Response times by Marietta police officers have been reduced by 24 seconds due to the city’s new Public Safety Ambassador Program, according to city officials.
In 2017, the city hired 10 nonsworn police employees to perform noncritical/nondangerous police functions, freeing up officers’ time to focus on crime-fighting and responding to emergency calls for service, according to Marietta Police Police Chief Dan Flynn in an April letter to city residents.
The implementation of the Marietta PSA Program has been an experiment in applied Evidence-Based Policing, he added.
Comparing the six months PSAs have been on the road (October 2017 through March 2018) with the identical six-month period one year before shows PSAs have written 525 incident reports and 229 private property accident reports and logged 3,523 targeted zone patrols.
By freeing up uniform officers’ time, the overall average MPD response time to calls for police service - in comparable six-month periods - has dropped from 2 minutes and 44 seconds in 2016-17 to 2 minutes and 20 seconds in 2017-18.
“When lives are in danger, 24 seconds can be an eternity,” Flynn said.
“Response times are down, crime is down and positive community relations are all very good,” he added.
Flynn’s letter: MariettaGa.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1664.
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