Prince William Chapter Letter to Board of Supervisors.
May 30, 2013
May 8, 2013
Corey Stewart
Chairman At-Large
Prince William County Board
Chairman Stewart
On April 9, 2013 I had the opportunity to introduce the Prince William Chapter of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association to you and the entire Board. I would like to further inform you of our organization through this letter.
The SSPBA is comprised of more than 32,000 law enforcement officers across eleven states. In Virginia our membership is approximately 3,000. The Prince William Chapter was founded in January of this year and has a current membership of 67. On average this chapter grows five persons each month. The Virginia Police Benevolent Association is the “Voice of Law Enforcement Officers”.
As an organization our charter allows us to operate as a non-profit and maintain a political action campaign (501c3 and 501c5). We actively seek out and select candidates to endorse for political office. We do this by hosting political screenings during the campaign of a particular office. Our endorsement has proven strong and in several of the surrounding jurisdictions candidates seek us for support.
In Virginia, our Executive director, Sean McGowan is a full time lobbyist who attends the General Assembly. His work is invaluable and many Senators and Delegates value his word as if it were coming directly from the Officer. We have been successful in submitting bills and assisting in moving them through the legislative process and into law. We have also campaigned against bills that were not beneficial to our members, often resulting in the bill never passing committee hearings. We are proud of our success in the area of peer support and confidentiality during the 2012 General Assembly session. Our legislation passed and became Va. code section 19.2-271.4
Our Chapter has selected staffing to be the foremost item on our agenda. We feel there are not enough police officers in the Prince William County Police. We have attempted to obtain the actual staffing numbers through a FOIA request and the county denied citing public safety exceptions. Our legal staff is reviewing that denial.
Using open source data, Prince William County Police has the lowest staff per 1,000 residents within Northern Virginia[i]. In FY 13, the number of sworn positions was 581 which is equal to 1.37 officers per 1,000 citizens[ii]. The national average number of sworn police officers is almost double what PWC currently staffs. However, the members of this chapter currently choose not to engage in breaking down law enforcement into numbers. We feel this is an ineffective measure of the community needs. If asked what we needed to better serve the community and respond to our duties more effectively our answer is “more patrol officers.”
The County Executive stated “we are lean mean fighting machine here in the county”[iii]. When it comes to responding to the community, preventing crime, making arrest, and solving criminal cases more with less is the wrong attitude. Having adequate staff immediately available 24 hours a day in the event of a mass casualty event is crucially important. When it comes to the safety of the citizens and officers more with less is definitely the wrong attitude.
We understand adding more police officers to the budget is not an easy task. We seek your assistance and support in maintaining the current staffing levels and increasing whenever fiscally allowable. More importantly we seek your support in addressing the county police department with asset reallocation. Though we understand no police department can function without support staff, we believe if department staffing assets were examined and streamlined the department may be in a better position to put more officers on the street.
I appreciate your time in reviewing this material and I look forward to meeting you to discuss these matters in greater detail. If I can be of any assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank You
Jonathan Zarkauskas
President Prince William Chapter
Southern States Police Benevolent Association
[iii] County Executive Presentation to BOCS October 2, 2012 @ 03:07:24
Virginia Division
