Seattle Police Department’s Priorities

The Chief of Seattle Police Department, Chief John Diaz, was the guest speaker at the January 5^th North Precinct Advisory Council.  Before his talk, Chief Diaz delivered a commendation plaque to a North Precinct officer from the Roosevelt Community.  The office, upon accepting it, said that the officers especially value commendations from the citizenry.  Those mean the most to them by far.  I encourage you to make commendations whenever you are especially pleased with the service you get from SPD officers.  This can be as easy as writing or calling the North Precinct Clerk at 206-684-0850 or 10049 College Way N., Seattle, WA 98133.

Chief Diaz outlined SPD priorities, which I summarize below: 

Fighting crime – SPD is focusing on serial offenders, reasoning that there is more bang for the buck to get serial offenders off the street than to investigate every crime with equal effort, which would dilute the effort.  It has been successful using this strategy in numerous areas, such as car theft, burglary, and gangs.

SPD is also focusing on places where crime occurs.  For instance, if there’s a lot of prostitution on Aurora, SPD will focus attention there on prostitution.  If there are a lot of car prowls at Northgate, it will focus attention on car prowls there.

Another crime fighting focus is on improving investigative procedures.  There are almost 100 projects to improve how the SPD does business.  For example, the computer system was upgraded, there is a new method for officers to make reports, etc.  Needless to say the budget cuts are also forcing SPD to rethink/revise some business practices in order to continue providing excellent service for less.

Reducing fear of crime – A big priority for SPD is to help citizens feel safe in the community. Polls show that people think crime is increasing, when in reality it is not.  SPD is focusing on getting officers out of cars and into neighborhoods.  Police presence helps reduce crime and allay fear.  SPD has also participated in exploring with the citizens what public safety means. There have been forums and polls to discuss what helps us feel safe, how quality of life in Seattle can be improved, etc. SPD brought in a national expert on safe city design and invited some community members to attend the discussion.

Building community – A third SPD priority is to foster meeting of neighbors with neighbors and neighbors with police.  Tight knit communities help reduce crime.  Trust between neighborhoods and police help reduce crime. The model SPD is moving toward is having community-based police in each neighborhood, and each neighborhood will help the officers prioritize what crimes to focus on.  Also, SPD knows it needs to be a lot better at explaining what it does.  Chief Diaz didn’t mention the recent controversies over use of force, but I’m sure SPD wants to better communicate the situations officers are faced with every day and educate the citizens about the choices they have to make in split seconds.  I think that if citizenry understands better, then when things go wrong there is a bit more compassion for tragic mistakes.  That said, Chief Diaz strongly declared that SPD wants to be held to a high standard.  Finally, SPD wants to improve its communication of the many successes of the force, and the many heroics that officers exhibit on a continuing basis.