Callous or calculating, the pressure Mayor Willie Herenton has been putting on Police Director Walter Winfrey seems to be working. For the past two quarters, the Memphis Police Department has stepped up its arrest rate more than it has in years. It's no small corollary that the crime rate overall has been going down, tentatively but persistently.
Some long-term issues nevertheless remain to be addressed. With senior officers still retiring at high rates, it will be at least two years before Memphis reaches Winfrey's "full complement" of 1,640 uniformed officers. Recruiting is slow, even though efforts have been stepped up (Fortunately, Winfrey has held firm on keeping the hiring standards high).
Yet District Attorney General Bill Gibbons is calling for twice as many cops. Why? Because New York and Boston have seen massive crime decreases, in part because they have had a large ratio of officers to residents. Those ratios are at least twice as high as that of the Memphis Police Department. If Memphis followed New York's model, it would need to add as many as 2,300 officers.
Winfrey doesn't think Memphis needs any more than a couple hundred more cops. He believes New York's crime rate "had to table off" because it's been high for so long.
This issue has been overly simplified, but it appears that Winfrey hasn't done his homework. For starters, Winfrey is looking at New York's past to explain Memphis' present and future. Our city's problems would seem to lie in the future, with persistent poverty and a growing juvenile-crime threat.
One major study has shown that, for every uniformed officer added to a police department, as many as 24 murders, aggravated assaults, rapes, and other crimes are prevented each year. There is a point at which the costs of having more officers outweigh the benefits, but Memphis is nowhere near that point.
Three years ago we, too, called editorially for doubling the city's police force, whatever the cost. Armed now with fresh support from our chief law-enforcement arbiter, we'll do so again. Gibbons is right. We need more cops.
Professional sports come and go, but for the past 40 years, Tiger basketball has stood alone as the biggest sports story in this area. Now comes a new day. Head coach George "Tic" Price has already placed his personal stamp on the U of M basketball program. Gone are the players, coaches, even the trainers from the old regime. The new coach runs a tight ship, instilling discipline in his players with practices that may run as early as sunrise or as late as midnight. Price has already shown an ability to recruit top-notch players from around the country as well as here in Memphis. His first team may not win a championship, but from all indications Price is building a solid foundation for a program that had fallen more in public perception than in wins and losses.
The head basketball coach at the University of Memphis is an important figure. The power of his position is such that he and his program can play a healing role among our often divided citizens. Here's hoping that Tic Price and his new Tiger basketball team can accomplish that unifying effect in the near future.