RAND Review
News
- New Orleans police retention
- Cincinnati police behavior
- California hospital safety
- Urban design assumptions
- Shopping mall attacks
- Nation-building lessons
How the New Orleans Police Department Can Get Back on Its Feet
As a result of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has suffered unusually high rates of departure from the force and an inability to recruit new officers. However, some low-cost initiatives can address these recruiting and retention problems, according to a new RAND study.
During the 14 months following the storm of August 2005, the budgeted force shrank 15 percent, and the actual force fell 18 percent. Even more problematic, the losses were concentrated among the junior ranks — the officers who patrol the streets and who are being groomed for future leadership.
Some low-cost initiatives can address the recruiting and retention problems. |
Recognizing the city’s budgetary constraints, researchers focused on (but were not limited to) identifying initiatives that could help the NOPD while imposing modest or no additional costs on the city. For example, NOPD salaries are not competitive with those in comparable cities. Therefore, lead author Bernard Rostker stressed in the study the need for the city to follow through on promises for pay increases as officers advance through the junior ranks.
A cost-neutral option officials might consider is reducing what is an extremely generous retirement plan and using the savings to provide an increase in more-immediate compensation. Another option is to offer housing as a noncash payment to officers if they are willing to commit to some number of years of service.
AP IMAGES/STEVE KASHISHIANAn unidentified New Orleans police officer shakes hands with revelers as law enforcement personnel signal the end of Mardi Gras on early Ash Wednesday, February 21, 2007. |
Rostker identified some major impediments to career progression throughout the department: Promotion exams are offered infrequently (with as many as five years elapsing between examinations), and there are only a limited number of slots for those who pass the exams. He suggested offering the exams more often and convening promotion boards every 12 to 18 months to pass only enough officers each cycle to fill the available vacancies. These initiatives can simultaneously help improve the quality of those promoted, raise morale, and increase retention.
The NOPD can also make its recruiting effort more proactive and ensure that all uniformed personnel are assigned to duties that they, as opposed to civilians, are uniquely qualified to perform. The study also suggested that the city begin to rebuild the police infrastructure damaged by the storm.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and RAND released the study to the public at a news conference at City Hall in New Orleans on March 30, 2007. During the news conference, Nagin noted that the city had already acted upon several of the RAND recommendations — most notably, increasing the pay of junior officers and moving (with the New Orleans Civil Service Commission) to increase the frequency of the promotion examinations.
The study drew on decades of RAND work for large governmental organizations and, more recently, for several municipal police departments to help improve the management of their personnel systems. The study also relied on interviews with officers and civilians throughout the NOPD. 
For more information:
Recruitment and Retention: Lessons for the New Orleans Police Department, ISBN 978-0-8330-4142-5, 2007.
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Is There Racial Bias in the Cincinnati Police Department?
Although black and white Cincinnati residents have very different experiences with the police, there is little evidence that this is attributable to racially biased policing, according to second-year findings of a five-year RAND evaluation of efforts to improve police-community relations in the city.
One fact that may contribute to the perception of bias is that more black residents than white residents live in the high-crime Cincinnati neighborhoods where the police engage in more “proactive” policing, the study concluded. The perception is reinforced by the experiences of residents pulled over by police.
“Some differences in black and white citizens’ experiences may result from proactive policing in higher-crime neighborhoods.” |
Researchers analyzed 325 videos of traffic stops and found a couple of key differences in how people of different races were treated. First, black drivers were more likely to experience proactive policing, including more questions about drugs or weapons and longer stops that were significantly more likely to involve searches. Second, several of these differences were more pronounced when the officer was white.
For example, when white officers were involved in stops of black drivers, the officers were twice as likely as black officers to check passengers for identification. White officers were also more likely than black officers to stop black drivers for technical reasons, such as a broken taillight. Likewise, the stops of black drivers by white officers were likely to last longer.
But although black citizens experienced a more intensive police presence than did whites overall, no systematic pattern of racial bias remained once the researchers had compared the stops of black and white drivers from the same neighborhoods at the same times of day and with other matched situational characteristics. This caveat is crucial, according to researchers.
When Black and White Drivers Are Matched by Such Situational Factors as Neighborhoods and Times of Day, Racial Differences Virtually Disappear |
SOURCE: Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati, 2006. |
The figure compares the percentage of stops that lasted less than 10 minutes for black drivers and for white drivers in 2005. The difference is very large when situational factors are not equivalent, with a far lower percentage of black drivers experiencing shorter stops. But when black and white drivers are matched by situational factors, the difference almost disappears.
“This suggests that some differences in black and white citizens’ experiences may result from proactive policing in higher-crime neighborhoods, rather than from racial biases,” said RAND statistician Greg Ridgeway, lead author of the study.
