Thread by @oJaison

Spending some time with the City of Houston and HPD's budgets, policies, etc to look at where funding is being allocated for FY 2021 and came up with this visualization (shout out to the #DefundNYPD folks).

I looked at the FY21 budget as well as the combined actual budgets from FY14-19 and the numbers only differ slightly. HPD has an annual budget of about *$1 billion* divided up as shown here. With another 34M coming from Special Revenue Fund(s).

To make the comparisons in the first graphic, I looked through the city budget to find unexpected groupings of programs like combining Youth & Fam Services in the Neighborhoods budget w/ Children & Fam Services and Public Health Infrastructure in the Health Dept.

I don't know how much of "Public Health Infrastructure" is allocated toward school-based partnerships like MBK which technically falls under that, so I threw it all in. It's only $3.7M total so *relatively* small. And 0¢ didn't seem fair.

I also combined Neighborhoods (demolitions, inspections, anti-gang youth programs, etc.) with Planning & Development (land development, transportation planning, reducing traffic crashes, etc.) because those are obvious things that contribute to long-term crime reduction.

Big thoughts from the stats:
Lower-priority (Priority 3+) calls make up a huge proportion (80%) of calls and I think there's potential for much of that stuff being handled by a non-police entity.

This image is from Dallas PD but it aligns pretty closely with HPD.

Also note that the response time for HPD drastically increases from Priority 2 (avg. 10 min) to Priority 3 (avg 40+ min).

And a goal of theirs (4.2) is to increase alternatives to dispatched calls. They should be down with shifting funding!

Looking at HPD's racial profiling report I learned a "Vehicle Traffic Violation" is like an equipment inspection violation. Another thing that could be diverted and that's 25% of stops.

As we think about surveillance, I learned just how many videos are being captured and kept of us.

During a six-month period, HPD took *1.3 million* videos and the Independent Police Oversight Board randomly selected 20 of those for analysis. That ain't transparency.

Now for the non-traffic stats. First overall crime reports (excluding traffic stuff) starting with "Crimes Against Persons"

Major contenders are Simple Assault (fights without a weapon where no one is really hurt), Aggravated Assault, and Intimidation (threatening someone)

Crimes Against Property

A TON of theft (shoplifting, lots of stealing from cars, etc.) with a bunch of destruction/vandalism (super broad) and more burglary/breaking & entering than I expected until I saw it's any unlawful entry.

Crimes Against Society

Way less than the other two categories but that's where all the drug stuff is. Note that these include possession/use of drugs or drug equipment.

Keeping all that in mind, I grouped the stuff I considered fairly nonviolent (intimidation, vandalism, theft (shops, car, petty, identity), credit card fraud, swindle (lol) and that made up about 52% of reports. Add in drugs for 56%.

When you add in simple assault (remember that's just two people swinging, no weapons and no serious injuries) that takes us to 69% of reports.

Honestly, I think these are all things where we can divert funds.

It's also important to note that $853 million of the FY2021 HPD budget is for personnel services. That's over 6000 FTE staff. That comes out to $136,872 per FTE.

Compare that to:
$99,480 per FTE for Health
$88,949 for Neighborhoods
$62,842 for Parks

I make that comparison because of how little funding the Youth & Family Services receives under neighborhoods ($1.2 million), which might be why they are typically 15% under their 8000 target for youth served through anti-gang programs. Seems inefficient.

If community safety is the goal, then let's focus on how to do that efficiently. Many of HPD's most substantive goals would be served well if we #DefundHPD and redirect those funds.

Don't 4.1 and 4.2 contradict? If we're redirecting calls why are we increasing staffing?