Baton Rouge has not been spared a national rise in violent crime. The decline in the number of police officers was preceded by several high-profile murders, but the number of murders in the parish has risen over the same period that the city lost police officers, with 170 murders in 2021, compared to 97 in 2019. link the depopulation of police forces in major cities like Baton Rouge with an increase in violent crime. Did one lead to the other?
In 2018, Baton Rouge welcomed a new police chief, Murphy Paul. He came in as a reformer who wanted to “build bridges” in a community that had just lived through the trauma of the Sterling shooting and the deaths of three officers.
Paul has attempted to address his current workforce shortage problem with a mix of social media marketing, recruiting blitzes, and a focus on diversity of all kinds – economic, political, racial and educational. He has used several recruiting paths, including taking a college football approach: early contact with kids in high school and long-term follow-up.
Paul spoke to me in “glass half full” statements, but admitted that his efforts to recruit new officers had not fully replenished those who had resigned or retired. He said that while the police shooting of Sterling, the ensuing protests and the deaths of three officers certainly hurt morale, he believes the decline in his force has more to do with the pandemic and larger factors in the economy.
“You hear people say no one wants to be a police officer anymore,” Paul told me. “Well, I don’t agree with that. I think we are experiencing the great resignation in this country. It is not unique to law enforcement. You hear about it in nursing, you hear about it in trucking, you hear about it in so many industries.”
He also doesn’t believe that a shortage of cops is the cause of the spike in homicides in his city. He blames the lockdowns and interruptions in use of some public spaces and services, be it after-school programs, playgrounds, support for victims of domestic violence or drug courts that mandated testing. He also cites the “collective trauma” of the past two years. This, he argues, hurt police officers morale and their ability to do their jobs, and as a result, many left the profession.