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This section presents five voices representing a chain of command within the Phoenix Police Department. It opens with the story of a 911 operator often the first person in contact with the scene of an incident of domestic violence. This is followed by the viewpoint of a police officer who responds to calls for service issued by the operator. Next are the voices of a sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department's Domestic Violence Unit and her supervisor, a lieutenant within the department. Finally, there is the voice of Dennis Garrett, the Chief of Police for the Phoenix Police Department. The main theme that emerges from these stories is one that emphasizes the need for training of all personnel regarding the collection of evidence and preparation of reports. Without appropriate documentation, cases cannot proceed in a timely and efficient manner much to the dismay of court officials, victims, and offenders alike. |
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"Carol"
"The biggest frustration in handling a domestic violence call," says Carol a 911 operator for the Phoenix Police Department, "is knowing I can't do anything except get someone to respond. Sometimes that doesn't seem like enough, so I talk to the caller. I tell them there is counseling available but you just know they're not going to take advantage of it. That's the frustrating part. They're going to go right back into that relationship and call me again because they're not getting the help they need." Carol has been with the Police Department for 20 years, more than 16 of those years as a 911 operator in the communications bureau. She says she finds her job rewarding. "People need someone to turn to when they're in danger, and we're the first place they call. I like helping people and it gets me involved with what's going on out there." Carol explains the role of a 911 operator. "We are basically the answering point for the Phoenix Police Department. Our goal is to get as much information as possible about a call so the officers know what kind of situation they are going into. If we don't provide them with enough information, they could go in blindly and that would be dangerous, especially if there are weapons involved. Information is crucial to the officer." The work is fast-paced, says Carol. "On a typical day, I come in and log on the computer. As I soon as I do that, someone comes on the line. So I sit there and just answer phone calls, one right after the other. When I used to keep track, I took about 225 calls on an eight hour shift. In summer, when school's out, our traffic is a little higher." The 911 operators have a standard procedure to follow. "We enter each call into the computer: the type, the priority, the address, and the name of the victim or the person calling. We ask for their phone number, too, in case they want to be contacted, and we also ask information about what's happening on the call. This information then goes to the dispatcher who prints it out on her computer and radio dispatches it to an officer. When we're busy, the dispatcher is just overwhelmed." As the first contact at the Police Department, the 911 operator determines how fast a call is handled by the officers. "We decide what priority to give a call," says Carol. "A 'priority one' means there's some kind of physical violence. It's known as a 'hot call' and carries a response time of less than five minutes. A 'priority two' call is urgent. Perhaps we'll have two people arguing but it hasn't turned physically violent yet, so the officer responds in under ten minutes. A 'priority three' call is more or less after the crime has occurred. There is no danger to the victim, but a police report needs to be filed. As far as daily traffic goes, we get a lot of calls for service during the day shift, but they're usually lower priority calls. The night shift is where we really get a lot of our priority ones and twos." Domestic violence calls are particularly troubling to Carol. "When I talk to a caller involved in a domestic violence situation they'll say, 'What am I going to do?' I usually suggest they get out of there and find some help. And I talk to them because sometimes they just need an ear. Unfortunately, I can't really sit there and talk for a long period of time because I have to answer other phone calls. "But in a domestic situation where someone is injured, we use what we call the 'buddy system.' If I'm the one who receives the call, I'll stay on the phone so I can keep updated about what's going on. I'll have another operator call the fire department for me. She will tell the paramedics what address they need to go to, and usually they will 'stage' until the situation is under control. Staging means that the paramedics will park down the street close to the area, but they won't go to the scene until they know it's not dangerous for them. The police officers respond immediately five minutes or less. The training period for a new 911 operator is extensive. "When we hire people to become 911 operators," says Carol, "they start with a five week class where they learn the laws and how to respond to calls. We have one whole class dedicated just to domestic violence; it's part of the training that we do. When they've completed the class they go out on the 'floor' and work with a trainer. The length of time a trainer stays with a new operator depends on how fast the operator can pick up the job. Ten weeks would be average." Carol sees substance abuse as playing a major role in domestic violence. "They have methamphetamines. They have cocaine. They have crack. And the children are seeing the parents shooting themselves up. I have people calling saying, 'So-and-so is doing crack in front of their baby.' It's just too easy to get a hold of that kind of stuff." She believes that drugs and children are an especially