Pontiac Reverses Crime Rates With Bold Counterintuitive Move: Disbanding their Police Force

[XLFD]

As Scottville City Commissioner Edward Hahn once again brings up the topic of dissolving the Scottville Police Department in order to reduce the tax and fee burden on the citizens of Scottville (and in direct opposition to the other city officials) let's review what has happened at another city that had similar financial problems, Pontiac Michigan. 

Back in 2011, a Ludington Torch article called Copsolidation looked at and sought input about a trend in Michigan policing towards consolidating police services in some cities, villages and townships in order to save money and not negatively affect the quality or efficiency of the service.  At that time it was noted that the City of Pontiac had recently contracted with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office (OCSO), which was to save the municipality around $2 million. 

In March of 2014, the Ludington Torch article Lessons from Pontiac... informed us that the savings realized by Pontiac from the consolidation of their fire and police services with township and county entities had actually saved nearly $6 million each year, with the added benefit of significantly decreased response times:

"According to Undersheriff McCabe of the Oakland County Sheriff's office, police response times in Pontiac plummeted from longer than 76 minutes in 2010 to 6 minutes, 22 seconds in 2013. There are 25 more police officers patrolling Pontiac now, too. Waterford has also invested $548,000 from its own resources improving Pontiac fire stations, according to Fire Chief Ron Spears."

Improved response times typically implies improvements have taken place in fighting crime; for if you decide to commit a crime and know that it takes over an hour for the police to get to the crime scene, you can effectuate a clean getaway or do quite a bit more mayhem.  After several years of having the OCSO, there are now plenty of statistics that back up that claim, let's start with a graph and a statement from the Sheriff from July:  "Pontiac has experienced a 37 percent decrease in violent crime since 2011 when the Sheriff’s Office took over law enforcement in Pontiac."

Some violent crime categories have been cut in half or better: homicides, from 16 deaths in 2012 to four last year; assaults, from 2,415 in 2011 to 1,275 in 2014; burglaries, from 1,261 in 2011 to 589 in 2014; and robberies, from 248 in 2011 to 153 last year.

Sheriff Bouchard:  "No knock on the previous Pontiac Police Department, but they had serious money and manpower problems.  They had maybe 40 officers on the street when we immediately brought in 74 officers. We were able to nearly double the manpower and focus our energy to cut arrest time in half. They had a backlog in emergency calls and an average of 80 minutes response time to a 911 call. Now we are there at six minutes or under. 

The takeover is reaping benefits. Not only are streets and neighborhoods safer than they were four years ago, but the downturn in crime also has been credited with spurring investment in the city. ”

Pontiac City Councilor Mary Pietila:  “Yes, streets and neighborhoods are safer, ... we know the deputies are out and about, close by with a much faster response time. Although we have many of the same officers as we had in 2010, they have many more resources available to them, making their jobs easier to catch the wrongdoers.”

The City of Pontiac was listed in the Top 10 Most Violent Cities in America when contracting started and now is below the Top 100, officials said as leadership of the Pontiac substation changed hands this fall.

Nearly three years ago, it was reported that the City of Scottville was considering a multitude of options for its policing needs.  These included continuing their existing contract with Ludington for mostly administrative services, contracting with the county sheriff, merging more with the LPD, or hiring their own full or part time chief.  They opted for the latter and it now costs the city between $150,000 to $180,000 to do so. 

Despite the differences in the two cities, can Scottville save themselves money and get better police services with the cooperation of the county sheriff, in similar fashion to what happened with Pontiac and Oakland County?   May this be feasible for other local cities with sheriff facilities established already therein, like Ludington, Hart, and Manistee?

[jfc123]

My 2 cents. I have done work in Pontiac as a HVAC tech and live a bit east of there, well, when not working in the family business in Ludington. Oakland county wanted this back, bad! L Brooks Patterson(Oakland County Commish) made it a priority after his accident that almost took his life due to poor response time. Another huge push was that Oakland Twp., one of the richest townships in MI was serviced by them and going to break away from Oakland twp. Also the unemployment rate is a lot better there now due to automotive hiring.

[XLFD]

To my understanding, the accident that nearly took Patterson's life happened in 2012 in Auburn Hills, and after the Pontiac PD was scrubbed.  L. Brooks wisely went into the Pontiac deal with an escape clause in case that Pontiac went bankrupt, and assuredly one of his goals must have been to reduce the response times, since they have done so dramatically over the years, and a serious accident like that would make even a quicker than average response seem slow if he was alert and in pain.

Oakland Township itself is a nice piece of real estate, where the average family yearly income is over $100,000, and zoned to be sparsely populated with a rural feel, even though it's abutting Metro Detroit.

[jfc123]

As I said, his accident was his motivation in getting things fixed, not that it happened in Pontiac and was their fault. He wanted this fixed throughout Oakland County because he realized that there was a problem there with response times. The icing on the cake was that Oakland Township was looking to separate and due the high per capita there Brooks was motivated since he did not want to lose the tax base, it is HUGE. Unbelievable beautiful area, definitely worth a ride through if you have never been through this area. Metro Detroit is not like Detroit.