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The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) is the largest municipal police department in New Mexico. In the past six years the number of Albuquerque Police Officers plummeted more than 15% as a result of officer resignations which were attributed to pay cuts imposed by the city in their attempt balance a budget deficit.
A recent Albuquerque Journal article:
Almost 10 years of neglect fueled ABQ’s crime wave
By Martin Chávez / Former Mayor Of Albuquerque
Wednesday, June 5th, 2019
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For victims of crime, the crime rate is 100%, a statistic that should be ever-present in the minds of law enforcement, and those responsible for funding and directing them.
During my tenure at City Hall, it always amazed me when folks ascribed our crime problems primarily to demographics, citing a relatively young population, high unemployment and a problematic school system as the principal sources of crime. Of course, good jobs and good schools make a difference – but, fundamentally, the predominant driver of crime in Albuquerque is a lack of consequences for bad conduct.
Make no mistake, our current predicament is the result of real policy decisions at City Hall for which Albuquerqueans should rightly be angry. The Albuquerque Police Department … was allowed to shrink from just over 1,100 police officers nine years ago to just over 800. That took the direct intent, or at best lack of attention, of an administration and all nine members of the Albuquerque City Council to stand silent for nearly a decade while the department withered. Elected officials cannot profess support for public safety while letting our police department deteriorate.
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As a native son and resident of Albuquerque, I’m grateful that Mayor Keller and the current City Council have made public safety a priority. Through their efforts, APD is now approaching 1,000 officers, and I know from experience, growing a police department is really difficult. Today, property crime is dropping dramatically and there is much to indicate that we are on the right track.
Virtually 0 property theft occurs here in Silicon Valley (Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Cupertino, Menlo Park, etc.). We have Lime-bikes, e-scooters, etc and people don't steal them.
SF is a different matter. Tons of property crime up there (30 miles away from Silicon Valley but night-and-day difference.)
Every place is different. Some places are worse for crime.
Cities with high crime rates are often economically depressed or stagnant.
Crimes happen more often in less-educated areas too.
Boredom can be another reason people commit crimes.
Ability to fight crime is challenged when a city allows police officers to walk off the force and won't fill those vacated job positions.
All because the city is so disorganized and corrupt that it made pay cuts to the police force so the budget could be balanced.
All the above describes Albuquacky to a T.
Cities with high crime rates are often economically depressed or stagnant.
Crimes happen more often in less-educated areas too.
Boredom can be another reason people commit crimes.
Ability to fight crime is challenged when a city allows police officers to walk off the force and won't fill those vacated job positions.
All because the city is so disorganized and corrupt that it made pay cuts to the police force so the budget could be balanced.
All the above describes Albuquacky to a T.
Since the city has been improving in all of those measures in the last few years I guess that's why the crime has been going down in the city since 2017.
Our economy has been growing since 2015 and has really heated up recently to where we have had over 6,000 in new jobs announced over the last year, including 1,900 at Sandia National Labs and over 500 at Intel. Our metro GDP grew at a faster rate than all metros as a whole in the most recent numbers.
Albuquerque is actually one of the most-educated cities in the country. The metro area has 33 percent of its population over 24 years old with a bachelor's degree or higher. More than 89 percent of the population over 18 years old have at least a high school diploma
Albuquerque's metro poverty rate has declined from 18.9 percent to 15.6 percent since the end of the recession.
Albuquerque, especially Downtown Albuquerque, has never had more going on and more to do. In the past few years we've added tons of entertainment amenities like Dave and Buster's, Flix Brewhouse, Main Event, etc. Downtown Albuquerque has the new Somos ABQ festival and the monthly Artwalk and tons of cool new places opening up all the time, including new microbreweries, craft distilleries, coffee shops, performance venues, art galleries and cool art experiences like Storylab.
New Mexico was actually recently named the 15th most fun state in the country because of all that there is to do here.