explosive mix. "Many children and teenagers are involved with drugs. At first, the parents cannot believe their child is a drug user, but then there's lots of violence, irrational behavior, withdrawing from the family. All of a sudden, the child will pick up a knife or some weapon, and that's when we get the family calling and the mother screaming, 'My daughter is out of control!' or 'My son is out of control!'" Carol feels that domestic violence education efforts should focus on children because there is a greater chance of success with them than with adults. "We can let them know that it's not okay for daddy or mommy to fight, that it's not okay for daddy to shove mom against the wall or hit her in the face, that it's not okay for daddy to hit the baby. Kids need to understand that these are not acceptable behaviors and that they should call 911 to get some help if they ever see them happening. I think if we work with the children at an early age, as they get older they may think twice before making a fist and hitting somebody." "Paul"
"A domestic violence call is one of the most stressful and dangerous situations for a police officer to be in because you never know who placed the call," says Paul, a Phoenix police officer assigned to the South Phoenix area and currently serving in the Community Action Program. "It could be the wife or the son calling. Or it could be the neighbors calling because they can't take the screaming any longer. So when you get there, you always have to watch your back. "I've arrested males who have hit their female partners and the female jumps on top of you and starts fighting. You turn around and say, 'I don't understand. You just got assaulted. I am trying to take this guy out so that you can be safe.' "So the victim may hit you over the head with something because she doesn't want him to go to jail that has happened before. And then you have the rest of the family: ten people want to see him get arrested, ten people don't. So, you don't know what to expect in these situations. It's not like you get there and know who the bad guy is." Paul is a third generation police officer. Both his father and his grandfather retired from a police department in the east, and his brother is currently a 13-year officer there. Paul, however, chose to work in Phoenix because, in his words, "the weather and the people are a lot nicer here." With a Masters degree in public administration and four years as a patrol officer under his belt, he hopes to take the sergeant's examination soon. From his experience working primarily in a racially and ethnically diverse area, Paul has come to believe that different cultures vary widely in their outlook on domestic violence. "One of the things that really surprised me," Paul says with some hesitation, "was the Hispanic culture's attitude towards women especially Hispanic males from Mexico. Guys I've worked with who are very close to the Hispanic community tell me that wives are sometimes treated more like property than a respected spouse not someone to come home to and consult about family decisions. Basically, these women were there to do what the men told them to do. "A lot of times when we would get an anonymous domestic violence call, we would pull up to the scene and there would be an Hispanic male from Mexico and his girlfriend or wife. We would bring a Spanish-speaking officer to help with the investigation, and after determining that an assault had occurred, we would arrest the guy. Often he didn't understand why we were taking him to jail. It was unbelievable to him that he was not allowed to hit his wife or use physical force to control his family. But the way the law is written, we technically have to make an arrest for any domestic violence physical assault. Sometimes even the women didn't want them to go to jail they weren't the ones who called." Paul says the African-American women he encountered tended to deal with domestic violence much differently. "As far as I saw, if a woman was hit she pretty much told you what happened. And most of the time, she was willing to prosecute. She wanted the man to go to jail. That was one of the major differences that I saw in my time on patrol. But I don't want to make this a race issue. Domestic violence happens in all cultures. They just deal with it differently." One of the biggest frustrations in law enforcement for Paul has been the lack of victim support in prosecuting offenders. "The majority of the time when we went to court to testify, the victims wouldn't even show up. The case would be dropped and the men put back on the street." Paul would like to change that. "If I were in charge of the system, I would make people more responsible. The offender would sit in jail two or three days instead of the usual 24 hours. If he got out on bail, certain restrictions would be put in place. For example, an injunction against harassment would automatically be filed with the court stating the rules and regulations the offender had to follow to stay out of jail. It would include things like 'no threats,' which goes a little bit further than just 'no hitting.' In other words, it would say, 'Next time you will be arrested not only if you smack your wife, but also if you threaten her.' "Another change I would make is to automatically slap an order of protection against the abuser. Often, when an abuser goes to jail, we tell the victim to get an order of protection so that we can respond more quickly next time, but usually she doesn't. I think that an order of protection should be automatically served on him, whether or not she requests it, just so she can feel safe." Changes in the law would reduce the rate of domestic violence, Paul says. "I think stiffer penalties would cut down on a lot of this, really slow down the revolving door that we have. And in situations where the victim doesn't show up to prosecute, the law should allow the officer