As expected, a long-awaited safety assessment from SafeBR provides analysis on the potential of merging the Baton Rouge Police Department and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The coalition focused on addressing crime commissioned 21CP to conduct the study to determine how best to strengthen recruitment, pay, resources, and efficacy of law enforcement across the parish.
In releasing the report this morning, SafeBR notes that the findings demonstrate Baton Rouge could realize significant enhancements in resourcing and supporting public safety through a unified approach to law enforcement.
Among the specific findings:
- Law enforcement in Baton Rouge is “top heavy”; all vacancies are in the patrol functions versus departmental leadership.
- If the community were to spend at the national average, savings of over $50 million could be realized to invest in higher pay, filling patrol vacancies, and investing in public safety technology and justice needs.
- Peer cities realized approximately 20% savings following unification efforts.
- A unified approach to officer recruitment, incorporating best practices from both BRPD and EBRSO, could help fill vacancies and allow Baton Rouge to be more competitive regionally and nationally for officers.
The report outlines how pay and benefits for local law enforcement could be increased with the cost savings of a unified force. A review of peer communities like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, also found a unified force can enhance public safety by streamlining accountability, improving community relations, building trust, and coordinating critical crime-fighting efforts such as narcotics and violent crime task forces, according to the announcement.
Leaders in Charlotte and Jacksonville noted the importance of a phased, strategic transition and implementation plan, organizers say. Other communities, like Louisville, Kentucky, took the opportunity to adopt best practices from previously separate law enforcement agencies that were unified under a singular command.
SafeBR organizers emphasize the assessment is not a comprehensive view or evaluation of BRPD, EBRSO, or other law enforcement agencies in the parish. Rather, it focused on how the agencies currently provide public safety services and the advantages, disadvantages, and critical considerations of a unified approach to law enforcement going forward considering rising safety, fiscal and other challenges.
“We believe law enforcement officers and personnel in Baton Rouge deserve the best resources and support possible,” real estate developer and attorney Russell Mosely says in the announcement. “We teamed with 21CP to study the efforts of other communities who have transformed resources and community policing tactics to improve safety and accountability.”
Read the full report. Read Baton Rouge Business Report’s story from the October edition.
Editor’s note: The headline for this story has been revised since its original publication. The SafeBR report does not contain recommendations; only analysis.
