Tumwater Police District currently needs to have 41 officers on staff, according to a model developed by criminal justice researcher Dr. Oliver Bowers. His staffing model declares the police department short of eight officers, as it only has 33.
Dr. Bowers gave a presentation on how he developed his model during Tumwater’s public health and safety committee meeting held on Tuesday, January 10, as part of the discussion for the strategic staffing plan of the police department for 2023-2028.
Police Chief John Weiks noted that the department does not currently have a staffing model to determine how many officers they need. Dr. Bowers added that most police departments do not implement staffing models, as they do not have the expertise to make one.
Dr. Bowers’ staffing model is based on a workload approach where the demand for service is the main consideration instead of the population, which is often used as the basis for how many officers are needed in a jurisdiction. The approach also accounts for the service style and characteristics of the police department.
Dr. Bowers said that he took into consideration the following data in creating his model:
He emphasized that 41 officers is a bare minimum figure, as he factored in that the average time an officer is involved to respond, resolve, and process a simple call requires only 15 minutes for a solo responder.
Council member Leatta Dahlhoff asked if Dr. Bowers also ran the numbers for the ideal number of officers. He responded that he came to about 50 but disclosed that figuring out an ideal number would rely on future data.
“[Forty-one officers] would be the kind of middle ground,” he said. “But this is the number which gives us everything that the department currently needs as it stands and taking into account that element of future growth.”
Tumwater’s population in 2021 was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau at 25,844.
As a comparison, Olympia Police Department’s 2021 report shows that it has 76 commissioned police officers, serving a population of 55,010. In its 2019-2020 biennial report, Lacey Police Department stated that it had 56 officers, combining patrol, detectives, community resource and school resource officers; Lacey’s population in 2021 was 54,461.
Council member Peter Agabi also asked if Dr. Bowers could calculate a figure based on population trends. Chief Weiks responded that they would first need to settle on a staffing model before they could project for future data.
The committee would continue discussing the police department’s staffing plan in the coming meetings.
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