respond to 911 calls and nothing else. We also have some departments requalifying with paint ball guns because they can’t afford ammo.
As far as the email/voice mail/internet thingies, are you seriously trying to tell me that the documentary series “CSI” tends to exaggerate your resources???
I mean, can’t you collect an air sample from a crime scene room 12 days after the perp has left and extract DNA and get results in 5 minutes?
Are you telling me that TV has lied to me!!!!????
OK, ya’ll want to slap me…I’m cool with that.
AJ – Every time someone calls and asks for a detective’s voice mail, I always giggle and reply, “This is Philadelphia.”
JumpOut – 100% correct.
Rick – Not there yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Admiral – “Stop, or I’ll speak!”
Kaveman – CSI is the worst thing to ever happen to law enforcement. A lot of complainants expect us to bring out lasers to process their crime scenes. We always laugh when they suggest that.
And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the most realistic detective show ever was Barney Miller.