Consultant: Police Need Less Middle Managers; More Patrol Officers

The Police Commission and full City Council reviewed the final draft of a report that studied the structural needs of the Police Department on Wednesday night that recommended less middle managers and more patrol officers.

The report was prepared by consultants with Public Safety Strategies Group of West Townsend, Mass.

Kym Craven, director of the consultant firm, said the Portsmouth Police Department is “a very tall organization, there is a lot of hierarchy there.”

She said the department has a lot of lieutenants and sergeants who serve as middle managers who supervise different facets of the organization.

“There has to be some restructuring and reorganization of the department if the department is to function the way the community wants it to,” she said.

Downtown foot patrols that have been reduced because of budget cuts need to be shored up, Craven said.

She said community feedback told them that people do feel safe downtown during the and day and at night because of the police presence there.

Rick Bailey, the consulting firm's assistant director, said patrol assignments need to be realigned to strengthen the department's overall coverage.

He said supervisors in uniform work different shifts than police officers and that is not beneficial.

“It would make more sense to have them work together,” Bailey said.

He also said the historical practice of maintaining a sixth patrol car as a backup with two police officers that is staffed in the evening into the early morning hours needs to be changed.

“We feel that is not an efficient use of manpower to put two officers in the same car,” he said. It would be better to have two officers in two separate cars to increase their mobility, he said.

Craven said the Police Station on 1 Junkins Ave. also has some structural deficiencies because the building is old and was not originally designed to be a police station.

She said the police station has water leaks and some mold. She said the windows often shake and it impossible for the police chief to have private meetings unless he whispers because the walls of his office need sound proofing.

She also said storage is at a premium and now it is “busting at the seams.”

Craven said it is also important that the city does not cut too many young police officers if budget cuts are necessary because it will ultimately hurt patrol scheduling.

As far as the Police Department's use of Social media such as its Facebook page and its Web site, Craven said there is room for improvement there, also.

"The Web site doesn’t send a message to the community about what the department is or the day to day policing activities that go on," she said.

She said the Web site needs to be updated better and faster, as needed.

Before Craven and her staff listed the areas that need improvement, she did say the Police Department is very strong in many areas.

“You have a very well formed culture and that doesn’t happen by accident,” she said. "We see prideful, professional officers who are courteous to the public."

She said that healthy culture will enable the department to make the changes needed to improve it.

She also described the Police Department has a "house of cards" that is structured a certain way “and we have to be careful how many cards we pull at one time.”

Craven recommended that whatever structural changes the Police Department may incorporate, they need to be done gradually over a long period of time.