February 20, 2004
Dear Community Partner:
Today is a pivotal moment for the City of Atlanta. Chief Richard Pennington is releasing his plan for the future of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) - Fragile Momentum: Plan of Action for Rebuilding the Atlanta Police Department to Help Secure Atlanta’s Position as Capital of the New South*.
The good news
We now have a turnaround in the making. Atlanta’s violent crime went down 15% last year.
After Chief Pennington’s 100-person reorganization last summer:
- Murder reversed from a 21% increase going into that date to a 22% decrease between that date and the end of the year (a 43 point shift).
- Robbery went from a 3% decrease to a 19% decrease (a 16 point shift).
- Burglary went from unchanged compared to the previous year to a 12% decline.
- Auto theft started trending down 18% in November after a new initiative to cut auto crime was launched.
Despite feeling overwhelmed, 87% of officers surveyed say they will do whatever it takes to make the APD successful.
Our success against crime is beginning to gain momentum, but it is a fragile momentum. It is this fact that gives title to the Chief’s plan. We must seize this opportunity. Without strong and sustained direction and help, this momentum will be lost, and Atlanta's police officers, who are becoming confident in their ability to win, will fail. The safety of Atlanta residents depends on strong support of the Chief's plan by everyone who has a stake in this City's future.
The challenge for all who have a stake in Atlanta's future
We are fortunate to live in a prosperous and vital city. Atlanta rightly prides itself on its economic base, its status as a center for economic opportunity and prosperity, and as a destination city for tourists and conventions.
But, Atlanta has been one of the most violent cities per capita in America, among the 237 cities reporting to the FBI, ranking first or second in nine of the last ten years. Atlanta was first in violent crime in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Atlanta has ranked first, second, or third in total crime in nine of the last ten years. Our homicide rate is significantly higher than the national average and crime is high in every section of this city.
Chief Pennington’s plan lays out in detail what he found after he arrived in Atlanta: a police department whose systems and personnel had been afflicted by years of mismanagement and neglect. It also lays out the multiple and critical tasks that must be undertaken quickly and systematically if we are to correct this condition. The people of Atlanta deserve the safest possible city. Having "only" 149 people killed in this city is unacceptable - every one of those people is a sister, a mother, a husband or a son.
An audit of criminal incidents for 2002 found that serious crime in Atlanta is probably higher than has been reported to the FBI. This is the result of a broken records management system and a lack of accountability going back years before Chief Pennington. Under-reporting crime severely handicaps development of effective crime strategies and tactics. Without accurate crime figures, there can be no reliable benchmark against which to measure crime reduction progress and exact officer accountability. In 2002:
- The APD underreported Part I (major) crimes by 3.2% (a little over 1,500 crimes).
- Over 20,000 police reports that were taken are "missing"; they cannot be located in the Department’s records system.
- Fifteen other law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction in Atlanta and can take crime reports but do not share crime information with the APD.
Atlanta has one of the lowest ratios of officers per square mile of all large cities in the country. Officers feel overwhelmed by high levels of crime and the number of calls for service - over half surveyed do not believe that they can answer every call, regardless of the seriousness of the call. And nearly a third of Atlanta residents agree.
Atlanta officers' pay ranks 170 of the top 200 cities in the country. Ninety-two percent of officers believe they must work second jobs in order to support their families. This can sometimes become an opportunity for misconduct, as we saw last week, when Chief Pennington initiated disciplinary action against 55 officers ranging in rank from Police Officer to Major because of incidents during last year’s NBA All-Star weekend.
The Department has splintered into many different and overly specialized units. For instance, eight different units were handling narcotics enforcement prior to Chief Pennington's arrival. This splintering led to uncoordinated and generally ineffective crime-fighting efforts.
These facts are startling, but not entirely unexpected. Since I assumed office, we have been taking on the challenge of fixing areas of city government that have been broken, from Finance to Ethics to the 5th runway at Hartsfield-Jackson to water & sewer. Now, the APD is ready for change.
The opportunity:
The Chief's Plan lays out the multiple and critical tasks that must be now undertaken quickly and systematically if the job of rebuilding the APD is to be completed:
- Decentralizing detectives to work directly in neighborhoods across the city.
- Creating 10 new patrol beats to increase enforcement presence.
- Increasing focus on narcotics and warrants enforcement by adding resources and focus to their operations.
- Implementing new crime strategies to target violent hotspots, sex crimes, burglaries and other property crimes.
- Replacing the records management system to ensure that no other reports or 911 calls are lost and to better track crime and police activity.
- Creating new training programs for supervisors to exact more accountability from all levels of the APD.
- Increasing targeted and random integrity tests to root out corruption.
- Increasing authorized strength to 2,000 officers to keep every neighborhood safe.
- Increasing pay so that officers do not have to work extra jobs to make ends meet.
We have a great opportunity before us. We are fortunate to have in Chief Pennington a leader who achieved remarkable results in crime reduction in New Orleans, a police department riddled with corruption and mismanagement. In three years he had eradicated corruption and transformed his department into an organization of high professionalism and integrity. In four years, violent crime in New Orleans was cut by more than 50%, enough to lead the nation in cities its size.
We must work together to support Chief Pennington and the entire Atlanta Police Department - the men and women charged with risking their lives to keep us safe. This will be a difficult task, but the people of Atlanta have faced many challenges head on, and won. The entire community of Atlanta - from resident, to business, to politician - must enable every officer in the Atlanta Police Department to work to their fullest potential, to put into place working systems that enable them to dramatically and lastingly cut crime.
I am committed to create a city that is safe in all neighborhoods - from Bankhead to Buckhead, from Cascade to East Atlanta. I am committed to create a city that is safe for children and seniors. I am committed to create a city where all can live, work and play safely and peaceably.
I am counting on us to come together to win this battle against crime and create a community where all can live safely.
Sincerely,
Shirley Franklin
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*Atlanta Police Department Plan of Action - released Friday, February 20, 2004 at 10:08
Chief Pennington has released his plan of action for the Atlanta Police Department and it is available on the APD website www.atlantapd.org.
This is a very large report, 227 pages. To view this report you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. To download this report right click the title below.
APD Plan of Action
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