AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- A partnership between the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety is "yielding meaningful impacts," Chief Joseph Chacon said Friday.
Chacon said the partnership, which has been in action for about two weeks, has led to significant decreases in violent crime, response times, and calls for service.
"APD currently has over 300 vacant officer positions,” Chacon said in a memo to the Mayor and Council. "This unprecedented staffing challenge has led to longer wait times in response to calls for assistance, more traffic injuries and fatalities, and an increase in gun crime. The fact is, we have fewer officers now than we had 15 years ago. The partnership with DPS is a valuable and innovative measure to increase public safety while efforts to build back and build up the police force are underway."
Under the partnership, DPS is providing state troopers to assist with traffic enforcement. Officers are also being deployed to areas of the city where the highest number of calls for assistance for violent crimes have been originating. Troopers are also patrolling major roadways where traffic analysis has identified speeding, reckless driving, DWIs, and injury crashes are prevalent - an area of the partnership that Chacon says will reduce traffic injuries and deaths.
Dr. Johnathan Kringen, APD's Chief Data Officer, said the effects of the partnership are showing up in data points being monitored by the department. One of those areas is response times - citywide average response times have dropped by 23 seconds for emergency calls, while urgent calls are down 52 seconds.
In the high-volume areas where troopers have been specifically deployed, even greater impacts are being seen. Urgent calls had been reaching average response times of upwards of 19 minutes - those are now down by as much as 7 minutes. Emergency calls, which had been averaging upwards of 9 minutes, are down by as much as 2 minutes in some areas.
The partnership between the two agencies is set to be the focus of the Austin City Council's work session next Tuesday, with some council members expressing concern over the nature of the partnership.
