Law enforcementPolice officers in Louisiana do not have to look for a ride home
Tighter budgets have had an effect on police departments everywhere. In Indianapolis, Indiana, and many other cities, police departments now charge officers a fee to take home their squad cars. Police departments in central Louisiana resist this trend. “This [taking home a squad car] is not a privilege,” says the director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. “It really is about maximizing response times and the ability of officers to be where they need to be.”
Tighter budgets have had an effect on police departments everywhere. In Indianapolis, for example, police departments will begin to charge officers a fee to take home their squad cars.
Charging officers for taking home their police cars may be a trend, but law enforcement agencies in Louisiana are happy with their policies.
In Rapides Parish, Louisiana, special units and division heads in the Sheriff’s Office, Alexandria Police Department, and Pineville Police Department have take-home cars.
Take-home units are “a widespread practice some see as a perk and others view as a valuable crime-fighting tool,” Darrel Stephens, executive director of Major Cities Chiefs Association told TheTownTalk.
Stephens says large departments in recent years have examined or adopted cost-sharing policies and other restrictions on take-home cars.
“Departments, because of fiscal constraints, are being asked to curtail the use of take-home vehicles, or are taking them away from some officers or charging fees and setting limits on off-duty use,” James Pasco, director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police labor organization, told TTT.
In 2004, about two-thirds of Alexandria, Louisiana police officers were assigned take-home cars. At the time it cost the city about $80,000 a year to provide officers those cars. In 2009 the city eliminated sixty-one take home cars in order to save an estimated $180,000 a year, Today, according to Alexandria Police Chief Loren Lampert, only investigators, special response teams, and division heads have “take-home units” assigned to them.
“Our patrol fleet is a one car to four officers 24/7 patrol fleet,” Lampert told TTT. “In short, all four patrol shifts share the same cars.”
The Alexandria Police Department is considering reducing the number of officers assigned per car from four officers to a car to two officers to a car, to allow the patrol car fleet to run twelve hours a day and to rest for twelve hours.
“This is predicted to reduce maintenance costs by as much as 35 percent and extend the life of the vehicles as much as 50 percent,” Lampert said. “The average life of a 24/7 patrol car is 12 to 15 months.”
The average life of a take-home car is five years.
“As you can see,” Lampert told TTT, “most in the industry agree that one-officer vehicles ultimately save the taxpayer money. However, there is significant cost associated with the initial acquisition of the vehicles.
“Our plan is to evaluate the actual savings of the two-officer vehicle ‘dual patrol fleets’ and then consult with the city administration to determine what is best for our citizens.”
Pasco says he understands the motivation behind other police departments around the country changing their take-home policies, but that focusing on money alone does not account for the intangibles of take-home vehicles, such as the ability for officers quickly to respond to incidents even when they are off duty.
“This is not a privilege,” Pasco said. “It really is about maximizing response times and the ability of officers to be where they need to be.”
Rapides Parish Sheriff William Earl Hilton agrees. “The more patrol cars seen in the community,” Hilton added, “the safer the community is.”
