A close look at the Sheriff's Office record
Its funding is up, but agency failing to meet key goals
456 commentsby JJ Hensley - Oct. 3, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The goal is straightforward: Get to crimes in progress in five minutes or less and solve two-thirds of crimes that detectives investigate.

But Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office is taking at least two minutes longer than its five-minute median goal in responding to priority-one calls in the towns and unincorporated areas where it is the main law-enforcement agency.

The office also is falling short of its target for clearing cases by arrest or identifying a clear suspect. Its clearance rate inched up slightly in 2006 and has remained flat since, at 57 percent, short of the 65 percent goal but similar to clearance rates on violent crimes for U.S. law-enforcement agencies that serve large metro areas.
While results in these key areas have not changed much, the sheriff's budget has soared since the beginning of the decade.

Since fiscal year 2001, Arpaio's budget, excluding jails, has grown by 93 percent, from $37.6 million to $72.5 million, and its number of law-enforcement positions has risen by nearly 23 percent, from 644 to 789. Priority-one calls for service have remained flat, about 3,000 a year. But all calls for service have more than doubled, from about 93,000 to more than 220,000.

Priority-one calls are for crimes that harm people, such as murder, rape and assault, or for property crimes in progress. Lower-priority calls involve things such as a prowler or a discovered theft or burglary.Officials with the Sheriff's Office said the budget increases covered additional staff, pay hikes and better equipment, and it's unfair to conclude that a larger budget will always drive up performance measures.

"When you look at the performance of a law-enforcement agency you have to look at it top-to-bottom, the totality, not just one thing like response times," said Capt. Paul Chagolla, a sheriff's spokesman.The Sheriff's Office points to one primary factor for not meeting the goals: still-insufficient funding to hire enough deputies and detectives to improve response times and clearance rates appreciably. They say at current staffing levels, the response times are about as good as they're going to get. Adding 50 patrol deputies might improve overall response times by 20 to 30 seconds, said Larry Black, the sheriff's director of special operations.They also question whether the goals are realistic, although the goals are self-imposed.

"Based on the tools that we have, we are probably getting to our peak of efficiency. With what we have, this is about as good as we're going to be," Black said.

Andy Kunasek, chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, said given the county's population growth, the agency is doing an adequate job with its resources.

"I think the sheriff delivers a great value for the monies we're providing for him to do his job," Kunasek said.

In recent months, dozens of protesters have crowded the board's meetings to complain that Arpaio's crackdown on illegal immigrants has hurt response times and clearance rates.

But a review of county records by The Arizona Republic doesn't confirm that view.

Arpaio began his crackdown on illegal immigrants and human smugglers two years ago. His office was already failing to meet its benchmarks before and has continued to do so. Its median response times and clearance rates improved slightly or didn't change as the agency gradually staffed up and deployed its immigration units in 2006 and 2007.


Responding to calls

When people call 911 to report a crime, they expect a quick response. That's especially true when the crime is serious, such as murder, rape, assault or burglary in progress.

But one or more factors can scuttle promptness. Officers may be working other stops or calls and must disengage to respond. They may be short-handed that night or deputies may run into road construction.

The Sheriff's Office also faces a unique challenge: It must patrol about 7,800 square miles of unincorporated areas and towns with which it contracts to provide law enforcement.

In theory, the less time it takes an officer to arrive at a crime scene, the more effective he or she will be. Criminals have less time to flee and officers can secure the site sooner.

In reality, depending on the circumstances, faster doesn't mean much as long as the response time is reasonable, some experts say. Deputies arriving five minutes after an assault will gain little investigative advantage over ones arriving seven to 10 minutes afterward.

But the public has a different perception.

When citizens report a robbery or an assault, they can get impatient within minutes. If the crime is in progress, they want immediate response. If they come home from vacation and find their house was burglarized, they get angry if they have to wait hours for an officer to show up.

Audrey Stout said that's exactly what happened at the old hotel her family owns on Pima Street in Gila Bend, where it took deputies hours to respond to a reported burglary earlier this year.

"If they don't think it's important, they'll take their time coming," she said.

Arpaio's office tracks its response times in two ways - by median and average. Sheriff's officials say they prefer median because as with home prices, medians prevent rare extremes from distorting the overall measure. A median is the middle number in a series of numbers.

In the first quarter of 2007, for example, the Sheriff's Office took 90 minutes to respond to a report of a deceased elderly man in the southwest Valley. That helped spike the average response time for the quarter - from call received to arrival at scene - to 16:05 minutes, up from 11:31 in the same quarter in 2006. The median time increased to a lesser degree, from 7:51 to 9:57 minutes.

