Law enforcement personnel staffing is usually driven by two criteria. First by jurisdiction population and, secondly, crime statistics that citizens can find online or at the library on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report statistics. Each community has different demographics.
While Presque Isle may have a population of 9,571, on any given work day, with two colleges, an airport, mall and being the retail and service center for Aroostook County with the Star City the transportation hub and most major routes spider webbing their way here, we easily swell to double the number of people and vehicles. Unfortunately, along with the good citizens, this also brings in the unsavory side of life that the PIPD has to deal with. Law enforcement used to be what the name implies, but over time we become social workers more each year. People like statistics, so let’s review a few.
In 1986 there were 20 police officers just policing the city compact, with state police responsible for the rural areas. Now there are 19 officers policing the two townships as well as the compact after state police relinquished the rural area of responsibility to your city police a few years ago.
In 1992, the Criminal Investigation Division’s felony and major crime case load was 67 cases for the year. In 2005 the annual caseload hit a high of 227 investigations. The CID increased from one full-time and one part-time detective to two full-time detectives.
In 1986, there were 3,634 calls for police service compared to 6,538 in 2004 — a 44 percent increase for police response. And 632 traffic incidents of violation bureau tickets, summonses/OUIs and warnings in 1986 compared to 2,714 for the year 2004 — a 77 percent increase. In the same corresponding timeframe the criminal cases police responded to and investigated went from 319 to 503—a 37 percent increase.
The sex offender registry did not exist prior to 1995.Now there are 20 Presque Isle citizens on the list, which generates about 3,000 pieces of office administration a year to work this non-funded federal mandate. Hundreds of community citizens are notified every year of sex offenders in their neighborhoods.
The following information was obtained from the Maine UCR Annual Reports, located on the Web:
Statistics gathered under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program are submitted by the law enforcement agencies of Maine and represent a spectrum of Maine crime on statewide, regional and county levels. Awareness of the presence of certain crime statistics presented is necessary if fair and equitable conclusions are to be drawn. These crime-influencing factors are present, to some degree, in every community and their presence affects, in varying degrees, the crime developments of the community. Comparison of crime figures between communities should not be made without first considering the individual factors present in each community. Crime, as an outgrowth of society, remains a social problem of grave concern and the police are limited in their role as to its suppression and detection, as stated by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice in their report the Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967 – Page 92):
The fact that the police deal daily with crime does not mean that they have unlimited power to prevent, reduce or deter it. The police did not create and cannot resolve the social conditions that stimulate crime. They did not start and cannot stop the convulsive social changes that are taking place in America. They do not enact the laws that they are required to enforce, nor do they dispose of the criminals they arrest. The police are only one part of the criminal justice system; the government is only one part of society. Insofar as crime is a social phenomenon, crime prevention is the responsibility of every part of society. The criminal process is limited to case-by-case operations, one criminal or one crime at a time. Set forth below are some of the conditions that will, by type and volume, affect the crime that occurs from place to place:
• Density and size of the community population and the degree of urbanization in the surrounding area;
• Compositions of the population with reference particularly to youth concentration;
• Economic status of the population, median income and job availability;
• Relative stability of the population, including commuters, seasonal and other transient types;
• Modes of transportation and highway systems in the area;
• Climate, including seasonal weather conditions;
• Cultural conditions such as educational, recreational and religious characteristics;
• Standards governing appointments to the police force;
• Policies of the prosecuting officials, the courts, correctional and probation/parole officials;
• Effective strength of law enforcement agencies;
• Attitude of the public toward reporting crime and participation in the prosecution of the offenders;
• The administrative and investigative efficiency of the local law enforcement agency, including the degree of adherence to crime-reporting standards; and
• Organization and cooperation of adjoining and overlapping police jurisdictions.
The main goal of this program is to identify crime and related problems. The statistics in this publication should not be used to measure or evaluate the workloads and results of the individual contributing departments. While most police agencies are collectively thought of as crime-fighting units, considerable independent research shows only a small portion of the workload of many departments is spent fighting crime. Because of other assigned duties, the peculiar cycle of crime and clearances, and the different community factors that normally affect crime statistics, no conclusions on individual departments should be reached without consulting their in-house duties and records. Crime rates in this publication are based on the stable population of the community. Seasonal population figures are too inaccurate and fluctuating to be used as a measurement for determining crime rates. Communities with extra high seasonal populations may show a higher crime rate per thousand than might be normal for a community their size.
More information can be reviewed on the Internet by searching ‘Maine UCR,’ click on ‘UCR Annual Reports.’
