Police Program Was Long-Ago Victim of Budget Cuts

With municipalities and schools cutting programs to endure budget cuts in recent years, the Bridgewater Township Police Department recalls one program that was cut about seven years ago to lower its budget even then.

About five years after the program was first brought to the township, the community policing program was eliminated around 2004 because of budget concerns.

"We stopped staffing it because of the budget," said Bridgewater Police Det. Sgt. Luke Daley. "It's unfortunate, but we had to prioritize."

A question about whether the community policing program had been reintroduced was brought up at the Aug. 2 Bridgewater Township Council meeting, but Daley said the money is still not available to hire enough officers to cover it.

Daley said he had heard about the program in the mid-1990s, and it was brought to Bridgewater around 1999. Officers, he said, were assigned to specific walking areas of town, like Finderne or Bradley Gardens, where they became involved in the communities and learned about the people they served.

"It was a beat officer," he said, adding that the officer would focus entirely on only the one individual location. "There was interaction with the people and the police. They had a good répor."

Daley said the department at one time used to have substations in Bradley Gardens and Finderne to account for this community policing program, but the stations were also eliminated to decrease costs.

And with positions not being filled from retirees, Daley said, the department did not have the manpower to continue the community policing program.

Currently, the department has about 75 officers, including the police chief. Although Daley said he does not know exactly how many officers are required in a town as large as Bridgewater, he said the municipality would benefit from more.

"It's unfortunate because community policing is an ideal situation," he said. "Residents see the same cop every day, and they love it. The officer has a pulse there."

Basically, Daley said, the only way to devote more manpower to the community policing program would be to remove officers from other departments, including the D.A.R.E program.

"We have a youth services department to teach D.A.R.E, and one officer at the high school," he said. "And the D.A.R.E officers have 25 to 30 classes to teach."

Daley said the community policing program was just not a priority over D.A.R.E. and other options.

"Who do you take the people from," he said. "We had to prioritize, and community policing is where we had to pull from."

As much as possible, Daley said, the department has had to focus on keeping officers in the patrol division, out policing the streets as much as possible.

"The patrol unit is the backbone of the department because it is the first responders," he said, adding that firefighters and rescue workers are all volunteers, so it takes more time for them to respond. "We can only be in so many places at once. If we had more manpower, [we could do it]. If we were to get a surge of staff, we could patrol more."

At this point, Daley said, there are some areas patrol officers can focus on, but the department does not have the staff available to dedicate certain officers to specific places all the time.

"In Finderne, Bradley Gardens and Martinsville, you can walk around," he said. "But in many places you can't walk because of the highways."

With other departments around still using their community policing programs, Daley said that if there's a way to bring it back some day, Bridgewater will. But for now, he said, the manpower and money is just not available.

"It's a good program, especially because the residents are the first to tell police about things," he said. "They get to know their officers. But it was either roads or community policing. We have to prioritize."