to testify on the victim's behalf from information gathered at the scene. Then the offender won't be able to say to his victim, 'If you show up and testify, I will knock the hell out of you when I get out.' I think that happens a lot. It should be automatic that the police officer who took the report is able to testify on behalf of the victim." Paul feels, however, that there is a problem with how police officers are perceived in the court system. "When you look at people in the courts, you see well educated people lots of law degrees. Many officers, on the other hand, have only a high school education, and some don't write well their reports don't make sense. Then the prosecutors say, 'I can't make heads or tails out of this. How am I going to prosecute this case?' They get the perception that these guys are inept out there. "But sometimes your report isn't well-written because, right after you arrest the guy and put him in jail, all of a sudden another emergency call comes in shots fired, a serious situation. You have to respond. Then, six hours later when it's all over, you're trying to remember what happened at the domestic violence call. Sure, you have a few notes scribbled on some paper, but you look at them and say, 'Oh man, I didn't really get everything down here.' It happens. And this is one of the things that hurts us the lack of respect between the attorneys and the police officers." Paul says that one way to improve the domestic violence system would be through the Police Academy. "The first thing that new cadets should be aware of is the need to gather as much detailed information as possible when dealing with domestic violence. They need to put the offender into the system. A lot of nights when it's busy out there, and they have a lot of calls waiting, they might get a situation where it seems borderline whether a guy should go to jail or not. They might want to just take him down the block before going to the next call. But when a situation like that happens, the offender definitely needs to be brought into the system. Even if they don't arrest the person, they should at least write a report and send it to a detective, have something on file to explain what happened that night. But a lot of times these things are just blown off. It could cause problems later on," Paul says. "I would tell a cadet, 'Even if you are busy out there, a domestic violence call is one situation where you have to do the right thing. You can't cut corners because it could hurt somebody later on. It could also hurt you, because if you show that you are the type of guy who is cutting corners, and a liability issue comes back, it is something you'll have to take through your whole career.' So that is one thing I'd stress: make sure you get the offender in the system." Paul also believes that officers might benefit from a greater sensitivity. I think a lot of officers need to put themselves in the victim's place. Too often, they treat victims as numbers. They say, 'I have ten domestic violence cases coming in today. What I am going to do to get rid of each case?' instead of, 'What would it be like to have to depend on this guy for a livelihood and at the same time have to worry about getting beat up by him?' If a victim doesn't have the education to go out and take care of herself and her family, she is completely trapped in her situation." Paul thinks that court personnel, too, need to put themselves in the victim's position. "If they did that," Paul says, "they would take domestic violence more seriously than they do now. Prosecutors would not be so quick to plea bargain cases down. Maybe judges would impose stiffer sentences. Even the legislature might stiffen the penalties." "Penalties should be stiffer," says Paul. "It would make people think twice about doing something to their family." "Diana"
"Many of the problems that affect America today are directly related to the breakdown of the family," says Diana, an 18-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department. "And domestic violence is where we deal with this breakdown the most. These are not insignificant family crimes we're dealing with. These are crimes that affects the fabric of our country." Diana joined the police in the late 1970s because she saw it as a way to help people. "Police work offered a great opportunity to make a difference, " she says. At the time, she was the only female in her recruit class to graduate from Police Academy. Today she is one of two police sergeants supervising the Phoenix Police Department's Domestic Violence Unit, which is made up of 14 detectives responsible for handling all domestic violence cases referred to the police. They average 150 new cases every month, and the first step in each of these new cases is to review the report from the responding patrol officer. "We have to make sure the officer captures all the information we need," says Diana. "Otherwise the detectives have to supplement." This means they might have to take the time to collect new evidence, re-interview victims, or question children and neighbors who were not included in the original investigation. Completed reports are then filed for prosecution: felonies with the County Attorney's Office, misdemeanors with the City Prosecutor's Office. "At that point," Diana explains, "the prosecutors review the case and determine if they are going to prosecute. If they need more information, they come back to the detectives. And from then on, these detectives are instrumental in the case in going to grand juries, preliminary hearings, trials, whatever the case requires." But the detectives are not freed from other responsibilities. "As a detective, you have a lot of housekeeping to do on a daily basis," says Diana. "If a suspect is arrested, you have to get all these pieces of paper into the computer system so that the individual doesn't get out on a technicality. You have to make