City Needs More Police Officers

Two stories caught our interest this week: the cold weather and the increasing crime rate in Rio Rancho. Both stories impact our lives but, other than that, they don’t have anything to do with each other.

One would think that people might get tired of talking about the weather – after all, weather happens every day; sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s windy, sometimes it’s not.

But we don’t seem to tire of talking about it; there’s a sense that each time something happens, it’s bigger or better or worse than the last time it happened.

A few weeks ago the weather talk was, “Oh, it’s going to be cold today; it may get down to 45 degrees.” Now this week, the weather talk is, “Oh, it’s going to warm up today; it may get up to 45 degrees.” How our perspectives change over a few short weeks.

Speaking of perspectives, we just returned from Tucson where we had expected to enjoy the warm weather. But as the weather often does, it surprised us. It was cold there. Maybe the temperatures weren’t as low as here, but the effect was just as bad, especially for Tucson folks who do not expect freezing temperatures.

No matter how you see things, it’s been cold this week, really cold. And the famous New Mexico sunshine has done little to warm us up. It was just plain cold- and now we’re looking forward to a heat wave of 45 degrees.

We hope everyone took the proper precautions, and nobody has had to suffer with the trauma caused by broken pipes.

On the other subject of interest, it’s rather alarming to see the crime rate in Rio Rancho increasing so much – up nearly 15 percent from 2011 to 2012. It’s especially alarming considering that recently most of the country has seen a decline in crime rates. The people in Albuquerque also saw an increase in crime rates, although not as much as Rio Rancho.

Rio Rancho always has prided itself on having a low crime rate, and many of us felt comfortable raising children in such a safe environment. We are sure Rio Rancho is still a safe community, but maybe it is time to think about what’s happening and make decisions based on the changes.

Auto thefts have increased 63 percent, reported rapes and attempted rapes rose 70 percent, and the number of armed robberies increased 26 percent.

Those are serious enough increases that we should not ignore them, but we probably shouldn’t panic either. We need to keep in mind that percentages are much higher when the numbers are relatively small. The 26 percent increase in armed robberies means in 2011 there were 19 and there were 24 in 2012.

The 70 percent increase in reported and attempted rapes means the number increased from 17 to 29. We shouldn’t ignore this dramatic increase, but we also need to keep it in perspective.

Police Chief Robert Boone says Rio Rancho doesn’t have enough police officers for a city of its size, which is a big part of the problem, if not the cause of it. Rio Rancho has 1.46 officers for every 1,000 people, compared with Albuquerque, which has 2.02 officers per thousand, and Las Cruces, which has 1.97 per thousand.

Rio Rancho should figure out a way to increase the number of police officers before the crime rate gets out of control. We would like Rio Rancho to maintain its reputation as a low-crime city and need to do whatever it takes to make this happen.

Common Sense appears on Saturdays. Contact the Ryans at ryan@abqjournal.com.<br> — This article appeared on page 19 of the Albuquerque Journal