Dunwoody Police Force Deemed "Slim" By Some Compared to Decatur
July 1, 2008 | 8:57 amThose opposed to the creation of a city of Dunwoody have recently pointed to Decatur to make a point.
In this morning’s AJC, the opposition to city creation note that the new city would have only 28 full-time officers compared to Decatur’s 36. For some, this is cause for concern, since Dunwoody has nearly double the population of Decatur.
But Ken Wright, president of Citizens for Dunwoody Inc, points out that the proposed four patrols is an improvement over what they’re getting now with DeKalb County services.
“A city of Dunwoody will have four patrols,” Wright said in an e-mail, “fully dedicated and assigned only to serving Dunwoody. Right now, because our ‘assigned’ patrols can be called away at any time to service other parts of the county, we have somewhere between zero and three police patrols.”
Plus, North DeKalb has “substantially lower than average crime rates,” according to a 2006 Dunwoody study by the Vinson Institute. Comparatively, Central DeKalb’s a bit more rough and tumble by my own estimations (which are as highly-regarded as a Gallup Poll).
Sounds like those Dunwoody opponents are trying to stir up trouble prior to the city vote. But any comparison to Decatur doesn’t really make any sense unless Dunwoody was secretly trying some impossible breakaway from Decatur and not DeKalb.
Something else left out of the comparison is physical size and density of population. Decatur is 4.2 square miles. It is first or second in population density in the state. I haven’t seen what the projected area of Dunwoody would be. Even the same number of officers on patrol in a larger area means longer response time.
The number of officers per thousand is only loosely related to true security.
And because in only a very small percentage of cases is a “crime in progress” reported in time for the police to have an impact by fast response, the metric of response time is far less important in police service design and staffing than other metrics, such as percentage of cases cleared.
It’s a common misconception that visible presence of police patrol always deters criminal behavior. While saturation patrol may work wonders in highly congested areas at peak times, there is far less evidence of powerful deterent value in routine daily patrol of suburban neighborhoods like Dunwoody. Dunwoody businesses and citizens may feel a bit better seeing the officers, but focus ought be on the outcome of investigative effort than response time and certainly not on the number of officers per thousand residents.
Great points Charles. Thanks for the input!