Every Arrest Is A Failure

Detroit Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. says crime prevention is priority No. 1

You won't hear Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. bragging about how many arrests the department makes. He considers them marks of failure.

He's right, but it's rare for a guy in Godbee's spot to say it. Or to lament publicly that our prisons and jails hold too many young black men who, as Godbee puts it, could have easily included him, without the right guidance and breaks he got growing up on Detroit's east side.

Godbee, who signed up at 19, is cop to the core. But he knows public safety includes a lot more than locking people up; it's about making the community an equal partner in preventing crime.

"For any chief to believe that bragging about how many people you lock up is the answer to the city's crime problem is really self-serving," Godbee told me late last month. "The arrest manifests where we've fallen short in so many other areas: mental health, job opportunities, Head Start -- everything that research shows reduces crimes but has been so disinvested in the city of Detroit.

"Our response to crime is not the measure of an efficient and effective police department -- it's a measure of how smart or trained we are. But an efficient and effective police department is one in which we start creating the environment where crime doesn't happen."

Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/20110508/OPINION02/105080444/Jeff-Gerritt-Detroit-Chief-Ralph-Godbee-Jr-says-crime-prevention-not-lockup-priority-No-1?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Opinion

"Our response to crime is not the measure of an efficient and effective police department -- it's a measure of how smart or trained we are."

Maybe he should have said "our LACKof response to crime"...

I'm not sure he understands just how that sentence above sounds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by begingri

Detroit Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. says crime prevention is priority No. 1

You won't hear Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. bragging about how many arrests the department makes. He considers them marks of failure.

He's right, but it's rare for a guy in "Our response to crime is not the measure of an efficient and effective police department -- it's a measure of how smart or trained we are. But an efficient and effective police department is one in which we start creating the environment where crime doesn't happen."

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Uh, no.

Police departments can't raise children and teach folks right from wrong. It's highly unlikely police departments can influence crime rates "Minority Report"-style.

And yes, arrests are an excellent indicator of police effectiveness [[one of many, of course).

Criminologists of all stripes agree that the NYC crime drop largely occured due to major changes in demographics, and extremely aggressive police intervention. It had almost nothing to do with community policing or similar initiatives.