Beat officers in the Albany Police Department have started patrolling their new areas. The realignment of the neighborhood engagement unit took effect this week. 

“The beat officers will continue to serve the entire community," said Police Chief Eric Hawkins. "It’s just that we’ll have a smaller number of beat officers in order to do that.”

He says the realignment decreases the number of areas from 18 to 10. That means 19 beat officers will have larger geographic areas to patrol. Hawkins also says this was done to address staff shortages — the staff is currently short more than 40 officers — while still offering community policing. 

“It will allow us to address some critical needs that we have right now relating to staffing, training, traffic enforcement,” Hawkins said. 

But this change has created some concerns. Community advocate Dannielle Hille says this realignment doesn't take into consideration the established communities and previous relationships with beat officers. 

“Some of these neighborhoods, they’re not police-friendly," said Hille, who is also the co-founder of A Block At A Time, a grassroots organization helping to create a dialogue between the community and the police. "They’re cautious, and it takes a long time to win people over and win their support."

In addition, Hille says the community was left out of the process with residents only seeing these changes after they were implemented. Hawkins says the move has been discussed at community meetings for a month, and preliminary maps had been shared in advance. 

“Our concerns [are] they might not all be covered as well," said Joseph Ingemie, the chair of the Community Policing Advisory Committee.

He says they will be closely monitoring and evaluating this realignment, which includes getting patrol officers in neighborhoods to work with beat officers. Ingemie says Hawkins has discussed the restructuring at their meetings. He says he wishes they could’ve been more involved with these changes.

“It’s going to be ongoing," Ingemie said. "We’re not going to let this thing slide at all. We have to keep an eye on it.”

The Community Policing Advisory Committee, the police department, and the Common Council will hold a forum on January 14 to discuss these realignments.