In January, the Chamber’s Board of Directors had the opportunity to hear from the Greater Austin Crime Commission about a recent academic study it funded which the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors unanimously voted to support after learning the benefits it could bring to the community and public safety.

Conducted by the University of New Haven and Texas State University, and funded by the Greater Austin Crime Commission, the Police Staffing Project offers a roadmap to better police staffing that makes sense for our community, response times and community policing. The research used machine learning and examined the relationship between police staffing levels and response times for calls for service—as well as the link between response times and public safety outcomes. It also includes a survey of Austin residents to determine which police services should be prioritized.

“Austin is the first city to use machine learning to model police staffing. Funding this groundbreaking research project is probably the most important contribution the Greater Austin Crime Commission has made to the community in its 25-year history,” stated GACC President Corby Jastrow.

The Police Staffing Project measured three main categories for patrol activities: Responding to calls for service, conducting street patrol and engaging with the community. The model suggests that with 882 officers —APD currently has 774 authorized officers — APD can reach a target response time of 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Currently, response times are averaging in the eight-minute range according to APD.

​​Based on their current workload, the additional officers would result in approximately 35% uncommitted time for community engagement—which is higher than APD’s current threshold but lower than the threshold recommended in a 2016 report by the Matrix Consulting Group. National best practices recommend patrol officers have at least 35% available community policing time.

“This research is probably the most important contribution the Greater Austin Crime Commission has made to this community in its 25-year history,” Corby Jastrow, president of the Greater Austin Crime Commission, said. “The immediate and most important steps to address the police staffing crisis are to reduce attrition and increase training capacity. Even running two full cadet classes this year and a modified class for existing peace officers, APD will not be able to keep up with attrition.”