Idaho Falls Police want more officers as population and violent crime increases
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IDAHO FALLS — The Idaho Fall Police Department believes it needs an additional 15 officers to keep up with the rise in crime and growth of the city.
On Monday, Chief Bryce Johnson told the Idaho Falls City Council that the size of his department was below the national average and that more officers were needed to meet nationally recommended standards for policing.
“We are rapidly going from a city and a police department that is community-oriented policing that is engaging with the community, that has a deep connection to its community to a more big-city police department which our officers are just responding to 911 calls,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen that model fail over and over again.”
In 2010, the 56,813 people of Idaho Falls had 37,000 calls needing police, while 2020 saw 64,618 people needing the police department 50,096 times. At the same time, the number of officers over the decade has only grown 4.4% compared to the city’s 13.74% growth.
Alongside more calls made to the department, Idaho Falls has seen a steep increase in serious crimes. In 2020, the Idaho Falls Police Department saw 226 aggravated batteries, up from 122 in 2019. If police include other violent crimes such as assault, rape, kidnapping and murder, the department has seen a 10% increase.
“We’ve had things that you wouldn’t just typically see,” Johnson said at an earlier presentation to the city council. “I don’t want to graphic, but there were multiple really serious violent crimes … I’m not happy about these numbers.”
Property crimes also saw a 20% growth in 2020. Specifically, vehicle thefts have grown 94% in the triple digits while Idaho went from 15 to 20 robberies.
Despite having more cases to solve, Johnson said the department’s clearance rate or the number of cases solved by officers and detectives is also increasing. From 2017 to 2020, there was a 16% increase in the rate of solved crimes.
“We’re doing more with less, but there comes a time when you can’t expect that to continue on,” Johnson said. “You hit that critical stage when you just need to add some more folks to the police department.”
On a given day, the Idaho Falls Police Department uses 19 officers with an average of six officers over the three shifts. With a new call coming into the department every 10 to 11 minutes, a backlog quickly grows. Johnson also explained the higher number of more serious calls takes additional time and department resources, leaving less time for proactive police work and traffic enforcement.
The lack of available officers also impacts the department’s ability to provide more training for officers. Johnson explained the department currently sustains about 40 hours a year of training. The number is down from 80 hours typically completed by the department each year.
“We simply don’t have enough people to cover the call volume and to train at that level,” Johnson said.
As part of a long-term plan to increase the city’s police force, Johnson said the department wants to add three additional officers each year for three years. The plan likely won’t be implemented right away as budgets need to be approved. It also takes time to hire and train new officers.
“This is a priority concern for the police department,” IFPD spokeswoman Jessica Clements told EastIdahoNews.com.
Johnson said the city also needs to develop a system to determine when the department needs to add additional officers to prevent another decade of stagnation in the number of officers.
“If someone calls 911, they have an expectation they are going to have a police officer come and respond to what’s going on to help them,” Clements said. “In order to meet that expectation to have officers to be able to respond to something in a timely manner … we have to have officers. We can’t do that if we don’t have enough officers.”