Crime

Detroit Police Chief James Craig's Official Plan To Reduce Crime

January 10, 2014, 8:35 AM

Detroit Police Chief James Craig has certainly had a busy week. 

The Detroit Police Department released a plan Thursday that details how Chief Craig plans to reduce crime in Detroit by reducing response times, solving more cases and improving community relations.

It notes that previous restructuring plans were unorganized and were not followed through with due to rapid management, saying "There was a surprising consensus among the Department's most thoughtful members about the changes needed in both department structure and operational procedure. DPD is ready to move forward with a measured set of reforms...."

According to the Detroit News, the plan includes:

Reducing overall crime by 10 percent; reducing response time to Priority One, or life-threatening, emergency calls, to five minutes; redeploying 275 officers to patrol and investigative roles and assigning their current jobs to civilians; adding 150 police officers by year’s end; increasing the homicide clearance rate to 70 percent; and achieving 100 percent compliance with federal consent decrees by the second quarter.

The Chief also plans some staff restructuring. Precincts will all have detectives and will assume more responsibility for their neighborhoods. Some officer ranks have been reduced and some titles have been changed to balance out management duties. The chief has also reduced his office staff from sixteen to six people.

The Detroit News notes:

Craig discussed some aspects of the plan last week, including his goals of increasing the current homicide closure rate of about 50 percent, and decreasing the time it takes officers to respond to emergencies, which is currently an average of 5 minutes. Average response time was 58 minutes prior to Craig’s arrival in July, but he changed the way response times are counted by starting the clock when a dispatcher gives a 911 call to an officer, rather than when the call is first placed.

Read the entire plan below:


Read more: 


Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day