Arpaio's critics say they believe his office cherry-picks figures to put itself in the best light. Those critics include residents who protest daily outside Arpaio's office, his election opponent Dan Saban and civil-liberties lawyers.

While the office's median response times have improved slightly over the past three years, from 7:17 to 7:02 minutes, its average times have deteriorated. Through July of this year, the average response time was 10:40 minutes, up 41 seconds from 2006.

In its filings with the county, the Sheriff's Office does not state whether the five-minute goal is an average or a median. Officials maintain it is median and is based on a common standard for urban police departments.

Sheriff's Capt. Joel Fox says response times are a way to track responsiveness in general and the impact of any staffing issues, especially by district. But unless the times are excessively high, they don't reveal a lot about crime-fighting quality, he says.

Some experts agree. Response times are "worthless in terms of measuring effectiveness" but tend to influence public perception heavily, said Jeff Walker, professor of criminal justice at University of Arkansas-Little Rock and past president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.


Solving crimes

The gold-standard measure of law enforcement is clearance rates.

A police agency can officially clear a priority-one case - and report the clearance to the FBI - when it makes an arrest or identifies a suspect it can't arrest only because of special circumstances. Those include an uncooperative victim or key witness or a dead suspect.

Clearance rates vary widely by type of crime. From 2002 to 2006, the Sheriff's Office cleared more than half its homicides and nine out of 10 simple assaults each year - similar to national rates. It cleared well below 10 percent of burglaries, also typical.

There are no available statistics on clearance rates for sheriff's offices. But police and sheriff's agencies serving areas with more than 100,000 people usually clear about half of all violent crimes, according to the International City/County Management Association.

In recent years, clearance rates for the Sheriff's Office's have slipped or remained flat, from 62 percent overall in fiscal 2004-2005 to 57 percent in 2006-2007, according to data it provided to Maricopa County. The results in the past two years fell short of the agency's goals of 65 percent or more.

The office's clearance rates do not mean most of the cases were cleared with an arrest. In fact, recent data suggest that the majority of cases are not cleared that way.

The Sheriff's Office reported to county officials this year that about 1,300 of 9,500 cases investigated, or about 14 percent, were cleared with arrests. The same report shows that detectives cleared a total of about 7,200 cases. That would mean a large majority of cleared cases were from one of several other ways, including the case was unfounded or was given an "exceptional clearance."

To meet the FBI's standard for exceptional clearance, detectives must have identified and located a suspect but not be able to arrest the person because of factors outside their control, such as the suspect's death.

The Sheriff's Office directed questions on clearances to Deputy Chief Bill Knight, who was unavailable to discuss the rates or strategies for improving results.

"We'll let the numbers speak for themselves," Chagolla said.


Public perception

There are other ways to evaluate a police agency, such as proper use of force, respect for civil rights and commitment to crime-prevention programs. One of the sheriff's other functions is to run the county jail.

But in gauging overall performance, administrators often point to public support.Arpaio has enjoyed widespread approval across Maricopa County, having been re-elected sheriff four times since 1992. For the majority of voters, though, it's the local police department, not the sheriff's office, that is the primary law enforcer.

Arpaio has reaped a windfall of support in cities with police departments through high-profile initiatives, ranging from mall patrols to operations aimed at prostitutes, inmates, illegal immigrants and others.

The sheriff's office receives a budget from the Board of Supervisors with strings attached, including a maximum amount that can be spent on deputies' salaries.

But once Arpaio meets state-statute obligations to enforce the law in unincorporated areas, transport prisoners and run jails, he can direct his staff in any way he sees fit.

He and his staff often say they deploy resources to do work that other agencies can't or won't do. While the Phoenix Police Department is charged with responding to and investigating crimes in its area - its gets the 911 calls from city residents - the sheriff's office can carry out enforcement actions there. Many of Arpaio's city operations are special initiatives, the most recent being crime sweeps tied to immigration.

"Our priorities are the community's priorities," said Fox, the sheriff's captain. "If the public's priorities are to reduce response times, then that becomes our priority. But it seems like right now the public's priorities are immigration and issues like that."


Community support

Yet in communities where the agency's arrest rates and response times matter, discontent has arisen.

In the 2004 primary election among Republicans, towns that contract for police service from the Sheriff's Office preferred Saban over Arpaio by about 10 percent. Saban won in Cave Creek with 69 percent of the Republican vote and in Carefree with 57 percent. Arpaio beat Saban in unincorporated precincts and won easily in the general election. Saban has since re-registered as a Democrat and faces Arpaio in the Nov. 4 general election.

