I have been following the charter school/high-stakes testing/Priority Schools debacle for the past few years. My proposal is that we use the same model for another daunting and complex problem: Crime.
We have a major crime problem in Wilmington and other locales around the state. I think we can solve it with a few transformations of the way that we structure our public safety. The key is to use the invisible hand of the market to reduce crime.
Step 1: Charter Police Squads
We now have the technology to have 911 go to wherever we want it to go. If I am dissatisfied with my police force, I can simply sign up for alternative police forces. For example, we could have Blackwater (or whatever they are called now after all those horrible shootings of innocent people) open up a charter police force. Then when I call 911 from my home or cell phone, it goes to them instead of traditional police force. They could then come to my house and put down whatever disturbance bothered me.
Obviously, these charter police forces would have to remain profitable. They would, of course, get the money that I pay in taxes for police service today. But also, if I end up being too much trouble as a customer (maybe I cry wolf a lot or live in an area that has high crime), they could fire me as a customer and I”d have to go back to my police feeder pattern. It almost goes without saying that the charters could be non-union and the charters could train their force as they see fit.
Step 2: Accountability
We need to online casino measure the effectiveness of the charters police forces and the traditional police forces. There are a few measures that we could use. For example, we could use reported crimes or arrests made. I suggest that we use a very corporate method. A Net Promoter Score (NPS). A couple times a year we would send out a form asking just a few questions, the most important of which is “Would you recommend this police force to your friends?” Police forces would have to compete with each other for better service in order to get a better score.
Step 3: Remove bad actors
By bad actors, I mean police forces with bad NPS numbers. We could have a charter come in and take control of poorly performing forces or we could award them to another local police force. Obviously, this would entail all of the cops reapplying for their jobs and certainly we would need to bring in consultants to assess the effectiveness of the police chief and his lieutenants.
Step 4: Improve the funding model
The police forces these days are funded through a variety of sources (federal, state and local taxes), but we really need a more democratic way of making the funding responsive to the electorate. Half of all police funding will be determined by referendum. If they want to provide better service, they will have to show us how they are going to spend that money. Obviously this will also be a good way to determine the per-citizen price, so that that money can be allocated to the charter police forces as well. The other half of the funding would come from State and Federal sources so as to match whatever the referendum nets them.
Step 5: Success!
I think this step speaks for itself.