The high cost of hiring more police officers

In Rick Caruso’s July 11 Op-Ed piece (“What we must do to make L.A. safe”) we learn that it costs $100,000 a year to add one police officer to the L.A. Police Department.

Caruso does not mention that taxpayers, through the city pension plan set up for firefighters and police officers, incur liabilities that extend for decades into the future, including spousal benefits.

In short, we taxpayers pay for pension benefits that can last 50 years or more after an officer retires.

And yet numerous academic and police studies have found little connection between the number of police officers a city has and that city’s crime rate. New York City has nearly twice the officers we have (as Caruso points out) on a per capita basis. It is not a strikingly safer city (as Caruso does not point out).

Let’s support the officers we have. But it is too expensive to add any more. And that is verified by Caruso, who calls for another sales tax hike to pay for 1,300 new officers.

Benjamin Mark Cole

Los Angeles