The Albuquerque Police Department is nearing 1,000 officers again with 957 currently and projected to be over 1,000 by the end of the year with the hiring surge its been seeing over the last year or so and the new cadet classes at the academy. The city's recently-approved budget included $205 million for APD: https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news...rsquo/5363731/
Since the city has been improving in all of those measures in the last few years I guess that's why the crime has been going down in the city since 2017.
it's premature to make this claim. The FBI crime data has not been fully compiled for 2018. Let's check back once they have the data compiled.
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Our economy has been growing since 2015 and has really heated up recently to where we have had over 6,000 in new jobs announced over the last year, including 1,900 at Sandia National Labs and over 500 at Intel.
This is good, but this is also pretty restrictive because Sandia requires citizens with security clearance and if Intel is the main other employer that doesn't give much choice or diversity in the job market. What Abq/NM needs is a bigger variety of high tech jobs - small companies, larger companies, a mix of different types of high-tech businesses.
You left New Mexico years ago to move to California. Get over it and get a life...
Several reasons I left NM: one of them was crime, I don't like living in a place where people are prone to quick anger and take their anger out in altercations, and where break-ins and property theft are not uncommon. Another reason was lack of job opportunities. Another reason was the sorta stagnant, isolated feeling NM has, like it's kinda half-way stuck in time.
If any of those were different - particuarly if the crime situation was more normal and there was a stronger economy - I might not have left and/or I would consider moving back. Most of my immediate family is still there and a lot of their network of family and friends who are from older generations are there. The older people in this group are content with staying there, but the younger people (my nephews, younger cousins) are not. They want to move away but they don't have the resources to do it.
The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) is the largest municipal police department in New Mexico.
The Albq police department Sucks 100%. I will tell you that right now. They are hugely intolerant in their interactions with Hispanics and Indians, and considering that Hispanics and Indians make up at least half or maybe 60-70% of the population, this is a big problem. The police are lackadaisical and uncaring in their interactions with these groups - they show a blatant uncaring attitude to helping victims and they show a preponderance of assuming that these groups are immediately guilty of whatever is being investigated.
The police there are always way too aggressive and trigger happy, you've all seen the news coming out of New Mexico about this in the past couple years.
It doesn't matter how "many" police are added to the force, it's not going to improve the crime situation unless aforementioned problems are fixed.
Detailed, incident-based data is what the National Incident-Based Reporting System brings to the UCR table as it is set to become the UCR data standard by January 1, 2021. The NIBRS-only data collection will provide more detailed, richer data on more offenses than is currently available through summary data.
it's premature to make this claim. The FBI crime data has not been fully compiled for 2018. Let's check back once they have the data compiled.
This is good, but this is also pretty restrictive because Sandia requires citizens with security clearance and if Intel is the main other employer that doesn't give much choice or diversity in the job market. What Abq/NM needs is a bigger variety of high tech jobs - small companies, larger companies, a mix of different types of high-tech businesses.
The FBI uses the numbers that the city provides. The city has been giving out those numbers regularly at the end of each quarter under the new mayoral administration. They are available to the public on the city's website. The numbers are indeed going down.
Albuquerque has plenty of companies both large and small that are creating jobs in the last year, contributing to our economic rise lately. Tech jobs are the majority, but not all of the jobs that have been announced are tech jobs. Below are all the jobs announcements that I can recall over the last year which have received coverage in the local media. It is not a complete list, just what I can remember. I have highlighted in bold the tech jobs announcements.
The small tech companies above range from Lavu with point of sale software systems to RS21 with data analytics to TechSource with nuclear science and engineering consulting services. TechSource was just announced today and may eventually employ up to 50 people in Albuquerque. They are leasing space at the Sandia Science & Technology Park, which is home to mostly small tech companies that together employ over 3,000 people. There is already plenty of variety in tech jobs to choose from in Albuquerque. The overall variety and number of jobs in the city is only growing with each day.
The huge NBCUniversal announcement on Friday may mean a total of more than 800 jobs created and an economic impact of $1.1 billion. The NBCUniversal jobs themselves will have an average salary of $60,000, which is very well-paying in Albuquerque.
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