Chief Improves Response Times—He Redefined It

Up until last July, the city of Detroit (Mich.) Police Department arguably had one of the worst average response times in the nation—58 minutes. Now police chief James Craig is boasting that response times are down to just eight to nine minutes and that, “many shootings are handled in two or three minutes.” However, behind the spectacular improvement in response times is a redefinition of the term itself. It no longer measures the time from telephone call to officer arrival. Instead, Craig ordered that the term refer only to the time between an officer’s radio dispatch and his/her arrival on-scene. A majority of agencies use the wider definition of response time, although some large agencies have attempted to conceal declining service by redefining the term (NYC, LA). The response time information was part of Craig’s announcement this week that he’s replacing 15 of the communications center’s 100 police officers with civilians. “We need to put sworn officers in the field,” Craig said, admitting that his department is one of the few large agencies with officers staffing the comm center. Strangely, Craig said he eventually wants to change the current two-step dispatching system by having dispatchers both take 911 calls and dispatch incidents to officers. Read more about the changes here.