Checking on the New Sheriff Bostrom of Ramsey County

The law enforcement performance numbers have just been posted from the Minnesota BCA agency for 2011. Ramsey County just elected new Sheriff Bostrom, who started in 2011. It was a transition year where the new Sheriff put in a new organization structure, a new manual, new training and a new management style. Could there be change in just one year?

One of the performance measures of law enforcement is clearance rates. Clearance is the successful resolution of a case which can mean arrest or it can mean clearing everyone of wrong doing. A 100% clearance rate would be a perfect score, which no agency should actually have. The reasonable expectation is 50%, which is the statewide average for 2011. The previous Sheriff Fletcher had the horrible performance record of 1 - 8% for 2009. In just one year, Sheriff Bostrom has posted clearance rates ranging from 36% to 60% for cities that the Sheriff's office directly polices. Local police departments handle the rest of the county. The rest of Ramsey county had clearance rates ranging from 21% to 50%. So the areas of Ramsey county policed by the Sheriff directly did better than the rest of Ramsey County. Wow!

The source report is available by clicking on "2011" at the BCA website, which also has the previous years for comparison. Since this report is so dense, I created a chart from the BCA reportchart from the BCA report, that just includes the cities that Sheriff Bostrom's office covers in direct policing. The clearance rates are

No separate reporting is available for Gem Lake.  

I  also created a comparison chart from the BCA reportc from the BCA report, that just includes the cities with their own local police. The clearance rates are Maplewood, 39%, Mounds View, 41%, New Brighton 37%, North St Paul 21% , Roseville 49%, St Paul 21%, White Bear Lake 49%, Falcon Heights 49% and Lauderdale 50%.

I could not help noticing that St Paul reports had no property crimes numbers in the 2012 report. Commander Fletcher (previously Sheriff Fletcher) is now in charge of the property unit. Due to civil service, Fletcher got his old job back. Strange, how these bad numbers just follow Bob Fletcher around? Hmmmm, Bob Fletcher is eligible for retirement in a dream beach house in Florida.