By Adam Pagnucco.
Until I started running analyses of crime data a few months ago, I had never heard the term “depolicing.” One of my sources brought it to my attention and told me this phenomenon was now rife through our police department and others around the nation. Wikipedia defines depolicing as “a term for police disengaging from active police work, generally as a reaction to external scrutiny or negative publicity.”
Is depolicing happening in Montgomery County?
There is no question that the scrutiny of police work has reached unprecedented levels in the last few years. In our county, the council has legislated on the issue several times in the last five years. The county government has created a reimagining public safety task force, a policing advisory commission and a police accountability board. The latter body was mandated by the state and has dedicated staff. I have previously written about police staffing issues and one wonders whether they are related to heightened attention given to police performance.
Crime data is hard to work with. The county’s online database goes back about six years and required lots of time to clean up. I will not take on the task of cleaning up future downloads of that data lightly! I have enough questions about data comparability and stability in the county’s annual crime reports that I have chosen not to rely on them for historical analysis. But there are three long-term crime stat series contained in an unlikely source: the county’s comprehensive annual financial reports (CAFRs).
CAFRs mostly contain financial information. They’re a useful source for analyzing the county’s financial status over time along with county budgets. They also contain a short historical section with government operating statistics. State and local governments report lots of different stats in here at their discretion. Along with many other stats, Montgomery County has chosen to report three pertaining to crime: number of arrests, number of traffic citations and number of warrants served.
The county government is not alone. Three large municipalities that have police departments – Gaithersburg, Rockville and Takoma Park – also issue CAFRs that have policing data in them.
I have long used CAFRs for financial analysis but this is the first time I have used them for public safety data. Here’s the thing, folks: the trends among these four jurisdictions vary quite a bit. And to the elected officials who may squawk when they see them – these are self-reported stats that come from your own governments. If you have a problem with them, call your chief administrators and not me!
We shall start rolling back the veils in Part Two.