By Christian Burkin
Record Staff Writer
June 15, 2011 12:00 AM
STOCKTON - A civil grand jury report released Tuesday on the state of crime and justice in San Joaquin County contains no surprises.
The report was informational, intended "to inform residents of San Joaquin County about the changes to essential services, reductions in workforce, and budget constraints affecting public safety."
A summary: Stockton has a serious crime problem, and San Joaquin County's entire criminal justice system has been weakened by budget cuts.
"The need to reduce budgets, personnel and services over the past several years threatens the ability to ensure public safety in the present fiscal climate," the grand jury reported.
Stockton Police Chief Blair Ulring said the report supported what he had long been saying about cuts to the Police Department and their consequences.
"There wasn't any part of it I was really surprised about," he said. "It was supportive of the realities the Police Department is facing."
Ulring was among those the grand jury - a panel of 19 county residents - interviewed in its research, and the Stockton Police Department, among others, submitted information at the grand jury's request.
Among the changes, reductions and constraints cited in the grand jury's report are well-documented cuts of police officers, prosecutors and public defenders, and program and personnel cuts at the Probation Department and the Sheriff's Office.
Stockton's police force has been sharply reduced - from 441 officers in 2009 to 343 - and so has every other law enforcement agency in the county. Though Stockton's ratio of police officers to residents is low and well below recommendations - at 1.17 per 1,000 residents - it's not the lowest in the county; in Manteca, the ratio has fallen to 0.89 per 1,000.
The report had nothing to criticize, acknowledging the budgetary constraints law enforcement leaders were working under.
It did encourage creativity and a serious treatment of the public's perception of crime and danger.
Ulring said that with declining resources, doing more with less is the only option remaining.
He cited online crime reporting and the Police Department's reduced response to private intrusion alarms as two measures he's taken to make the department more efficient.
"I struggle with the volume of violence the city faces, the volume of calls. And our ability to respond to those has really been hampered by the loss of personnel," he said.
The grand jury could not be reached for comment.
Contact reporter Christian Burkin at (209) 546-8279 or cburkin@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/burkinblog.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110615/A_NEWS/106150324/-1/newsmap
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