Deputy to citizen ratio

[Unregistered]

This is something that has not been brought up in a while. How many first responder deputies in service on standby taking calls are there for every citizen? Anyone know? Anyone care? Who are the real fools here? Us? The civilians we serve and protect? Yet our agency and county fail to give us the tools we need to keep the county safe. If they don’t care, why should we? While we foolishly run around like chickens with our heads cut off handling issues many municipalities, counties, and states have separate agencies to spread the workload.

Even when the agency adds ALL the sworn deputies assigned everywhere plus supervisors and even command officers to inflate the numbers, you know full and well this agency is far far behind the 8 ball with proper staffing.

Yet the agency gets a budget for unfilled positions. Interesting. Who are the fools? Us or the citizens.

[Unregistered]

retired recently after thirty years. When I was hired in the 80’s, working in patrol was completely different. We were so well staffed that deputies had time to patrol proactively. We went “on view” regularly with the apprehension of in progress calls. We had time for community relations: get a cup of coffee at the convenience store in our zone and chat with (and gather intelligences from) the clerk, drive through residential neighborhoods and wave at kids, drove in front of businesses inspecting glass door fronts for unalarmed burglaries, and got out of our vehicles on foot to walk the rear door of businesses for unlocked or pried open doors. During the hiring restrictions that followed, patrol became understaffed, shift hours were changed, zone boundaries were redesigned and an additional district was created manipulating manpower. I actually loved 12 hour shifts with every other weekend a 3 day weekend. I was as good as many other deputies but was much better than some that surrendered their enthusiasm to the life of the disgruntled. I consider myself fortunate to have worked for several supervisors that recognized my good attitude and efforts, and was promoted several times. By the way, I am a white male without family ties in the agency and I never made a financial donation. I am fortunate, unlike many peers that were just as good. I could not have imagined thirty years in uniform patrolling a zone, especially as understaffed as we are, especially with all of the extra duties that have been pile on your backs. It is a true shame patrol deputies are not enjoying their job as I did mine in the 80’s. I hope that this is addressed sooner than later. With today’s social media sites such as this, coupled with the nationwide attack on law enforcement, it will be a challenge. Stay safe my brothers and sisters, I appreciate you continuing to fight the fight, and protect the citizens and visitors of Hillsborough County the best you can with the available manpower. I, as many, thank you.

[Unregistered]

This is something that has not been brought up in a while. How many first responder deputies in service on standby taking calls are there for every citizen? Anyone know? Anyone care? Who are the real fools here? Us? The civilians we serve and protect? Yet our agency and county fail to give us the tools we need to keep the county safe. If they don’t care, why should we? While we foolishly run around like chickens with our heads cut off handling issues many municipalities, counties, and states have separate agencies to spread the workload.

Even when the agency adds ALL the sworn deputies assigned everywhere plus supervisors and even command officers to inflate the numbers, you know full and well this agency is far far behind the 8 ball with proper staffing.

Yet the agency gets a budget for unfilled positions. Interesting. Who are the fools? Us or the citizens.

The average ratio has never been met. The ratio is not deputies on the streets patrolling and taking calls, it is the total number of sworn in the agency.

Handle each call with the importance it deserves. The next call holding is usually no more urgent than the one you're on right now. Comm. Center (and the higher-ups who enable this practice) need to kick the decades-long addiction to clearing the holding calls.

[Unregistered]

The average ratio has never been met. The ratio is not deputies on the streets patrolling and taking calls, it is the total number of sworn in the agency.

Handle each call with the importance it deserves. The next call holding is usually no more urgent than the one you're on right now. Comm. Center (and the higher-ups who enable this practice) need to kick the decades-long addiction to clearing the holding calls.

Yeah true, but just because something has been done wrong all along, doesn’t make it ok to keep doing wrong.

Lets apply it to something else. Hypothetical example: “My supervisor has always let me come in late for years, now that he or she retired, this new supervisor gives me grief for coming in late. Or “Cops in the 1970’s were racist and used to beat people up, why change now”. It’s a STUPID MENTALITY. The whole “We were short when I first started, we are short now” speech is STUPID! And makes no sense. With that mentality, when I first started we hand wrote reports. Should we keep doing that then?


If calls were truly of great importance, we should have more than enough deputies for calls not to hold, for us to respond quicker, and for us not to stress about more holding calls and hot calls going out while on these calls. The word “calls” cheapens what we do. These are criminal investigations. If calls were so important, we would be given the time and tools to handle them with great care and detail especially the report writing aspect.

I get your point though. Work your calls and let the calls fall where they may. Until you get a rank chasing brown nosing boss that’s constantly telling you to go X8 and you are taking on new cases while still needing to write the reports. Just getting more and more buried. The more we make this work, the less they will fix it.

Total sworn included in the officer to citizen ratio is total BS! You know full and well that there are a large number of sworn deputies working here that do absolutely NO policing or first responding. Every quarter of the county is patrolled by maybe 20-25 actual on alert first responding deputies. The ratio is far far lower.

I’m curious to see what the officer to citizen ratio is at agencies where HCSI deputies quit and go to like TPD. I’m sure you would find a commonality. Like more officers per citizen than here or agencies like ours that keep us at minimal staffing.

