Police response time improves by 79.5%

Detroit Police Officer on Patrol - Photo by Frank Nemecek

While much of the news media has focused recently on the City of Detroit's on-going bankruptcy, there have been some very powerful developments that have gone almost completely unreported. For example, since Chief James Craig took command of the Detroit Police Department in July, the agency has seen a 79.5% improvement in its response time for priority one calls.

The Detroit Police Department was averaging 57 minutes to respond to emergency calls five months ago. Since then, according the Detroit Performance Dashboard, that response time has improved to an average of 11.67 minutes. This translates to a 79.5% improvement during that time.

Make no mistake about it: the Detroit Police Department still has one of the worst response times of any law enforcement agency in any major city in the industrialized world. There is still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done.

However, a 79.5% improvement in only a few months is dramatic progress. It also gives me confidence that even more will be accomplished in the not too distant future. I congratulation Chief Craig and everyone else who has been a part of making this progress.