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March 11, 2003
Public Hearing on "Lateral Senior Detectives Act of 2003" and "Senior Detectives Act of 2003"
Charles H. Ramsey
Chief of Police
Metropolitan Police Department
Chief Charles H. Ramsey delivered the following statement to the Committee on the Judiciary, the Honorable Kathy Patterson, Chair, Council of the District of Columbia on March 11, 2003.
Chairperson Patterson, other members of the Committee and Council, staff and guests – good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present this opening statement in support of the proposed legislation before the Committee today. (By the way, my statement is posted on the Police Department’s website, mpdc.dc.gov.) I want to thank Council Chair Cropp for bringing to the Council the important pieces of legislation we are discussing today, and I want to thank the Committee Chair for your holding this hearing.
The goals behind both the Senior Detectives Act and the Lateral Senior Detectives Act are straightforward: first, to improve our Department’s ability to investigate and close homicides and other violent and serious crimes in the District of Columbia; second, to bring a measure of justice to the victims and survivors of these crimes; and third, to make our neighborhoods safer by taking more criminals off the street. Mayor Williams has identified public safety as one of the District’s top three priorities, along with education and opportunity for all. The proposed legislation would help our Department achieve these public safety goals through new detective hiring programs that will be flexible, innovative and, I believe, effective.
As I have testified in recent hearings, the Metropolitan Police Department – with the oversight and support of this Committee – has made important progress in reforming our criminal investigative process. To cite just a few examples … we established a formal promotional process for detectives. We dramatically upgraded training for both newly promoted and experienced detectives. Just two weeks ago, for example, we concluded a rigorous homicide investigations course attended by current members of the Violent Crimes Branch, as well as other MPD detectives who will now be qualified to transition into the VCB when there are future vacancies for homicide detectives. And to illustrate just how far we have come with our training, two other agencies – the Prince George’s County Police Department and the US Park Police – sent detectives to our training. In addition to promotions and training, we have also enhanced the leadership in our Office of the Superintendent of Detectives, and we have increased accountability through our Targeted Organizational Performance Sessions (or TOPS) and our Daily Crime Briefings.
Most importantly, we have begun to see performance improvements, including a five percentage-point increase in our homicide clearance rate last year – from just under 50 percent in 2001 to 55 percent in 2002. Our ability to close homicides and other crimes is still not where it should be, and there is plenty of room for improvement in how we conduct and manage criminal investigations. But I believe we are moving in the right direction. These two pieces of legislation are important components of our ongoing reform efforts in this area.
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