A staffing study released Wednesday calls on the Chicago Police Department to put hundreds more officers on the street, although the long-awaited plan could be hampered by labor contracts and the city’s financial crisis.
Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling and other officials said the proposed changes would allow for better supervision, greater opportunities for community policing and more consistent response times across neighborhoods.
But Snelling said the study isn’t just a call for increased manpower — it’s guidance “to help us become the most efficient department that we can possibly be.”
“When people call us, they want us to respond in a timely and efficient manner, so we’re making sure that we’re doing that,” Snelling said in an interview this week. “But at the same time, we need to make sure that we’re being proactive when we’re dealing with community members. That is the priority.”
The study, commissioned by the City Council over two years ago and conducted by the Matrix Consulting Group, found major “work load inequality” that resulted in inconsistent services and inadequate supervision.
It calls for moving about 600 officers out of jobs that could be done by people without police powers, then backfilling many of those positions with civilians. Civilian positions cost less than those held by sworn officers, and moving people out of those roles could help fill gaps in patrol.
The study also identified the need for at least 273 additional patrol officers and 132 sergeants. Under the current structure, the study found, sergeants are often responsible for too many officers.
“The supervisors are just having too many direct reports,” said Allyson Clark Henson, the department’s executive director of constitutional policing and reform. “That then impacts their ability to be mentors, to keep that accountability mechanism.”
The staffing plan aims to ensure that officers remain in the same geographic area, spend 40% of their time on community policing and are consistently reporting to the same supervisor.
It suggests deploying officers based on sectors — a subset of a district — instead of beats, and calls for redrawing the borders of many sectors.
Robert Boik, senior vice president of public safety at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, one of the study’s sponsors, said implementing the plan is crucial for getting the department out from under a federal consent decree mandating reforms.
”If they do this with fidelity and follow this path for the next couple, few years, then I’m confident they’re going to be on the right path to achieving operational compliance,” Boik said in an interview.
However, the department’s collective bargaining agreements with police unions could limit its ability to make any sweeping changes, particularly when it comes to shifting sworn officers into civilian roles.
There’s also the city’s massive budget shortfall. As of last fall, the police department had already slowed hiring to 50 recruits per month and won’t move new classes through the police academy this summer.
But Snelling has vowed to resist eliminating vacancies, even as Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered department heads to make budget cuts.
Read the full workforce allocation study and the department’s community policing assessment.