By Adam Pagnucco.
Part One introduced the concept of depolicing. Part Two explored police data released by Montgomery County government since the late 1990s. Part Three looked at data from Gaithersburg and Rockville. Today we examine police data from Takoma Park’s comprehensive annual financial reports.
Takoma Park publishes much more police data than either Gaithersburg or Rockville. Another key difference is that Takoma Park, unlike the former two cities, has a full service police department with six divisions: office of the chief, communications, operations, criminal investigations, neighborhood services and administrative services. That’s why even though Takoma Park’s population is only about a quarter of the populations of Gaithersburg and Rockville, its police force has about the same staff size as Gaithersburg and has about three-quarters the staff of Rockville.
Let’s start with Takoma Park’s public safety FTEs. The city’s budget lists no other significant public safety functions aside from police, so this FTE count is probably a good proxy for its police positions.
Like Gaithersburg, Takoma Park has been steadily growing its police positions over time. Therefore any reduction in police activity does not reflect declining positions. Are there issues with vacancies?
The chart below shows crimes reported from the city’s comprehensive annual financial reports.
After many years of falling crime, the city began to see increases starting in 2017. The number of crimes reported in 2022 – 1,642 – was a huge spike in historical terms.
Now let’s look at four measures of police activity: warrants received for service, dispatched calls/events handled, physical arrests and traffic stops.
All four of these police activity series show steep declines starting around 2016. The pandemic might explain drops in activity starting in 2020 but it does not explain declines in the four years prior.
Finally, the chart below shows criminal investigations and cases closed.
After spiking in 2019 – the year before the pandemic – both investigations and cases closed plummeted. This is despite a significant rise in crimes reported in 2020-22.
Is this an illustration of depolicing, COVID interference with law enforcement, both or something else? It’s not a result of reduced positions. Whatever is happening here, it’s not positive and warrants the attention of city leadership.
We will contrast policing trends in the county and its three largest municipalities next.