sure your evidence is impounded correctly. You have to make sure to release property or have evidence destroyed or whatever. You have to spend hours every day reviewing your cases. So, it's a huge job. And, yes, we make mistakes. Yes, we drop the ball sometimes. But when you stand back and look at what we do on a day-to-day basis, I think we do a pretty phenomenal job." Diana's detectives deal with nearly all of the players in any domestic violence case victims, perpetrators, witnesses, patrol officers, city prosecutors, county prosecutors, and judges, just to name a few. She feels frustration at not being able to please everyone all the time. Take victims, for example. "Basically what we do is give the victim a card with all this information on it," Diana says. "There is no way a detective can set those people up with all of the social services or counseling or assistance they need." Assisting with this task is the Police Department's newly funded "counselor advocate" who is assigned to help victims find social services. The counselor advocate is someone to whom officers and detectives can go to talk about victims' needs. "She's taken a real burden off of the officers," says Diana. "They can go to her and say, 'Look, this family needs a lot of social services here, or the victim needs this or that.' I think that Phoenix is very progressive in having someone like the counselor advocate on staff." But perhaps the most important working relationship for Diana's unit is with prosecutors. "You have to see it from their point of view," she explains. "They look at the likelihood of prosecution on a particular charge. Sometimes, to us, it seems pretty simplistic. But when you get over there with the attorneys, they see it far differently. County prosecutors may see they're not going to get a felony conviction, so they drop it down to a misdemeanor. Then the city gets those cases." But whether a charge is felony or misdemeanor is not the point for Diana. "The fact that it occurred is what's important," she says. "The fact that in the state of Arizona, in the county of Maricopa, in the city of Phoenix, we're saying, 'We're not going to tolerate this kind of abuse.' That is what's important. Whether it's a minor or a major assault, we need to get on the same page as far as prosecution is concerned." Speedy prosecution is also paramount. "The single most important issue to me," says Diana, "is that we make arrests and handle cases as quickly and efficiently as possible. I think that lingering cases create many problems. The victim becomes more frightened or more inaccessible, or she becomes more intimidated by whomever is battering her. So we have a responsibility to prosecute quickly and swiftly. If there is one thing that we can do, it's to send the message that we're going to arrest and prosecute batterers." One of Diana's priorities for expediting domestic violence cases is to train patrol officers to complete on-the-scene reports more thoroughly. "If we have to spend time going back to add this or do that, well, what we're talking about is a lag in getting this report down to a prosecutor. We're going to develop a protocol for officers. When they go out there, they do it one time and we don't have to repeat." In the patrol officers' defense, Diana points out the turmoil they face. "These officers get out on a serious domestic violence case, and pretty soon they start getting beat up by other calls for services. They hear 'hot calls' going off all around them, and they're minimally staffed, and so they can't always do the job that needs to be done. That's why training is so important, so we get the kind of reports that we need to go forward." Diana's detectives in the Domestic Violence Unit provide part of the training for patrol officers. Although the detectives are housed in the central office of the Police Department, they go into the precincts to work their cases. "This affords a better working relationship between the detectives and the patrol officers." Diana says, "We can get a better handle on the kind of reports coming out of that precinct. So, if the reports from, say, Officer Smith are not the caliber we're looking for, our detective will contact Officer Smith and start working with him or her." Another of Diana's priorities is to upgrade the skills of the Domestic Violence Unit detectives themselves. "We're trying to do more forensic-type training in the unit. To me, it's real important that, when the detectives go out and some guy has assaulted and bitten his wife, they see the evidence and photograph it appropriately and do whatever else they need to do. I want them to be just as well trained, and just as well thought of when they get to a scene as homicide detectives." Her reasoning is practical. "We work many cases with homicide," Diana says. "A case that starts out as a very serious assault might turn into a homicide before the end of the day. The victim could die." Such domestic violence homicides, says Diana, need top priority. "Not that every homicide isn't important but, to me, a woman who has been battered to death how much more important can it be? When she's left three little kids, you know? It's not down the rung of importance because she was killed as a result of a fight with her husband instead of by some stranger who's broken into her home. It impacts the family just as greatly, and it impacts the public even more. If we're saying that you can get away with killing your wife, or just do minimal time because it's 'only' a domestic violence crime, then we're getting exactly what we deserve." Diana believes that women are not always treated fairly under the law. "FBI statistics really got my attention the other day. Women who kill their batterers get longer prison sentences than the batterers who murder them. Some woman who says, 'No more!' goes to prison longer than the man who gets into a rage and batters her to