More NOLA Police Info

Do you wonder why the New Orleans Police force is in a mess? We already reported on the phantom officers who have been collecting wages for awhile, and James Taranto at Best of the Web Today sheds a little more light on the department's problems:

The problems with the New Orleans Police Department are nothing new. In February 2004 the Gambit Weekly reported on a study conducted by the University of New Orleans for the New Orleans Police Foundation, which found that the NOPD was quickly losing officers. In just the preceding three years, a force of 1,700 had become a farce of 1,500; the foundation estimated that 2,000 officers were needed to police the city adequately:

Recounting the "three major reasons" cited in the UNO study for the shrinking NOPD--poor pay, lack of consistent promotions, and the city's strict residency requirement--the Foundation then offered three more contributing factors for the reduction in force:

• "Housing costs are higher in Orleans Parish than other Parishes in the metro area, and the residency requirement forces our police officers to bear these higher costs."

• "NOPD officers do not consider the Orleans Parish School system adequate; 84 percent send all or at least one of their children to school elsewhere, usually at additional expense."

• "NOPD officers make less (money) than their peers in other agencies; they have not been promoted as promised. This is especially crippling when coupled with the negative impact of the residency requirement, higher housing and education expenses."

Result: The Big Easy became the country's murder capital. "For New Orleans to have a murder rate that is on par with New York City's, our city would have to record only 36 murders per year," the report found. "This is 221 fewer murders than the 257 murders recorded in 2002."

The Gambit notes that the study, which was actually issued a month before the paper's report, was supposed to have been a "blockbuster," but instead it "became quickly swallowed up in a 24-hour news cycle of bloody crimes."

How'd you like to become the new chief of this mess?