NEW ORLEANS — As New Orleans suffered from a spike in violent crime amid dwindling troop strength throughout last year, two bold measures were adopted to try and stop the bleeding: placing front-line officers on 12-hour shifts and, later, re-deploying about 75 specialty officers to answer calls.
A recent analysis by the City Council shows that neither strategy had much of an impact.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to the re-deployment and the 12-hour shifts, that did not prove to be effective,” Council Vice-President Helena Moreno said in reaction to the analysis. “That did not prove to have more deployed officers out on the street. Which was disappointing.”
The four-page report by council analyst Jeff Asher measured the effectiveness of the re-deployment strategies by tracking overall average response times and the number of police units available to respond to 9-1-1 calls.
“The change to 12-hour shifts created no appreciable impact on overall response times after its implementation in June 2022,” Asher wrote in a summary of his findings.
The move from the standard three 8-hour shifts to two 12-hour shifts was adopted by recently retired Superintendent Shaun Ferguson. The longer shifts are still in place.
“We hope to improve our response times, deter any furtherance in crimes and create more visibility in our communities,” Ferguson said upon announcing the move.
Asher noted that there have been dips and spikes in response times throughout the second half of the year, but the overall time to respond to emergency calls has remained flat.
As for the much-touted announcement to push more officers into patrol duty, there was a brief improvement in the number of police units available to respond to calls, but those gains quickly evaporated.
“A re-deployment of officers – announced in September 2022 – had only a minor and short-lived impact on unit availability and there was no discernible change in response times from the re-deployment,” Asher wrote.
Putting more officers on the street was one of the first changes recommended by NOPD consultant Fausto Pichardo, a former New York City police commander hired to help the department. The move was adopted within weeks of Pichardo’s arrival.
“I think we're in danger and I think we've got to make sure that what we're doing works. There's no Plan B,” said John Casbon, who engineered Pichardo’s hiring as founding member of the non-profit New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation.
Moreno said that Asher’s analysis calls for the department to go back to the drawing board for other solutions, especially amid the recent spike in shootings that has left 13 dead over the first 10 days of 2023, including three mass shootings.
“Now that we know this, what's the pivot? How do we pivot to something that may be more workable?” Moreno asked.
An NOPD spokesperson said the department is still studying the council’s analysis.
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