Jay Aiyer, a candidate for City Council’s At Large 2 seat, has posted his thoughts on HPD’s manpower shortage as well as a proposal to get more officers trained and on the streets.
Here are excerpts from Aiyer’s blog:
The reality is that Houston is facing a public safety crisis. We simply do not have enough police officers patrolling the streets of Houston, or enough fire fighters, and the problem is getting worse. In a study conducted by the Houston Police Officer’s Union, the number of police officers was tracked and analyzed over the last 10 years.
The results speak for themselves. In 1995, Houston had over 5000 police officers. By 2001, that number had slightly increased to just over 5300, with an additional 300 overtime equivalents. Today that number has dramatically dropped to 4800. That means Houston had 250 more police officers in 1995 than it does today. Compounding the problem is that Houston now has 400,000 to 500,000 more residents living in the city than in 1995.
[snip]
Why have we not trained more new officers? Cost — it currently costs the city of Houston $2.8 million for a cadet class of 70. That number doubles when the overall cost of operations of the Police Academy is factored in. Fiscal reality makes any dramatic increase in training difficult under our current system.
There is an answer to this problem.
Be sure to check out the rest of Aiyer’s detailed post for his answer.
In reviewing the websites of various candidates for council, we see that most candidates are in favor of maintaining police, fire, and EMS protection. That’s a no-brainer.
We’d like to see all council candidates (including incumbents) follow Aiyer’s lead in talking about HPD’s manpower shortage and how the city should deal with it, in detail.
