Chief Charles H. Ramsey
Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC
First, I want to express my support—as I did last November, at the original hearing on this legislation—for the overall goals of the "Metropolitan Police Department Management Reform Act." And I want to offer recommendations in select areas where I believe the legislation can be improved.
Second, I want to provide you with an update on the PSA model, and specifically our progress on PSA staffing. I believe that strengthening the PSAs is a critical part of the overall picture of management reform in the MPDC.
Today’s hearing comes against a backdrop of steady and significant improvements in our crime picture and in the management and performance of the Metropolitan Police Department.
- In 1998, serious crime in the District of Columbia reached its lowest level in more than 25 years. And, as I reported this past Sunday, this encouraging trend has continued during the first six months of 1999. Major crimes are down another 14 percent this year. We still have a lot of work to do, to make this the safest major city in America. But I believe we are beginning to get a handle on our crime problem.
- Part of the reason we are getting a better handle on crime is that we have begun to put more resources in the community to fight crime. As I will detail later in my testimony, we now have close to 500 more uniformed officers actually working in the PSAs on any given day than we did two years ago. This is primarily the result of re-assigning officers from administrative and support units and exerting stricter management controls over extended medical and administrative leave.
We are continuing to look at whether we yet have sufficient numbers of officers working in the PSAs, and whether those officers are being assigned as efficiently as they could be. But the fact remains that we now have more uniformed officers working in the PSAs than at any time since the concept was introduced two years ago.
- In addition to substantially increasing PSA staffing, we decentralized more than 100 detectives to the seven police districts beginning in April. I am convinced that these detectives—working closely with the PSA teams, the focused mission teams, and the community—have contributed directly to both the drop in violent crime and an increase in our clearance rates.
During the first three months of this year, with the detectives still centralized, the District as a whole had 73 homicides, a 30-percent increase from the first quarter of 1998. And our clearance rate on those cases was just 25 percent. Since the roll-out of the detectives into the districts, the number of homicides fell by 35 percent compared with previous year, to 51 murders. Meanwhile, our clearance rate on those cases rose to 43 percent.
I realize these numbers cover only a short time period, and I am committed to reducing homicides and increasing our clearance rate even further. But I do believe that having the detectives out in the districts—with ready access to the PSAs and the community—is making a difference.
- Finally, we have seen the positive impact of our Summer Mobile Force—a group of officers, up to 200 or more a night, who volunteer to work their regular days off in exchange for overtime pay. They are a highly flexible, highly mobile and highly motivated force that is being deployed to hot spots of crime, violence and drug activity every night of the week through September. Since April 28th, the unit has made more than 2,700 arrests and seized $800,000 dollars worth of illegal drugs and more than 50 guns. Their presence provides tremendous support for the PSA teams, the focused mission teams, and the district-based detectives.
So the news on crime is generally positive. Even so, I recognize that we have a long way to go before we can declare victory—before people and communities are no longer afraid of crime and have total confidence in the Police Department. Over the last 15 months, I have worked very hard, with the Council's help, to professionalize our Department through the acquisition of new equipment and technology, renovated facilities, better training and smarter recruiting.
On the whole, the Management Reform Act will promote the continued improvement of the Department. I support the oversight process by which the Act was created and the overall goals it seeks to achieve. I do, however, want to call to the Committee’s attention two critical areas where I believe adjustments to the current legislation are warranted.
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