How many cops should Paterson have? Per capita, it trails other NJ cities on staffing

PATERSON — In the arithmetic of law enforcement personnel, Paterson is trailing Newark, Jersey City and Trenton.

The Silk City has 26.55 cops for every 10,000 people, compared with 33.34 per 10,000 in Newark, 30.63 per 10,000 in Jersey City and 27.33 per 10,000 in Trenton, based on a Paterson Press analysis of government payroll and population data.

Those ratios may not seem so disparate at first glance. Try looking at the numbers in another way.

If Paterson had the same ratio of cops per residents that Newark does, the Silk City police department would have about 521 officers, instead of 416. If Paterson’s ratio were the same as Jersey City’s, it would have 479 cops.

Instead, Paterson has gone most of the past decade with little more than 400 police officers, after terminating 125 cops in April 2011 because of budget cuts.

“Paterson has never recovered from the layoffs,” said Brian Higgins, the former Bergen County police chief who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “In my opinion, the Paterson Police Department is still understaffed and underfunded.”

In the five years immediately after the 2011 layoffs, Paterson endured an increase in shootings and homicides.

Officer in charge: Yes, Paterson does need more cops

Officer in Charge Isa Abbassi, appointed as part of state control of the Paterson Police Department, said he agrees that the city needs more officers. He said he expects to figure out a target number for Paterson cops later this year.

In doing its calculations of police staffing, Paterson Press used the state treasury’s public payroll data as of Jan. 1 and the United States Census Bureau’s 2022 municipal population figures.

Among New Jersey’s large urban centers plagued by high crime, only Elizabeth — with 24.8 officers per 10,000 residents — has fewer cops per capita than Paterson.

Under Abbassi’s watch, the department has used state funding to pay for overtime for patrols to increase police presence in problem areas, an initiative that officials and residents say produced a reduction in the city’s crime last year.

But Policemen's Benevolent Association President Angel Jimenez said the frequent overtime shifts are wearing down city cops.

“They’ve been working like mules,” Jimenez said.

Higgins said officer burnout becomes a danger when overtime is used to compensate for understaffing.

Social justice activists take exception to assertions that the city’s plummeting crime statistics stem from increased police patrols. Black Lives Matter leader Zellie Thomas said violence intervention work by the Paterson Healing Collective organization as well as his own group’s outreach efforts have helped make Paterson safer.

Mayor Andre Sayegh was not available to be interviewed for this story. One of Sayegh’s talking points has been the fact that Paterson has hired more than 100 police officers since he became mayor in 2018. What Sayegh doesn’t say in his speeches is that roughly the same number of police officers have left the department during that time.

'A huge disparity in pay'

So, essentially, Paterson has been running in place in terms of Police Department staffing. The departures include dozens of officers who have taken law enforcement jobs elsewhere.

“These officers don’t want to leave Paterson,” Abbassi said. “They have tears in their eyes. Why are they leaving? A huge disparity in pay.”

Abbassi said departing officers have gotten raises ranging from $30,000 to $50,000 by going to other towns. Jimenez said starting pay for Paterson police officers is $16.32 per hour, barely above New Jersey’s minimum wage of $15.13 per hour. The annual salary for a first-year Paterson cop is $33,000, officials said.

“It’s an absolute shame that we’re paying these people to protect us and risk their lives chasing down armed gunmen and they’re making the same amount of money as a food service worker,” Abbassi said.

The Sayegh administration and its police officers have been in contract negotiations for almost five years, since the last labor agreement expired in 2019.

Councilman Luis Velez warned that the improvements achieved in the Police Department under state control could be undermined.

“If the administration doesn’t give the PBA a fair contract, we’re going to lose a lot more of them,” Velez said of police officers.

Abbassi said he has been working on shifting officers from administrative duties to street work. He estimated that 3% to 5% of the department has been reassigned as part of that effort. He said he expects to make additional personnel moves along those lines.

“There’s no question we don’t have enough cops,” said Jimenez, the PBA president. “Free food giveaways are great, but they’re not going to reduce crime.”

Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press. Email: editor@patersonpress.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson Police Department size lags in NJ per capita