The study recommends areas for improvement. For instance, the resource allocation and crime control policies of the Cincinnati Police Department disproportionately affect blacks, placing a greater burden on law-abiding residents who live in the areas subject to intensive enforcement. “The burden may be partly alleviated by developing a clear sense of what the community values in crime reduction and then tailoring the interventions,” noted Ridgeway.
For more information:
Police-Community Relations in Cincinnati: Year Two Evaluation Report, 2006.
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Many California Hospitals Will Not Meet Seismic Safety Deadline
When an earthquake strikes, some people will need to go to a hospital. But what if hospitals themselves are victims of the quake? According to a new RAND study for the California HealthCare Foundation, almost half of California’s most vulnerable hospitals are likely not to meet seismic safety standards by a 2013 state deadline.
Following the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the California legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 1953, which put hospitals on a firm schedule for meeting seismic safety goals. The legislature anticipated that hospitals would meet the goals in two phases, with the most vulnerable buildings — those subject to collapse — at least being retrofitted by 2013 and then being fully reconstructed by 2030.
But an analysis of state data shows that nearly half of the most vulnerable buildings will not meet the 2013 deadline based on current trends, and some of those buildings likely will not meet the 2030 deadline, either. As the figure shows, the most vulnerable California hospitals contain 52.4 million square feet that need to be rebuilt, and just over 30 million are targeted to begin the retrofitting or reconstruction process by 2013. Considering that there is commonly a five-year time lag between initiation and completion of these jobs, the analysts predict that only about half of the 52.4 million square feet will be retrofitted or reconstructed by the 2013 deadline.
Many of California’s Most Vulnerable Hospitals Will Not Meet a 2013 Deadline for Retrofitting, and Some Won’t Meet a 2030 Deadline for Reconstruction, Either |
SOURCE: SB1953 and the Challenge of Hospital Seismic Safety in California, 2007. |
The figure understates the extent of the problem, because it does not account for the additional, less vulnerable buildings that also need to be rebuilt by 2030. Adding those buildings to the total indicates that more than 60 million square feet of hospitals will need to be reconstructed across the state. Based on the total amount of infrastructure needing to be rebuilt and the current pace of construction, it might take more than 30 years, or at least until 2037, for SB 1953 to be fully implemented, according to the study.
Numerous challenges make it difficult for hospitals to comply with SB 1953. New hospitals are very costly to build (about $1,000 per square foot, or more than three times that of a new office building). Finding money to pay for such projects is a tall order (an estimated $110 billion would be required to meet the state deadlines). And many hospitals lack staff with the skills needed to oversee such complex construction projects.
The study says that policymakers face tough choices: push ahead with the implementation of SB 1953, perhaps creating massive compliance issues; modify or eliminate the law’s requirements so that most facilities can comply, raising fairness issues for those who have already complied and leaving the issue of seismic vulnerability largely unaddressed; or provide public financing for hospitals unable or unwilling to comply, again raising fairness issues.
“Seismic safety is an important policy issue for public debate,” says Charles Meade, a RAND senior physical scientist and the study’s lead author. “There are important public safety benefits from enhanced seismic mitigation, but the costs of new hospital construction will ultimately be borne by California patients, employers, and taxpayers.”
For more information:
SB1953 and the Challenge of Hospital Seismic Safety in California, California HealthCare Foundation, 2007.
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| Only a Few Comparisons Show a Statistically Significant Increase in the Likelihood of Walking | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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How Your Neighborhood Is Designed May Affect How Much You Walk
Some features of the “built environment” that are promoted by New Urbanism, an urban design movement, encourage people to walk, but other features do not, according to a RAND study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The study tests four design principles laid out by New Urbanism in its “smart scorecard,” which is intended to make walking a routine activity: the level of housing density, the amount of business diversity, the degree to which streets are connected on a grid system, and the shortness of block length. Increasing the housing density, business diversity, and percentage of four-way intersections and decreasing the block lengths are expected to lead to a higher prevalence of walking.
The researchers used survey information from ten metropolitan areas and U.S. Census data to determine whether these four measures of the built environment — along with two others (increased parking pressure and older median housing age) — actually do increase walking.
The table shows the results, broken out by comparisons of consecutive, paired categories within each measure. Increases in two of the measures — shorter blocks and parking pressure — generally did not have the expected effect of raising the likelihood of walking. Across the comparisons in these measurements, the only statistically significant comparison that did favor walking was the highest degree of parking pressure.
“We need to examine whether these New Urbanism design principles must be implemented in concert to have a big impact on walking.” |
Consecutive increases in the other four measures — housing density, business diversity, percentage of four-way intersections, and housing age — did generally follow the expected direction. However, only a few of those comparisons (such as neighborhoods with 50–74 percent four-way intersections versus those with 25–49 percent four-way intersections) showed an effect that was statistically significant.
