>Like most residents I have had little interaction with the police. I suspect is not the case with the person who entered this post. No doubt there might be some other motive at work here.
None the less, I don’t see the problem with a 12 hour shift. Some quick math will most likely tell you that the police are still working the same number of hours a year. While I do not know the specifics as to how the RPD operate, I do know that many industries which maintain a 24/7 work staff do operate on 12 hours shifts. In my industry we support public utilities throughout the country and in Canada. It is very common for public utility line staffs to work 12 hour schedules. It has been seen as a benefit in that industry and I suspect the use of 12 hour schedules for police staffs were brought about due to the same line of reasoning. Perhaps larger departments like Paterson do the same thing, I am not sure. I doubt that the Ridgewood PD is the first and only police department to work this schedule.
What I am sure of is that any reduction in personnel will have little to do with an 8 hour schedule or a 12 hour schedule. Productivity will not be a key factor either. The police are not a revenue producing service, they are not out there to make money for a private for-profit corporation. As a citizen I do not see any benefit in a police department that is nothing more than a squad of uniformed revenue collectors.
Ridgewood does have a low crime rate, I feel safe walking the streets. If Ridgewood were Paterson I would not live here. A low crime rate does not just occur naturally, there are many factors that keep the crime rate low and the police are a key element. That is true anywhere, not just Ridgewood.
When I lived in a tree lined suburban community in California community 15 years ago that was not the case, gang related crime was a major concern. I did not live in the hood, I lived in a upper middle class suburb. You never saw an officer on patrol and they took 45 minutes to respond when you called (or so my fellow residents maintained in their letters to the editor). My small city refused to hire more officers due to the cost, yet my taxes were high there also.
Reducing the number of personnel means reduced service, plain and simple. If we want to contain costs then we are going to be forced to accept less service from all branches of government. The questions is what are we willing to give up and what will the true cost be in the long run? I suspect my answer to that question will be far different from that of the poster of this thread who appears to be motivated by some sort of a grudge.
I don’t see any big raises in the future for any public employees or increases in their numbers, the police included. However, I am very leery of any reduction in their numbers be it through attrition or layoffs. To do so would be in open invitation to the criminal element from within and outside or borders. A couple of soccer moms talking on their cell phones while driving and difficulty crossing the street will become the least of our problems.
