Strategic command

County police chief downplays crime statistics, says problems will decrease despite staff shortages

Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Greg Dohler⁄The Gazette Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin C. High is not deterred by staff shortages in his department. Instead, he is working with the community and placing officers in hotspots. ‘‘You have to put out the fires,” High said Tuesday. Click here to enlarge this photo

The Gazette is asking responsible Prince George's county officials to discuss specific actions they are taking to address issues of concern to the county. This is the third in an occasional series that will appear in The Gazette.

Police Chief Melvin C. High admits the county's police force is short-staffed but said he has enough officers and resources to bring crime in Prince George's under control.

“I believe at the current staffing levels crime can come down,“ High said. “My goal is to increase that staffing so it goes down faster and deeper.“

The county’s murder rate — 133 slayings as of Tuesday — is nearly 18 percent higher than it was this time last year. Carjackings are up 55 percent and robberies are up 34 percent from 2004.

High’s solution: a combination of more community involvement, strategically deployed patrol officers to hot spots and more arrests.

“That’s our basic philosophy,“ High said.

He also asserted that the crime rate was not as bad as widely perceived. In fact, he said the county is already beginning to see results of the multi-part crime reduction plan he has been building since he was hired by County Executive Jack B. Johnson in 2003.

“I think if you look at the number of murders, number of robberies, the number of rapes per our population and compare it to other places, I think [you] might say that it’s not really high — that that’s a perception,“ High told The Gazette editorial board during an interview Tuesday.

However, in Montgomery County, where the population is 921,690, nearly 100,000 more than Prince George's, there have only been 12 homicides so far this year. There were only 14 homicides in Montgomery County in 2004.

High did not identify a reason for the growing crime rate in Prince George's County, only saying that crime has been a challenge for the entire region.

Arlington County, Va., had three more homicides this year. However, homicides have declined at least slightly in Baltimore City, the District and Montgomery County since last year and, in most cases, for the past two years.

He pointed out that the population has grown in Prince George's so it is unfair to compare the crime rate to the District, which he said has had a drop in population. Prince George's has 842,967 residents.

Plan of attack

High cautioned that it will take time to see strong results when solving a problem that has been 10 years in the making. However, he said the increase in arrests this year indicate his staff is hard at work.

For all of 2004, there were about 9,000 arrests. This year, the department expects to make 12,000 arrests, High said.

Although the department is on target to arrest more criminals this year than it has in five years, crime — particularly violent crimes — has not declined or even leveled off.

Remembering the reputation Prince George's had gained in the past due to high-profile police brutality cases, High said he is aware of the concerns that might be raised by the increase in arrests.

“It's a balancing act,“ he said.

The police chief is most proud of his flagship program, the Community Service Area policing model, which puts officers in close partnerships with the community to build trust and cooperation.

“The community has to step up to the plate and do all they can do to make it a better, safer community,“ High said.

High stressed the importance of community involvement, not just in calling when crimes occur but also to alleviate the unnecessary workload of officers.

For example, he cited the importance of having residents install “better alarms“ in their homes so that officers don’t waste time on accidental house calls. High also discussed the importance of residents keeping their cars secure to make it difficult for car thieves and of not calling emergency numbers unnecessarily.

The Most Wanted Offender Initiative is one of High’s pet projects, allowing residents to call on a confidential tip line if they have information.

Tipsters have called in 42 of the 2005 murder cases, accordin gto the police department, although, not all of them were solved because of the tipsters' calls alone. The homicide unit has also solved 21 cases from prior years.

In addition to the increase in arrests and the community policing, the department has launched several task forces specializing in areas such as auto thefts, violent crimes and gang activity.

High said he has seen some positive trends recently. Forcible rapes, for example, have dropped slightly this year. Auto thefts have dropped 4 percent, though the number is by far the highest in the state. And the department has seized close to 1,200 guns and more than $22 million worth of illegal drugs.

High emphasized the importance of having partners in the criminal justice system.

“Part of the issue here is the recividism rate,“ High said, pointing out the importance of keeping criminals in jail and providing them with appropriate programs for when they are released. “We have a lot of people that we lock up and put in jail — including people for murder — and nothing happens to them.“

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn F. Ivey vehemently disagreed.

“I think it is a shocking exaggeration for the chief to suggest that nothing happens to people who are arrested for homicides in Prince George’s County,“ Ivey said. “During the summer, Chief High decided to blame his police officers for the increase in crime and he called them lazy. Apparently, now he’s decided to blame prosecutors, as well. I think this kind of finger-pointing is unfortunate, and I think we all know we will never be able to successfully reduce crime if we’re not working together.“

Staff strain

With a force of 1,290, the county has 1.53 officers per 1,000 county residents, 130 officers short of the county’s authorized force. The national average for metropolitan counties is 2.6.67 per 1,000 officers, according to the FBI.

Last summer, the Fraternal Order of Police, the police union, publicly criticized High’s CSA strategy, saying the program cannot be effective without a fully staffed police force.

“If your department is so understaffed that officers spend their entire shift racing from call to call, there’s really no way for them to break away from those calls and engage in community policing activities,“ said Michael D. White, associate director of the Criminal Justice and Evaluation Center and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

On the other hand, White said, adding more officers does not automatically reduce crime. “If all of your officers are supercops and they’re doing a tremendous job, you can still have that impact on crime.“

White pointed to Detroit, Atlanta and the District, all with large police forces, but no significant drops in crime.

The department is using budget increases secured over the past two years to enlarge the police force, upgrade equipment and compete with the pay scales of other law-enforcement agencies in the region.

In the early part of the year, the police department was averaging a loss of seven officers per month to retirement, career changes or other reasons. Attrition tapered off this summer after a new salary contract was signed that will raise the $38,000 base pay for officers by $8,000 over the next two years. The contract is retroactive to July of this year.

Two weeks ago, the department reorganized after two of the top four commanders announced they may be leaving the department.

“That potentially is an influence on people staying,“ said Percy Alston, president of the FOP. “However, with what seems like monthly departmental reorganizations as well as a lack of a strategy, which gives us an opportunity to succeed, those things may undo all of the good work that has been done by the county executive and the FOP.“

In addition, High has yet to fulfill his promise to put 20 additional officers in Bowie, and another 30 each in Baden and Hyattsville. High said the current staffing is sufficiently covering the county.

However, Seat Pleasant is using a tax increase to triple its force, District Heights has added six more officers to its ranks, and Bowie and College Park are considering creating their own city police departments.

Bowie City Mayor G. Frederick Robinson commended High’s good intentions and the work of the officers at the District 2 station serving Bowie.

“I have a profound respect for them. They’re doing a good job under difficult conditions,“ Robinson said. “There are simply not enough of them.“

With two classes of police recruits in session, the county is expected to have an additional 97 officers by March 2006.

E-mail Tiesha Higgins at thiggins@gazette.net.

Correction, Oct. 14, 2005:The original version of this story stated that 42 of the 133 homicides that have occurred in 2005 have been solved, but not all of them were solved by tipsters' calls. The story has been corrected.