“Our study is helping to create evidence-based guidelines for designing the built environment to make it more conducive to walking,” said lead author and RAND natural scientist Rob Boer.
He argues that “while there are some impacts, they are not that strong. We need to examine whether these New Urbanism design principles must be implemented in concert to have a big impact on walking. We also must explore other factors, such as whether people who are interested in walking may seek out certain types of neighborhoods.”
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Terrorism Risk in Shopping Malls Can Be Reduced by Ranking Security Options
Although there are numerous options for reducing the risks of terrorism, it is unclear how to set priorities among the options because of the uncertain risks and the uncertain effectiveness and costs of various security measures. A RAND report presents an approach for tackling this problem, using case studies of three different enclosed shopping centers in the United States.
The report ranked 39 security measures for such centers based on the relative risks of different attack scenarios and on the cost and effectiveness of each measure, with the goal of achieving the greatest risk reduction for the least cost. Lead author Tom LaTourrette and his colleagues identified a high-priority set of six to ten security measures that would cut terrorism risk to just one-fifteenth the level it would otherwise be.
The researchers found that implementing these high-priority measures would be 95 percent as effective as implementing all 39 measures. The combined costs of the high-priority measures range from $500,000 to $2 million a year for each of the three centers examined.
The analysis does not assess the probability of terrorist attacks at U.S. shopping centers and does not suggest that the risk is high or increasing. Millions of people shop safely at shopping centers every day, but there were warnings of such attacks in two U.S. cities in 2004 and a foiled plot in 2006. Since 1998, more than 60 terrorist attacks have occurred at shopping centers in 21 countries (see the figure).
Since 1998, There Have Been More Than 60 Terrorist Attacks Against Shopping Centers Worldwide |
SOURCE: Reducing Terrorism Risk at Shopping Centers, 2006.NOTES: Some locations experienced multiple attacks on the same day. |
Although the three U.S. centers studied have very different sizes and layouts, the security priorities are very similar. The highest- priority measures include creating public information campaigns that encourage people to report suspicious packages, placing vehicle barriers at pedestrian entrances to block suicide car bombers, searching kiosks for bombs and weapons, labeling exits more clearly so shoppers can quickly find their way out of malls in an emergency, and checking for explosives and wea-pons by searching all bags and requiring everyone entering shopping centers to remove their coats. Identifying and reporting suspicious packages are the highest-priority security measures because terrorism risk is dominated by bomb attacks.
While shopping center operators could immediately implement some of the measures identified in this report, many of them may not be feasible or appropriate under current conditions.
“A tiered implementation may be the best strategy, implementing a set of security options most appropriate for today’s environment and developing plans today for further measures in case the environment changes for the worse,” said LaTourrette.
For more information:
Reducing Terrorism Risk at Shopping Centers: An Analysis of Potential Security Options, ISBN 978-0-8330-4040-4, 2006.
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Nation-Building Efforts Should Draw Lessons from Earlier Operations
Despite a wealth of recent and prior experience, U.S.-led nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been marked by unforeseen challenges and hastily improvised responses. A RAND study provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that can help governments better prepare for future nation-building challenges of these kinds.
Drawing on the best practices identified in 24 cases of postconflict stabilization and reconstruction, the study ranks the most important tasks in this order of priority: establishing security, providing humanitarian relief, establishing functioning government institutions, stabilizing the economy, democratization, and economic development.
“The primary objective of nation-building is to make a violent society peaceful,” noted James Dobbins, the study’s lead author. “Security, food, shelter, and basic services should be provided first, allowing economic and political objectives to be pursued once these first-order needs are being met. In the absence of adequate security, money spent on democratization and development is likely to be wasted and could even produce negative results, fueling the conflict rather than promoting durable reform.”
The study says policymakers should take advantage of the “golden hour” in nation-building: the weeks following the arrival of foreign troops, when resistance is unorganized and spoilers are unsure of their future. In this period, authorities must control enough personnel and material resources to secure and supply at least the capital.
The study says the costs of nation-building depend on the size of the population affected, its level of urbanization, its income, and the level of conflict. Costs also depend heavily on whether all parties collaborate with a peacekeeping force or must be compelled to do so, in which case the mission becomes one of peace enforcement.
The table estimates annual costs of light peacekeeping, versus heavy peace enforcement, in a small and very poor country, like Haiti or Liberia. Costs are broken down by the elements of nation-building listed above, with the costs for the military, police, and rule of law all contributing to the top priority of “establishing security.” The total annual cost comes to $1.5 billion for peacekeeping and almost $16 billion for peace enforcement.
Full-scale peace enforcement missions are generally feasible only in relatively small societies about which the intervening authorities care deeply, according to the study. In other cases, effective intervention likely has to wait until the parties to the conflict are ready to collaborate with an external force.
For more information:
The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building, ISBN 978-0-8330-3988-0, 2007.
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