Over-Staffing Lesson

This is indicative of a larger problem, one that we've been railing about since the beginning of the blog:

• More than 50 Chicago Police officers currently assigned to desk duty will hit the streets after spring break to provide stepped-up security at “three to five” Chicago Public Schools plagued by gang retaliation and other violence, Police Supt. Jody Weis said today.

  Until that time, the job of protecting students outside “problem” schools will fall to the Targeted Response Unit, a flexible force of elite officers reassigned to crime “hot spots.”

  After joining Mayor Daley at an anti-violence rally at St. Sabina’s Church, 1210 W. 78th Place, Weis refused to identify the schools in line for special attention. He said he doesn’t want to “tip our hand” or give the bad guys any “lead time.”

Here's the thing though:

• If you can spare these 50 officers from desk duty, then why can't they man cars on the watch?

This is a prime example of over staffing inside spots that has been plaguing the Department for years, especially recent years. Closed Market is another example. If an administrative office can be 20% short while officers spend time babysitting dope spots and high schools, then that office is AT LEAST 20% over staffed, probably more.

We hear about all sorts of front offices where there seems to be anything BUT work being done on a daily basis. J-Fed ought to be eliminating a bunch of these spots as a lot of it is data entry. Do we really need armed "ticket clerks"? Automate, civilian-ize, eliminate paper in the districts and we'll bet you can put 200 more cops on the street daily. Include 35th Street and we'll wager that number climbs to 500.

We'll make no predictions about their effectiveness, but it's bodies in cars. It won't matter much on midnights anyway.