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Let's assume a police officer costs the state $88,0000 annually (including salary, training, healthcare, equipment, etc). So $88M is 1000 additional officer ye
by __d 7y ago
Let's assume a police officer costs the state $88,0000 annually (including salary, training, healthcare, equipment, etc). So $88M is 1000 additional officer years.
It's possible a camera and its installation will cost up to $500,000 (it's a government contract, after all). That would mean a camera needs to last 6 years to make it naively cheaper than an additional officer.
So ... I think the cost argument is more or less a wash. Cameras might last longer than that. Or be a bit cheaper than that. They're probably able to detect more offenses than a human, given their positioning.
I think there are more effective arguments to be made about the reversal of the onus of proof, about security of the video imagery, etc.
- ACow_Adonis 7y agoI imagine 88,000 per officer is understating officer cost in nsw. To be fair, I've also assumed that 'it's not about safety' is a literal tabloid letter to the editor style comment, and I almost have a knee jerk assumption that anyone who uses that line hasn't actually done any math (and isn't inclined to).
- sjy 7y agoI’m not too sure if you’re talking Australian or US dollars there, but the starting salary of a NSW probationary constable is A$73,609 [1]. I’d say that means the total marginal cost of an additional police officer is around double what you’ve indicated in Australian dollars (so if you were using US dollars, it would probably be quite close). [1]: https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/recruitment/the_career/general_duties/working_conditions https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/recruitment/the_career/general...
- thundergolfer 7y agoI agree with 150k AUD being a closer estimate. Maybe 125k. Once you include superannuation (big) and all other costs associated with maintaining an average foot patrol officer their fully-loaded yearly expense is going to be way more than 88k.