Bill Lynn - 5th Ward Alderman - Davenport, Iowa  » Discussion Points » Police Employees / Resident

A Study of Police Employees Per Residents
by Bill Lynn, Fifth Ward Alderman

I am providing you with some early findings from the report I am doing on crime. I wanted you to see some initial findings. I believe they are eye opening. All the data is provided by the FBI and the most recent data is 2005.

The first table shows the crime rate for Davenport in several categories along with national averages. The rates are per 100,000 population.

Crime category	Davenport, Iowa	National
Murder	7.1	6.9
Forcible rape	54.68	32.2
Robbery	275.4	195.4
Aggravated assault	1002.5	340.1
Burglary	1469.4	814.5
Larceny theft	5278.9	2734.7
Vehicle theft	421.3	526.5

Based on this information, we are well above the national averages in every category other than vehicle theft. Because the numbers are so small in the case of the city, murder is probably not useful for comparison.

The following table, Residents/Police Employee Comparison, includes some additional information. I chose several Iowa cities and a few Illinois cities. I obtained data from the federal government for number of police, civilian employees in the police department, and population. I then calculated the ratio of residents to police officers, civilian employees in the police department, total employees in the police department, and the ratio of police officers to civilians in the police department. At the bottom of the table you see the averages for each column. Based on those numbers it appears that contrary to popular belief we do not have fewer police per capita than other cities. In fact, we are exactly on the average for all cities (641 residents per police officer). We have twice the number of civilian employees per capita as the average (2244 residents per civilian employee compared to an average of 4391 residents per civilian employee), and we have more total employees per capita than the average (486 residents per police employee compared to an average of 520 residents per police employee). Our ratio of police to civilian employees is much lower than the average. (We have 1 civilian position for each 3.6 officers while the average is 1 civilian for each 7.1 employees.)

I do not have an explanation for the numbers, but they need to be looked at carefully. Given this information it could be concluded that having enough employees may not be the problem. This suggests a problem indicating we need restructuring of the department.

If you look at the cities listed, only three cities have crime rates as high as ours. The only one in Iowa is Council Bluffs. The other two are Peoria and Rockford, Illinois. Interestingly, these cities actually have more police per capita than Davenport.

RESIDENTS/POLICE EMPLOYEE COMPARISON
City	Police	Civilians	Total	Population	Pop/Pol	Pop/Civ	Pop/Total	Pol/Civ
Davenport	159	44	203	98751	621	2244	486	3.61
Des Moines	374	119	493	195093	522	1639	396	3.14
Cedar Rapids	192	36	228	122698	639	3408	538	5.33
Iowa City	70	28	98	63280	904	2260	646	2.50
Coralville	28	4	32	17598	629	4400	550	7.00
Sioux City	120	31	151	84017	700	2710	556	3.87
Dubuque	93	5	98	57735	621	11547	589	18.60
Waterloo	123	9	132	67036	545	7448	508	13.67
Council Bluffs	105	16	121	59586	567	3724	492	6.56
Cedar Falls	43	3	46	36489	849	12163	793	14.33
Muscatine	38	3	41	22804	600	7601	556	12.67
Burlington	40	14	54	25682	642	1834	476	2.86
Clinton	41	9	50	27429	669	3048	549	4.56
Bettendorf	44	13	57	31742	721	2442	557	3.38
Peoria	239	40	279	113161	473	2829	406	5.98
Springfield	268	46	314	115187	430	2504	367	5.83
Rockford	301	31	332	153048	508	4937	461	9.71
Omaha	775	179	954	412128	532	2302	432	4.33
Averages					621	4391	520	7.11
Data is 2005 data from FBI
Police: number of sworn police officers
Civilians: number of civilians working in the police department
Total: total of police and civilians working in police department
Population: population of the city
Pop/Pol: number of citizens served by one police officer
Pop/Civ: number of citizens served by each civilian employee in the police department
Pop/Total: number of citizens served by each employee in the police department
Pol/Civ: the ratio of police officers to civilian employees in the department