It is unclear why primary voters rejected the sheriff in towns where he has a contract to enforce the law.

A clue may lie in public frustration vented in some areas about slow response times and feelings that deputies weren't working adequately with the communities. Those included Carefree, Cave Creek, El Mirage and Guadalupe.

Carefree and Cave Creek leaders worked out their issues with the sheriff after Arpaio threatened to pull his deputies from the towns. Some residents in both complained of long response times, and in Carefree speed traps and contract costs were an issue.

Now, in Cave Creek, some residents say the town is safer in the wake of an Arpaio crime-suppression sweep there this summer.

"The contract is a win-win situation for both the county and the Sheriff's Office," said Town Manager Usama Abujbarah.

El Mirage residents, some organized through West Valley Interfaith, were upset at response times and other issues and the town re-created its own police department last fall. In Guadalupe, a public dispute broke out between Arpaio and former Guadalupe Mayor Rebecca Jimenez; Arpaio notified the town his office would cancel the contract to serve the community, and the town sued. The contract ends in March.

In the county's western reaches, Aguila residents became so upset at Arpaio's office last year that they began arming themselves and patrolling neighborhoods. About 200 people showed up at a public forum to complain about a lack of patrols, slow response times and inadequate investigations.

Arpaio sent in a special enforcement team and increased patrols. Today, Stan Klimek and Marisol Hernandez, community residents who organized the public outcry, said service from deputies has improved dramatically.

"Things are back to the way they used to be" before last year's crime spree, Klimek said.

Arlene Banks, of Avondale, said she is upset that the sheriff's office isn't doing more to solve her daughter's murder, which occurred in Laveen.

Brittanee Monique Howard, 21 years old and 8 months pregnant, was shot and killed while she slept in her boyfriend's family home on May 1. Since then, homicide investigators have had a few meetings with family members, but haven't said much since July, when a detective told Banks it would take a cooperative witness coming forward before they could do anything with the case.

Howard's aunt, Charlesetta Coleman-Miller, said investigators aren't doing enough because Arpaio's priorities are out of whack.

"If he'd spend more time solving crimes than chasing and harassing (illegal immigrants) . . . You put that much effort into solving my child's murder and you got me, I'm hooked (as a fan)," Coleman-Miller said. "I can't imagine how many people feel the same way with this Maricopa County Sheriff's Department."

Sheriff's officials said Howard's case is as important as any murder being investigated, but in some cases detectives must wait for more information.

"Every case is a priority . . . We are sensitive to the family and the cases don't go away," said Lt. Tim Palmer, a supervisor in the sheriff's homicide unit.

As much as politicians and the public have started to focus on issues such as clearance rates and response times for the Sheriff's Office, Chagolla said focusing on those things ignores the overall positive impact of the sheriff's office. The agency succeeds in a variety of services, including inmates, court services and simple patrols.

"You've got to look at all of it, not just one portion of it," he said. "We're a modern, modernized law-enforcement agency. There are many, many things we are involved in that people just don't have the appreciation for because they don't see it."

Some Comments:

fridgeman101101Oct-03 @ 1:38 AM
This isn't about clearance rates or response times. By actually enforcing Federal immigration laws, Arpaio has pissed many open boarder advocates off. The corruption and money runs deep when it comes to illegal immigration. The Sheriff does a great job with what he has and will get my vote again. Take your race card and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. This is the US, not Mexico. We have laws. They will be enforced. Good job Sheriff Joe!!!


BADBIRDOct-03 @ 1:44 AM
Keep up the great work Joe. You are the only incumbent I will be voting for this election.

Cant wait to read all the Demo-Nuties comments in the morning. This should be good.

bartoloOct-03 @ 1:49 AM
It seems this election is about change. Its time for someone who will fight for the people and fight crime. Joe Arpaio is not that guy. Change is coming!!!

fridgeman101101Oct-03 @ 1:55 AM
Fight for which people? Do you refer to the Mexican people? Because, funny thing, by enforcing ALL laws Arpaio is fighting for the people. The people being US citizens.

When Saban is defeated, he can always get a job as a used car saleman. He already has the look down.

FustigatedOneOct-03 @ 2:37 AM
Another AZ Rep article bashing Joe, primarily in response for his immigrant sweeps.

I called Phoenix PD once, some guy was trying to get into my house and if I had a gun he'd probably be dead now. I didn't get a Phoenix PD officer to my house for 20 minutes.

MCSO getting there in an average of 7 minutes is fantastic.

MCSO has done more to clean up this county than ANY of the city police departments, but the AZ Republic is in bed with the ilegals of this state, so they must find fault somewhere.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... 10030.html