Sorry for the delay in our Making a Mayor posts. Last week, I had my laptop and briefcase stolen from my car downtown, which pushed things back. But considering the circumstances, what could be more topical for our next installment than crime? For Birmingham’s quality of life to improve, the citizens must feel safe and their lives and property must be secured.

Attrition, retention and recruitment

When Birmingham’s murder rate skyrocketed in the last two years, city councilors and FOP representatives immediately began to cry for a public safety raise. I won’t contend that police officers didn’t deserve the raise. Law enforcement is one of those professions, much like education, in which the professionals can never be completely compensated for the value of their service.

Still, I found it interesting that many of the same politicians who have advocated performance-based budgeting chose a spike in crime as an argument for a police and fire pay raise. But anyway …

After a raise included in this year’s budget, combined with the exceptional benefits and retirement packages, the city’s public safety compensation is now competitive with the rest of the Birmingham region. Rather, the issue now is one of retention and attrition.

Under the current plan, police officers can retire after 20 years of service to the city. In other words, an officer who began his or her career at 25 can retire with full benefits at age 45. That officer can then take a job with a suburban police force, the sheriff’s department, private security or the Alabama Public Safety Department, reaping retirement benefits while drawing a whole other paycheck. Who wouldn’t take that deal? Who could blame police officers if they did?

The city has tried to offset this problem with the deferred retirement option plan, or DROP, but the problem persists.

Meanwhile, the police department has had trouble recruiting new officers to replace the ones it is losing. One theory for why this is that the police recruit heavily from the retiring military personnel. With stop-loss — the so-called “backdoor draft” in effect because of the Iraq war — that pool is suddenly smaller, at least until the war ends.

Also, federal money, particularly the Clinton-era COPS program, has been cut, reducing the number of police officers the city can pay.

What to do?

On a trip to Chicago last year, I was riding their public transit system (they call it the “El”), where I saw a number of recruitment posters for the Chicago PD. Similar to the kinds of recruitment campaigns used by the military, these featured happy-looking men and women of different backgrounds touting the virtues of public service. And when I saw these I thought, “Why haven’t I seen something like this in Birmingham before?”

The effect is two-fold: First, it puts the idea of a crime-fighting career into citizens’ minds. And second, the recruitment materials put a public face on the police department.

Some nice posters and TV commercials won’t solve Birmingham’s crime problem, but it could be a useful step toward a more comprehensive solution.

Meanwhile our police force must be equipped with the best technology. Crime-tracking software, such as COMSTAT, combined with hotspot policing and zero-tolerance policies have greatly reduced crime in other larger cities, including New York, Boston and Baltimore. There’s no reason we should not be able to implement similar programs here.

However, just having the latest spreadsheets will not solve the problems. Criminals have their own black-market economies, including the drug trade, the gun trade and fencing stolen property. For crime truly not to pay then we must disrupt the economic systems of crime.

Copper Theft

One Saturday several weeks ago, one of our employees looked out our rear office window to see two men working on the large outdoor air conditioning unit to the office behind ours.

That’s odd, he thought. Do air conditioning repairmen work on weekends?

It might have been paranoia, but he couldn’t help but feeling that something hinky was going on. Just to be safe, he called the cops. By the time the police got there, the two men were gone and so were the copper coils from the air conditioning unit.

Copper theft is nothing new in Birmingham, nor the rest of the country. Nevertheless, it is on the rise, as the price of copper has risen above $3 per pound in some places.

Throughout the city, copper thefts have crippled redevelopment of neighborhoods, where construction and renovations on homes and businesses cannot finish without bandits making off with the metal.

And copper thieves are becoming more brazen in their heists. Thieves have stolen copper from rooftop air conditioners and out of cars. Just this week, thousands of Birmingham residents, three schools and numerous businesses lost power after copper thieves raided an Alabama Power substation.

But for stolen copper (and increasingly aluminum) to be worth anything, then someone must buy the stolen copper. We may not immediately know who the copper thieves or where they will steal next, but we do know there are a finite number of scrap dealers in Birmingham and we know where they do business.