death. That says so much about our society and where we are with women. We have to change that attitude." On the whole, however, Diana is optimistic about the future. "We are fostering better working relationships between the prosecutors and this unit. We are all recognizing what we need to do. And when we finally get it together and establish the same protocol, and the same type of prosecution boy, is that going to put out a loud message. "We'll be saying that if you're involved in a domestic violence incident, you're going to be arrested and prosecuted. It won't be tolerated whether you're a white collar mister nice guy CEO, or someone who has grown up believing that it's all right to beat your wife because 'women need to be put in their place.' Now they'll see John or Fred going off to jail. They'll see that it's not acceptable, that it is a big deal here. We will come for you. So I think we're making a difference." "Alan"
"This is about power and control," says Alan, a 14-year veteran of the police force. "'Why does she stay?' is the question usually asked, not 'Why does he beat her?'" Since Alan became involved in domestic violence issues, his perceptions of the problem have changed. He has attended courses, met with others in the system, and spoken with staff and victims at shelters. "I never realized the scope of the problem until recently," he says. "We have 68,000 domestic violence calls a year. That makes it our number one emergency call for police services." In a typical situation, as Alan describes it, a family fight occurs and then it turns violent. The woman finally calls the police, but when they respond, the situation is confused. He says he'll get even with her for calling the police. She says she's sorry and won't press charges. The police often leave without taking action, thinking: "If she doesn't care to do something, why should I?" This scenario must change, Alan says. "We need to look at the system as a whole. We need to work toward victimless prosecution. Our purpose should be to get the batterer into a behavior modification program. Ninety percent of them end up in anger management programs, but these programs don't teach people about power." Alan repeats an alarming statistic he discovered at a Family Violence Conference sponsored by the National College of District Attorneys: "Children from violent families are 1000 times more likely to become batterers themselves." That conference produced a profound impact on Alan's thinking. He would like to see all police officers attend the same conference "as an investment in our future." With every officer using the training and information he has received, Alan says, homicide rates would be reduced significantly over a five-year period. But training in communication and problem solving, he emphasizes, would have to reach into the community as well. "The government is short-sighted," Alan says. "It has a tendency to want immediate results. But for this type of solution, effects would be years down the road. We will need longitudinal studies, manpower, to make it work. We also need to convince our superiors [on the police force] that this training is important enough to fund more. We need cameras and film to take photos of a domestic violence scene. We need 911 tapes to be saved as evidence at hearings and trials. Grass roots action alone will not work. We need the top." The police department, Alan believes, should be a leader in dealing with domestic violence. He concedes that the process for collecting information is slow, and that slowness affects response time, but he says the police department must identify its top priorities and find a way to perform those priorities "right and well." "Police officers should go to work understanding that they are bringing domestic violence out of the closet," Alan says. "They must stigmatize the batterer. They must send the message that domestic violence is a crime." Alan believes domestic violence is a fixable problem. "Communication among all parts of the system is needed. Cooperation of everyone in counseling, law enforcement, prosecutors at the line level, and probation is important. We need the courts on board. We need 52-week battery treatment programs enforced by the courts. We also need to improve the number of services available to batterers and victims because people don't know where to go. And we need to get media support, media campaigns, and attention. We need to get the message to future jurors that there is zero tolerance for domestic violence." Education at all levels is critical, says Alan. "There is a need at the courts to educate judges. We need four to six hours with mayors and police chiefs, not short meetings." He would like the Phoenix Police Department and City of Phoenix to consider implementing a five-hour program that is already in place in Framingham, Massachusetts. This program offers fifth and sixth grade students a curriculum designed to eliminate stereotyping, develop self esteem, and teach conflict resolution. Alan also believes that record keeping needs to be re-examined and modified to ensure the highest level of protection. In some cases, he says, unrestricted access to records containing the names and addresses of victims and witnesses has endangered these people. "Domestic violence is a complex issue," sums up Alan. "We need follow-up programs. We need a central, nationwide method for communicating on domestic violence. We need safety plans. We need funding and resources." The bottom line? "We need to change behaviors." Dennis
