At
least 75 new officers will be added to the
Camden Police Department by the beginning
of 2010, Attorney General Anne Milgram announced
today, strengthening the department’s
aggressive campaign against street gangs and
violent crime.
“Hiring
these additional officers will significantly
bolster our crime prevention efforts in Camden,”
said Governor Jon S. Corzine. “While
the city has seen one of the most dramatic
decreases in violent crime, there is still
much work to be done. We owe it to the citizens
of Camden to protect them from harm and getting
these officers on the streets will amplify
those efforts.”
The
hiring will begin in earnest after the State
Civil Service Commission on Wednesday approved
a pilot project that allows the police department
to quickly hire individuals who have taken
the civil service examination and already
graduated from accredited police academies.
“This
‘alternate route’ will allow the
department to bring qualified candidates on
to the police force and deploy additional
police officers in Camden by the end of the
year, and I greatly appreciate the Civil Service
Commission’s approval of this important
hiring program,” Milgram said. “The
department is also currently selecting candidates
from the civil service list. These officers
will hit the streets of Camden after graduating
from the Camden Police Academy. We are looking
forward to welcoming these new officers into
a department that is reducing homicides and
violent crimes through pro-active, intelligence-led
policing.”
Priority
will be given to Camden city residents on
the civil service list, under a new ordinance
passed by the City Council which ranked priorities
for police applicants. The new Camden Police
Department officers are expected to start
at the police academy effective January 4,
and would be ready to join the department
after graduating in early summer 2010.
“The
new officers will provide a significant boost
in the strength of the department and allow
the department to continue to pursue new strategies
that target areas in the city where there
are the most instances of violent crime and
target the most violent criminals,”
Milgram said. “The residents of Camden
have supported their police department and
that support has been invaluable. These additional
officers will allow the department to provide
additional and vital police services to the
city’s residents.”
Camden
Police Chief John Thomson said, “The
new hires will culminate the watershed year
of change for the Camden Police Department.
In addition to the cutting edge technology
installed, the much needed officers will further
enhance our recent achievements of securing
our neighborhoods and reducing violent crime.”
The
Camden City Police Department was put under
the authority of the Attorney General’s
Office in 2004 by former Attorney General
Peter Harvey. In July 2008, a re-organization
of the department shaped by Attorney General
Milgram and Jose Cordero, the state director
of Gangs, Guns and Violent Crime Control Strategies,
put more officers on the street, pro-actively
patrolling areas of the city with the highest
levels of crime.
Cordero
also instituted Compstat management, which
increases the ability of the department to
target and analyze crime data and measure
the effectiveness of achieving policing goals.
The
department added 25 new cars earlier this
year and tactical automatic vehicle locators
which will allow command staff to monitor
deployments, 9-1-1 calls, and incident patterns
to continually assess and refine deployment
of resources are about to come on line.
This
year, homicides are down 41 percent compared
to 2008. In addition, the number of shooting
incidents is down 26 percent and the number
of shooting victims is down 20 percent, compared
to a year ago.
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