In the past, it has been easy for these junk dealers to look the other way, but the city must put that practice to an end, first by making the experience less comfortable and more risky for thieves. Other cities and states that have experienced this problem have already implemented new requirements from scrap dealers that have stymied the stolen copper trade.

First, the city can require that scrap dealers only buy metal from sellers who show photo identification as well as a valid permanent address.

Second, the city can require that the transactions be taped or that the sellers be photographed. If a third party cashes a check in most banks, the banks require a thumbprint on the check. The city should require the same from a scrap seller.

Finally, all payments to sellers should be made by check only.

Illegal Guns

A few years ago, I had a neighbor whose house was broken into. The burglars stole two things: a box of hamburger patties from the fridge and a .410 shotgun. To thieves, weapons are not just violent tools. They are also currency, easy to sell and easy to trade. To enthusiasts, a gun is a personal piece of property, but on the street they are no more fixed than a quarter in your pocket, moving from person to person.

And once those weapons are in the illegal gun trade, there is no telling where they will end up or how they might be used. In fact, a gun that moves often and cannot be connected with a specific criminal is more useful than a personal showpiece.

Birmingham needs gun control, but mostly not the kind that gets the NRA gun lobby in a tizzy over our Second Amendment right to own weapons. To the contrary, it is essential that rightful, law-abiding gun owners take part and help Birmingham and the region squelch the illegal gun trade. There are just a few very practical things that legal gun owners can do to help, essential measures, as many of the guns used in violent crimes are stolen.

First, gun owners should write down the serial numbers of every weapon they own. If the weapon is stolen, this helps the police and greatly increases your chances of seeing your property again. If you don’t know that number, there is very little the police can do for you. Even if they recover your weapon, without the serial number there is no way for them to know that it is yours and no way for you to prove a recovered weapon is your property.

Second, gun owners should buy a gun safe, if they can afford to do so. This helps in several ways. It protects property. It prevents  weapons from getting into criminals’ hands. And it prevents weapons from getting into their children’s hands. If a citizen feels they need quick access to their guns while at home, keep the safe unlocked then, but shut it whenever no one is at home. If you can’t afford a safe, at the very least, put the guns where a burglar cannot easily discover them — not in a closet or under a bed. Most burglars stay in a victim’s home for a short period of time. Making a gun harder to find could make a difference.

Third, never ever keep a gun in your car. While having a gun in a glove compartment might give some people a sense of security, the actual protection it gives is negligible, and it is far more likely that thieves will discover it there if they break into your car. In that case, it then belongs to the criminal. If you must carry a gun, keep with you, if possible.

Fourth, if you carry a gun, reconsider the possibilities. If someone holds you up, chances are they will have the drop on you. No matter what you might be able to imagine, in most cases the odds are against you if you get into a gunfight. Very few robberies turn into shootings or homicides. However, if you pull a gun, you turn that from a situation where one out of a thousand people might get shot into a situation where there’s a virtually a 100 percent chance that someone will get shot. The odds are better than 50-50 then that the shooting victim will be you.

Finally, the city’s lobbyists and legislators must push for tighter restrictions at gun shows in Alabama, or at least in the Birmingham area. This probably will agitate the gun lobby and irritate gun dealers, but those interest groups know very well that other states have much more restrictive laws than Alabama and that those laws have not prevented law abiding citizens there from purchasing guns. Gun shows are a favorite market for so-called straw buyers who intend to flip the weapons for a profit in the illegal gun trade. Sometimes these weapons don’t end up here but travel across state lines where they are sold in other cities.

Getting illegal guns off our streets should be the highest priority. The availability of weapons to minors and drug dealers must be abated. A small decrease could make a difference, as more and more arguments that used to turn into fistfights are turning into gunfights. Guns cause bad situations to escalate into worse ones. If we want Birmingham to be different than the Wild West, we must begin acting differently than the Wild West.

— Kyle Whitmire