Planning department report advises hiring hundreds more police officers

Prince George’s County (Map, News) - Prince George’s County should hire at least 700 additional police officers to meet its citizen’s needs, according to a recent report by the countys’ planning department.

The report states that “jurisdictions with police departments of over 1,000 sworn officers and [high crime rates] average 2.7 officers per 1,000 residents.”

The county now has 1,518 police officers and about 860,000 residents, or approximately 1.77 officers per 1,000 residents, said John Erzen, a spokesman for County Executive Jack Johnson.

“We looked at jurisdictions … throughout the country, and 2.7 [per 1,000 residents] is the average number of officers that a typical jurisdiction of our size has,” said Chris Izzo, project manager for the preliminary Public Safety Facilities Master Plan.

The price tag to add that many officers has not been calculated, officials said. Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department has approximately 6.83 officers per 1,000 residents. The department said it has roughly 3,900 officers and a population of 570,761, based on the 2000 census.

To meet the recommendations in the report, which was issued last Wednesday, Prince George’s would need about 2,285 police officers.

Erzen said the current complement of 1,518 police officers is the most the county has ever had. When the report was compiled last September, there were 1,397 officers, or 1.65 per 1,000 residents.

“It’s a top priority to continue to grow our police force,” Erzen said, adding it is Johnson’s goal to have 1,800 officers when he leaves office in December 2010.

Ismael Canales, first vice president of the Prince George’s police union, said the county has made “huge strides” in attempting to address the staffing deficit but needs to do more.

“We handle a large amount of crime. We handle urban crime, and you look at neighboring jurisdictions like D.C., Baltimore City, and the size of their force … is much larger than ours, and yet we still handle crime that is comparable to those jurisdictions,” Canales said.

dfowler@dcexaminer.com