According to Las Vegas Metro Public Information Officer Jesse Roybal, an increase in the local sales-tax increase went into effect last January, raising the rate from 8.1 percent to 8.15 percent. The Clark County Commission voted it into law by 6-1 last September, with the only dissent coming from Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who felt that it was too regressive and that a different method of coming up with new funds was needed. Ex-sheriff Bill Young felt it was appropriate for low-income Las Vegans to bear the brunt of the increase, as their neighborhoods are most heavily impacted by crime. Even diehard tax opponent Steve Sisolak voted for the tax increase, calling it only "a short-term fix."
Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Coffin, whose city foots 40 percent of Metro's budget, felt the increase didn't go far enough, saying it was "half a loaf of half a loaf … I hope they consider the crimes that occurred while they dithered because of our police shortage". His words were perhaps prophetic, in light of the fact that crime has shot up 89 percent in the first two months of 2016: By March 9 of this year, there had been 34 (reported) homicides and 180 cases of sexual assault.
"Nationally, we are seeing an uptick in violent crime," says Metro Sergeant Jeff Clark, as the improvement in the economy creates more affluence – and more targets for criminals (see related Question of the Day 3/11/2016). Also, "there's been this national narrative against the rule of law. Police are made to look like we're the bad guys. Society in general has lost respect for the rule of law. It's a very small segment of society but criminals feel able to do these kind of crimes" because they lack fear of retribution.
Metro had already been feeling the strain on its manpower, ceasing for a while to respond to non-injury traffic accidents. The funding increase won't be a quick fix: While it will allow Metro to hire 133 new cops, it will be early 2017 before they've passed through the police academy and are on the streets. The upside is that the department will be able to count upon an extra $14.6 million in funding for each of the next 10 years. (Thanks to the Nevada Legislature, Clark County could have added three times as much in additional sales tax, but decided against it.)
Metro presently fields 2,600 officers, which sounds like a lot but is well below the national per capita average: It translates to 1.75 cops to every 1,000 residents, while the national average is 2.18 for every 1,000 citizens. Even with the extra hiring, Metro will still be relatively understaffed, at 1.83 cops per capita. The strain on Metro's manpower is further aggravated by the city's heavy influx of tourists (42 million a year), which is not figured into those ratios. According to Roybal, in addition to budget constraints, retirement of police officers and the growth of the city's population have stretched Metro's resources even thinner. One thing Metro hasn't done is lay off any officers. "We were very fortunate not to have to do that," said Roybal.
There's more to it than putting more cops on the streets. Metro has two initiatives that Clark describes as being proactive and reactive, respectively. The first is the Violent Crime Initiative, under which SWAT members, detectives and others in non-patrol capacities "hit the streets on a daily basis" and saturate high-crime areas for 10-hour shifts "and just get out and engage the community" in addition to deterring crime (see previous link for more on this).
The reactive portion of Metro's two-pronged approach has been to decentralize its detective units, dispersing them to discrete precincts, answerable to their precinct captain. The latter then has "the responsibility to show that they're fighting crime to the best of their ability," Clark says. So far, the results haven't been overly encouraging but perhaps Metro can at least maintain a holding pattern until those new cops are ready pound the beat.
