San Francisco Blog

Pretty much. It goes on: “The SFPD does not have clearly defined goals and objectives, performance measures and accountability controls in place for effective management of foot patrols within the Districts … the deployment of foot patrols citywide is a complex undertaking and an exercise in operations management and resource optimization. The SFPD currently does not have this type of citywide administrative or programmatic capability.”

Seriously? Because, isn’t that something we could have figured out back when we first passed the law?

Granted, 2006 was a wild and primitive time when cowboys and dinosaurs roamed the Earth. But, even so, everything we know today about evaluating foot patrols we also knew back then. I’m not saying that setting up appropriate benchmarks and reporting protocols would have been easy – but it would have been doable. At the very least, someone should have noticed “Hey, the police don’t actually have the administrative capacity, technology, or even the clear directions needed to evaluate this!”

That puts the authors of the report – the Massachusetts based Public Safety Strategies Group – in a bind. Unable to tell us the only thing worth knowing, they spend another 203 pages telling us everything else. “The Steering Committee adjusted the evaluation approach,” it deadpans. In particular, they focused on the need to establish a system to evaluate foot patrols (ah … yeah) and the fact that foot patrols make us feel really good about ourselves.

“SFPD and the Community Widely Accept Foot Patrols” it trumpets.

“Seventy-nine percent of the SFPD respondents believe foot patrols are a viable strategy for the department,” it says. Which is terrific if you’re trying to convince people to START foot patrols … but it does nothing to answer the question “have they worked?”

“90% of the community member respondents believe foot patrols are a necessary tool for the SFPD to use in addressing crime, public safety and quality of life issues.” Of course, in San Francisco 90% of community members also believe in the “Secret Laws of Attraction” – but never mind.

“Additionally, survey results show that over 50% of survey respondents believe the SFPD is responsive to their needs.” Which is another way of saying almost half of people believe the SFPD isn’t “responsive to their needs,” but, again, never mind.

Do you feel helped yet?

The good news is that the report – which, even for a government document is eye-blisteringly dull – goes into a great deal of useful detail on approaches the city can use to move away from faith based foot patrols and instead measure whether they have a good impact on neighborhoods. This includes helpful suggestions like “Prepare and distribute maps that accurately identify the location of each foot beat” and “Identify funding sources” (also … tie your shoelaces!).

The bad news is that the Supervisors tried to do foot patrols on the cheap. Getting it right - at least at the level they seem to want - will require more personnel, training, and technology. “The process of creating a strategy is one that requires both time and commitment of resources,” the report notes. How many resources? It doesn’t give any numbers, but it’s talking about computer aided dispatch, new databases, record management systems, and cameras … and that’s just the hardware.

Or the city could just half-ass it … again … and then blame the cops if something goes wrong. That is, after all, a San Francisco tradition.