Garrett Police work runs in Dennis Garrett's blood. "My grandfather on my father's side was a county sheriff and a judge," he says. "There's always been that link in our family. Ever since I was a young boy, I knew I wanted to be in police work of some sort." Police work is what Dennis Garrett, a Phoenix native, has done for the last 33 years. Starting as a patrol officer with Phoenix Police, he worked his way up through the ranks to reach the top job of police chief. From this unique vantage, Chief Garrett can recall how domestic violence calls were handled back when he was a patrol officer in the 1960s, compared to how they are handled today. "Back in those days, we called domestic violence incidents 'family fights.' That's what the radio dispatcher put out. And the thinking at the time was that unless somebody was seriously injured, all we would do is separate the combatants and get them to calm down. Usually we would try to talk the more vocal, violent one into leaving the premises for the night. And that was pretty much the way we were trained. There was not much thought about how it was maybe the fifth or sixth time in a month that we'd been called to that house. Now that's all changing," says Garrett. "It's a much needed change," he adds. He describes Phoenix Police Department's move toward a more coordinated approach to domestic violence. "We're trying to put the system together to break this continual cycle of domestic violence. The police are an integral part of that system, but so are the social service agencies, the prosecutors, the courts, and corrections. Our major focus is to try to use the parts of the system law enforcement, the courts, and corrections as a hammer to get people into some sort of treatment." Treatment, according to Garrett, is the only real long-term solution. "It means getting inside the offenders' heads and getting them to change their behavior. If that doesn't happen, they will continue doing the same thing. And it will pass on from parent to child. The children will see it as the way to handle difficult situations in a violent type of way." But the police department, alone, cannot deal with this problem, says Garrett. "Something significant has to take place for offenders. That old bell has to go off so he says, 'Hey! This is not what I should be doing.' Other parts of the system are in a better position than the police to help make that bell go off." From the police department's point of view, says Garrett, a reduction in domestic violence offenses would go a long way toward improving other police services. "Domestic violence is one of the types of calls that we get the most. If we could do something over the long haul to cut that figure in half just in half we'd be doing a tremendous amount for the police department in terms of our ability to answer other types of calls for service. "But a much bigger issue than that," he says, "has to do with domestic violence itself. What it does to our society and our community is devastating. We have homicides in these things. We've got people who are injured or crippled for life, both physically and psychologically." Changing the system, however, is not an easy task, he says. "It's akin to turning a battleship around at sea. It takes a long time, maybe 60 miles to get that battleship moving in a different direction. Same goes here because we have so many groups that are advocates for different things. If you want to change something, these groups come into play. And so do the media. They may not create news, but they can certainly direct it." Chief Garrett believes the Domestic Violence Unit of the Phoenix Police Department is playing a "critically important" role in improving the way domestic violence cases are handled. But domestic violence is not a crime where you can simply "get tough" as you might with, say, gang violence. "With some additional personnel," says Garrett, "we were able to create more gang squads and slow that problem down a little bit. To do that with domestic violence is more difficult." Why? "Gangs have a tendency to brag," says Garrett. "They're not shy about what they do. But domestic violence is much more secretive. It takes place behind people's doors. Only when it's outrageous does it happen in public. So it's much more difficult for us to put together a strategy like creating an additional group of officers to go out and 'prevent' domestic violence. It almost has to happen once before you can act. Then you can work to prevent domestic violence from happening again." In terms of prevention, domestic violence is much like homicide, says Garrett. "We cannot design strategies to prevent homicides. There's really very little the police can do to anticipate them. But there's a lot we can do after they happen. And I think that's where we're trying to get with domestic violence. We're trying to say, 'Hey! We need to do a better job once it's discovered to prevent it from happening again.' And it's not just the police. I'm talking about this whole system." While domestic violence is a high priority for the Phoenix Police Department, Chief Garrett admits that competition for resources is fierce. "The police department needs more equipment for gathering the evidence to prosecute. We need more personnel to put on the problem. And prosecutors need more staff to lower the threshold of these cases so that some offenders don't skate because caseloads are so high. And service agencies that provide treatment need more people, too. Everybody needs more resources to make this thing really work. So that's a real concern. But we have a lot of other problems in a city this size, and they all have their advocates who want us to put resources in their area." What is required almost as much as additional resources, adds Garrett, is simply the time to get a workable strategy in place. "We need patience to allow us to make the changes. We need patience to work around the problems that come up." And the police must also have the cooperation of all parties, including the media and the many competing advocacy groups. "We need
the desire to work together and not fight each other over the different
segments of the system," Garrett says. "Let's work together to solve
this problem."
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