A pay raise is not a crime strategy

In a post-election interview with KXAN's Grace Reader, Mayor Kirk Watson touted a few of the accomplishments of his first two years in office. Here's what stuck out to me.

"We've done so much on public safety."

Oh?

"We now have a contract with our EMS workers, our firefighters, and now our police. We have a new (assistant city manager) managing that and a new chief of the police department."

Hmm. It's true that if you want good cops, medics and firefighters, you need to pay them well. But it's not a given that increased pay will necessarily lead to lower crime or better response times to fires and medical emergencies.

And that is what has been so frustrating about the debate around the recently-approved police contract. It has been framed as a crucial step towards increasing police staffing, which we are told will lead to reduced response times and less crime.