The department would not make anyone available for interviews, citing the staffing shortage.Īnother factor that may be complicating the process is political turmoil.
#Source 2 staffing professional
In an email to NPR, NOPD cited the "multiple steps" involved in hiring civilians, but reaffirmed "how crucial it is to hire both commissioned and professional staff." There were more than enough qualified applicants, but so far the department has announced only three hires. Last year, NOPD pledged to hire civilians for 50 new positions doing traditional police jobs such as fingerprinting and property crime investigations. "You're going to continue to see alternative police response be divested from guys with guns over to civilians to respond to these nonviolent calls for service," Cheramie says.Īnd yet, the city's follow-through has been slow.
#Source 2 staffing free
OSS has had two cars responding to crashes in New Orleans for the past five years, and with the worsening officer shortage, the city has just signed an expanded contract for seven OSS cars - enough, Cheramie figures, to free up the equivalent of 15 fulltime officers for other duties. "Our agents respond in a timely, efficient manner, to let everybody get on with their day," Cheramie says.
It employs unarmed, former police officers who go to the scenes of wrecks to take information and provide reports. However, it is dispatched to our agents," says Ethan Cheramie, founder of a company called On Scene Services (OSS). "Citizens still call 911, their call is still dispatched. One thing NOPD is trying to get off its plate: Less-risky police duties, such as going to the scene of noninjury car wrecks. And, so far, a little bit worse this year." You're seeing response times that have gone from an average of about 50 minutes for any type of call in 2019 to over two and a half hours last year.
"We're looking at a situation where the department this year has already lost almost 20 officers," says Jeff Asher, a public safety consultant who tracks the city's police staffing for the New Orleans City Council.
Despite doubled recruiting efforts, the department continues to shrink. Since 2020, the department is down by another 20% to 944. In 2010, NOPD had about 1,500 officers a decade later, it was at about 1,200. But almost three years on, some police departments are shrinking anyway.Ī new criminology study of 14 large police departments found most have had an "excess" loss of sworn, full-time officers since 2020, a trend verified in core-city agencies such as the New Orleans Police Department. Ethan Cheramie and Daryl Odom, of On Scene Services, a private contractor hired by New Orleans to respond to car wrecks because of a shortage of police officers.ĭuring the George Floyd protests of 2020, many people called for the defunding of traditional police.
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