The number of cops on the streets of Detroit today is the lowest since the 1920’s.
At its peak, the police force numbered over 5,000. Today there are only 1,590 men in blue, reported the local CBS affiliate Thursday.
Mark Diaz, president of the Detroit Police Officers Association said, “This is a crisis, and the dam is going to break. It’s a Catch-22: I know the city is broke, but we’re not going to be able to build up a tax base of residents and businesses until we can provide a safe environment for them.”
In 1920, there were 897 officers compared to a population of 993,678.
In 2000, the force stood at 3,139 men, and has since seen a reduction of 37% in the past three years alone.
The current population of Detroit stands at 719,777. This means that the current citizen-to-officer ratio 448-1.
Police chief James Craig made note of the difficulty he faces in gaining more officers.
“These officers do the most difficult job in the country, and they need to get paid more. It’s hard to keep people when other cities can offer so much more money.”
He hopes that the force will be able to make gainful additions in the near future.
“Certainly the mayor and I have lots of discussions on what right sizing the police department should look like. I know that we’re looking at adding roughly 480 additional officers into the field. What could I do with that? I could do more,” Craig said.
Although certainly a boon for the police force, it is important to note that only 15% of those 480 officers would make it onto the street.