A Year Later: What Have Phoenix Police Assistants Done?

Published: Friday, March 15, 2019 - 7:05am
Updated: Monday, March 18, 2019 - 8:44am

When the Phoenix City Council approved more than $1 million for new police assistants, the goal was to free up sworn officers to focus on higher-priority calls.

Now that the assistants have been on the job a little more than a year, we have information on what they’ve accomplished.

The 14 assistants are spread out across the department’s seven precincts. They work afternoons and evenings to handle administrative tasks and respond to low priority calls for service — things like accident investigations, traffic control and thefts where no suspect is present.

They do not respond to higher priority calls like domestic violence, robberies and homicides.

According to the police department, during the assistants’ first 13 months, they handled nearly 14,000 calls for service and provided backup on another 6,500 calls.

The assistants authored nearly 4,500 reports and completed more than 750 filed interrogation reports. They completed nearly 1,500 accident reports, issued more than 1,100 citations and more than 600 parking tickets.

The council approved 16 new police assistants in the 2017-2018 budget and the March 2019 city council report says 14 positions have been filled.

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