Not enough cops on Newton’s streets, police department finds in study

The city of Newton ranks third in the state in per-capita violent crime rates, according to analysis done by the Newton Police Department.

The two cities that ranked higher in 2013 were Wichita and Leavenworth; Kansas City was No. 6, according to the department’s data.

In response, the Newton police are turning to analytics and Granger causality tests, in an effort to increase statistics-based “predictive policing,” according to Lt. Bryan Hall, who has been doing this analysis as part of his master’s degree program.

“Capturing bad guys catches news headlines but that does nothing for the victim,” Hall said. “The best thing we can do as a community is prevent crime.”

The Newton Police Department hosted the second of three public meetings Thursday during which it’s showing its research into the Newton crime rate and what it wants to do to counter an increase.

Through Hall’s analysis, he posits that a likely reason crime is high in Newton is because the department does not have enough officers patrolling the streets.

In 2014, the department had three police officers patrolling the streets during the daytime an average of 67 percent of the time. Hall says having five officers on the street at a time is considered “adequate coverage.”

The department has had to pull resource officers out of schools to patrol the streets to maintain minimum coverage, Hall said.

That endeavor has resulted in most officers accruing more than 400 hours of overtime, he said.

Newton Police Chief Eric Murphy said the department is fully staffed for what it is budgeted for, though that is not enough to meet the community’s needs.

“Even though we’re up to our allocated levels, what my study is showing is, that’s not enough,” Hall said. “We need people in excess of that to meet our staffing numbers and to be able to implement proactive policing. Right now, we’re completely reactive. We have guys that respond to calls, take reports, go back to the station and write reports. That’s what we have, and I think the community deserves better.”

Funding for the police department has been a contentious issue for Newton’s city commissioners. The department’s station itself has been in need of repair for some time as well, police have said.

“If we give every department what they want, you will not like your taxes,” Commissioner David Nygaard said at the meeting. “We were given a mandate for this year to keep taxes the same or lower them.”

The department is scheduled to receive two more officers next year, Murphy said.

The Newton Police Department is using analytic software to attempt to predict where crime will happen and prevent it, Hall said.

“The takeaway here shouldn’t be that crime is high. It is,” Hall said. “The takeaway should be that we are owning this. The easy path is for people to bury their heads in the sand and deny it. That’s what you’ll see time and time again from communities. We are not doing that. We are saying, ‘Yes, it is a problem. We have found a solution. We have talented, dedicated people working toward that solution.’”

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 9:41 PM with the headline "Not enough cops on Newton’s streets, police department finds in study."