Republican lawmakers gathered on Wednesday to express concerns that two proposals under consideration this legislative session — related to data collection and traffic stops — would hurt law enforcement efforts. They also cited low morale among officers around the state, saying that recent policies are causing recruitment and retention problems.

“There’s no doubt that police departments around this state are lowering their ranks. There is a personnel problem, and they are down officers,” said Rep. Greg Howard of Stonington, ranking Republican on the Public Safety and Security Committee.

That’s the case in 26 Connecticut towns, but for another 62 municipal police departments, the number of officers increased from April 2011 to October 2023, according to data compiled by the state’s Office of Legislative Research. Every other town is all or partly covered by the State Police, which has 931 uniformed personnel as of February of this year, down from 1,200 over a decade ago.

Some of the state’s largest cities, including Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford, saw their police forces shrink. Bridgeport had the largest drop, from 406 officers in 2011 to 289 in 2023, a 29% decrease.

New Haven and Hartford saw a 20% and 14% reductions, respectively. Another large city, Waterbury, saw an increase, but it was by one officer.

Meanwhile, suburbs saw larger increases. West Hartford went from having 125 police officers in 2011 to 150 in 2023. Middletown had the largest increase in the number of officers, up 26 since 2011. Other police departments saw bigger changes when calculating the percent change. North Haven saw an increase of over 50%, going from 46 to 70 officers. Groton Long Point had a 75% increase, but it has one of the smallest police departments in the state, so any small change would equate to a larger percent increase.

Four towns, Portland, Redding, Winchester and Wolcott, had the same number of officers both years.

Combining all 95 municipal police departments in 2023 brings the total to 6,754 officers. In 2011, there were 6,656 officers statewide, but there were also three fewer municipal police departments, since some opted out of being under State Police jurisdiction.

https://ctmirror.org/2024/03/08/ct-police-officers-urban-suburban-data/