Keep Bailing

In an OpEd piece written by San Francisco Police Department Chief George Gascon, Gascon outlined how the SFPD is taking a new approach to a very old idea and it’s meeting with great success: Community Policing.  By dividing the city up into small-town style beats, police are able to better interact with members of their community and problem solve crimes both committed and feared.   This strategy is working so well, the SFPD has reorganized their entire department to accommodate it.

“Once the community feels like they have a stake in what’s going on, they feel empowered and willing to help.”  Says Police Chief George Gascon.  “Community policing is becoming the way we conduct business every day. Our efforts are being focused on the shared responsibility of working with our diverse communities to nurture our relationships and create effective problem-solving models to enhance public safety.”

But does the current policing model stack up to the department’s claims?  Before implementing their new tactics, the SFPD worked with civilian groups that were established to monitor the police on their beats, and then make recommendations.  It was only after hundreds of hours of evaluation and discussion that the plan for the Police Department’s reorganization was developed and recently implemented.

Highlights of the overhaul included expanding each bureau’s amount of control, authority and accountability.  Several investigative units were also broken up and decentralized, with inspectors relocated to the 10 district stations to promote even more hands-on community interaction.

Additionally, Community Advisory Boards composed of neighborhood leaders and local officers were established at these stations, along with Community Forums and a Community Relations Unit composed of local and regional leaders to further polish the beat officers’ daily problem-solving practices.

Before this reorganization, an extra level of command once stood between the community and the police chief.  This fragmented the department’s ability to focus their resources, as information was filtered before reaching those in charge.   Centralized investigations came off as being detached and neighborhood participation was not encouraged, creating a real disconnect between the SFPD and the people they served.

The SFPD have also created what they call a Compstat Unit, which promotes accountability and uses performance-measurement guidelines to evaluate how well the department is doing as a whole. This Unit is led by a commander who directly reports to the chief.

As part of the restructuring, a fifth lieutenant is assigned to each district station to oversee investigations, plainclothes operations and problem-solving teams.  The Crime analysts at each station assist in providing police captains with the type of information that is needed to direct their particular station’s resources effectively.

“By streamlining our bureaus and consolidating functions with similar missions, we are able to elevate the authority of the bureau’s assistant chiefs to that of ‘second in command,’ with each reporting directly to the police chief. All uniformed and investigative functions are now under one command, immediately improving communication between patrol and investigative personnel.” Chief Gascon reiterated.  Time will tell if he is right, but the new direction the SFPD has taken has thus far received a very positive response.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom chose Mesa, Ariz. police Chief George Gascon as the city’s next chief of police in 2009. He praised Gascon as a: “Nuts-and-bolts-type of chief, a cop’s cop and very active in community policing.”

Gascon, 55, had been police chief of Mesa, since 2006. Before that, he was an assistant police chief in Los Angeles. He is a big supporter of sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants, which San Francisco has followed for years. Gascon has also implemented a new computer system within the SFPD that detects crime trends.  He has improved morale among officers and increased the rate at which the department makes arrests in homicide cases.