Your right about the holding calls concept. However. That mind fukk they place on us needs to go away. They put the burden on the deputies. It’s our fault if calls hold. I have had fresh new rookies tell me they were stressed because another deputy had to take a call in their zone and there were calls holding that they could not get to. This deputy was working a zone alone with no mid shift unit. Beating himself up for the agency failing him. It’s pure fukking BS. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Then you wonder why morale is the way it is, why people burn out, why they quit, and why they start treating citizens like crap.

THIS AGENCY AND THIS CAREER SETS US UP TO FAIL.

They rely on the revolving door of deputies for this phenomenon to go unnoticed. Nobody stays around long enough to see it. Or they get fast tracked and don’t care because…. It’s not their problem anymore.

[Unregistered]

The average ratio has been met, what the hell does that mean?

[Unregistered]

Yeah true, but just because something has been done wrong all along, doesn’t make it ok to keep doing wrong.

Lets apply it to something else. Hypothetical example: “My supervisor has always let me come in late for years, now that he or she retired, this new supervisor gives me grief for coming in late. Or “Cops in the 1970’s were racist and used to beat people up, why change now”. It’s a STUPID MENTALITY. The whole “We were short when I first started, we are short now” speech is STUPID! And makes no sense. With that mentality, when I first started we hand wrote reports. Should we keep doing that then?


If calls were truly of great importance, we should have more than enough deputies for calls not to hold, for us to respond quicker, and for us not to stress about more holding calls and hot calls going out while on these calls. The word “calls” cheapens what we do. These are criminal investigations. If calls were so important, we would be given the time and tools to handle them with great care and detail especially the report writing aspect.

I get your point though. Work your calls and let the calls fall where they may. Until you get a rank chasing brown nosing boss that’s constantly telling you to go X8 and you are taking on new cases while still needing to write the reports. Just getting more and more buried. The more we make this work, the less they will fix it.

Total sworn included in the officer to citizen ratio is total BS! You know full and well that there are a large number of sworn deputies working here that do absolutely NO policing or first responding. Every quarter of the county is patrolled by maybe 20-25 actual on alert first responding deputies. The ratio is far far lower.

I’m curious to see what the officer to citizen ratio is at agencies where HCSI deputies quit and go to like TPD. I’m sure you would find a commonality. Like more officers per citizen than here or agencies like ours that keep us at minimal staffing.

Your right about the holding calls concept. However. That mind fukk they place on us needs to go away. They put the burden on the deputies. It’s our fault if calls hold. I have had fresh new rookies tell me they were stressed because another deputy had to take a call in their zone and there were calls holding that they could not get to. This deputy was working a zone alone with no mid shift unit. Beating himself up for the agency failing him. It’s pure fukking BS. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Then you wonder why morale is the way it is, why people burn out, why they quit, and why they start treating citizens like crap.

THIS AGENCY AND THIS CAREER SETS US UP TO FAIL.

They rely on the revolving door of deputies for this phenomenon to go unnoticed. Nobody stays around long enough to see it. Or they get fast tracked and don’t care because…. It’s not their problem anymore.

Good point brother.

[Unregistered]

This is something that has not been brought up in a while. How many first responder deputies in service on standby taking calls are there for every citizen? Anyone know? Anyone care? Who are the real fools here? Us? The civilians we serve and protect? Yet our agency and county fail to give us the tools we need to keep the county safe. If they don’t care, why should we? While we foolishly run around like chickens with our heads cut off handling issues many municipalities, counties, and states have separate agencies to spread the workload.

Even when the agency adds ALL the sworn deputies assigned everywhere plus supervisors and even command officers to inflate the numbers, you know full and well this agency is far far behind the 8 ball with proper staffing.

Yet the agency gets a budget for unfilled positions. Interesting. Who are the fools? Us or the citizens.

1.2 deputies to 1,000 residents.

[Unregistered]

1.2 deputies to 1,000 residents.

That’s the national average. Not necessarily the correct average. Just average. Think about it. 1 cop per 1000 people.

I bet you ANYTHING that we do not meet that. Every 6 month I see a new apartment complex and or new subdivision in my zone alone. Still no mid shift unit and still open zones.

I see a ton more out of state tags parked on the driveways of sold houses. The housing market is booming. Where are our deputies!

Sorry but unless you are logged on, X8, Making arrests, taking paper, and going to court for the work you have done, YOU ARE NOT A PART OF THE RATIO!!!!

[Unregistered]

I would love to see a year by year database on our ratio. I posted earlier, the long one, about old times with sufficient manpower. Patrol was a fun assignment, but of course, everyone sought transfers and promotions. As a note, TPDs ratio in the 80’s was 3.5/1000 and HCSOs was 2.5. It is a real shame is has deteriorated to 1.2, if that is even accurate.

[Unregistered]

I would love to see a year by year database on our ratio. I posted earlier, the long one, about old times with sufficient manpower. Patrol was a fun assignment, but of course, everyone sought transfers and promotions. As a note, TPDs ratio in the 80’s was 3.5/1000 and HCSOs was 2.5. It is a real shame is has deteriorated to 1.2, if that is even accurate.

That's what I'm talking about! Why is this even up for debate if we don't have verified numbers?