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  • The Marshall Project

    Is the Answer to Crime More Cops?

    It’s not how many, it’s how you use them.
    by Simone Weichselbaum and Wendi C. Thomas Feb 13, 2019 8 minutes

    MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE — Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland took office in 2016 vowing to fight the city’s high violent crime rate by beefing up a dwindling police force. His most novel idea: use an advisory body, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, to funnel anonymous private donations from the city’s elite to reward cops who remain on the force.

    His wish list, dubbed the “Blue Sky Strategy” and outlined in emails obtained by The Marshall Project, was ambitious: $48.2 million, including $12.7 million to subsidize housing and private school tuition for police families and $8 million for take-home cars.

    So far the fund has channeled $6.1 million into the city budget, most of it for police retention bonuses. FedEx, International Paper and about a dozen other private entities are now subsidizing public safety in a big American city.

    The commission has refused to disclose the amount of their individual contributions. “I don’t know how much the different businesses gave,” Strickland said. “I’m thankful they gave money, and if they didn’t want to say, individually, how much it was, then I am fine with that.”

    Memphis is unusual in taking money from the private sector to pay cops, but it reflects a popular trope that blames shrinking police forces for violence. Jeff Sessions, during his short tenure as attorney general, played that

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