St. Louis, MO (April 2, 2015) – Today Better Together released the first in a series of reports that will give information on how police service is provided throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and the 90 municipalities therein.
Across the St. Louis City and County region, 60 departments provide service to 1.3 million people over 589 square miles. These departments differ as widely in size, demographics, and resources as the 92 jurisdictions they serve. In total, the region spends more than $468 million each year on policing.
“A citizen of the St. Louis region may fund one police department, but he or she is policed by many more,” explained Nancy Rice, Executive Director of Better Together.
This report provides a basic overview of each department, with the exception of those in Beverly Hills, Country Club Hills, Hillsdale, Kinloch, Lakeshire, St. Ann, Vinita Park, and Wellston. These departments have yet to provide the information requested under the Missouri Sunshine Law on November 4, 2014.
The report includes the following findings:
- Police departments patrol jurisdictions of widely ranging geographical areas. These vary in size from the 0.11 square miles of Flordell Hills, which just formed its own police department this year, to the more than 265 miles serviced directly by the St. Louis County Police Department.
- Departments across the St. Louis region serve a wide range of population sizes, and they do so with significantly different department structures and sizes. Populations served by a single department range from the 298 residents served by the Kinloch Police Department to the 415,937 citizens patrolled by the St. Louis County police department throughout unincorporated St. Louis County and 18 municipalities.
- The resources available for policing in the St. Louis region vary greatly from department to department as well. In total, the St. Louis region spends over $468 million or $355.20 per capita on police service. To put those numbers in context, Indianapolis-Marion County spends $224,665,041, or $242.02 per capita, for its police service, while Louisville-Jefferson County spends $194,549,857, or $257.06 per capita.
- Within the St. Louis region, budgets range from several hundred thousand dollars in some small jurisdictions to over a hundred million dollars in the region’s two largest departments, the St. Louis City Metropolitan Police Department and the St. Louis County Police Department. Just as diverse are the salaries paid, with the chief of some departments making less than the average salary for an officer in the region.
Subsequent reports, released over the next four weeks, will provide greater detail on topics addressed in this initial report, and will culminate in early May with a report produced by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a premier organization with decades of experience in the field of law enforcement research and policy development. PERF is in the process of examining the geographic and demographic characteristics of St. Louis City and County and, with much input from the community, developing an idealized policing strategy for St. Louis.
To read the complete report, please visit www.bettertogetherstl.com/police-study .