REPUBLICAN SOFT ON CRIME

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Federal, local cuts pull cops off streets A federal program paid for 118,000 new officers, but it's being phased out just as cities are in need

By Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

MINNEAPOLIS -- The federal program that added more than 100,000 cops to local police forces and helped to cut crime to historically low rates during the past decade is being rolled back because local governments can't afford to keep many of the officers on the street.

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program was a hallmark of the Clinton administration, providing more than $8 billion in grants to saturate crime-plagued areas with officers and forging unprecedented ties between cops and neighborhood patrols. From New York to Los Angeles, ''community policing'' became a symbol of America's frustration with the high crime rates of the early 1990s -- and of governments' big spending in a soaring economy.

But now budgets are leaner, and law enforcement analysts say that the largest federally funded buildup of local police in U.S. history is being washed away by cutbacks and retirements.

The COPS program, which is being phased out by the federal government, has provided grants to pay for all or part of entry-level officers' salaries during their first three years of work. Agencies that received COPS grants were required to keep the officers for a fourth year. Now, many cash-strapped police departments that have met their obligation to the grants program are trimming their ranks to meet increasingly tight local budgets.

As a result, police departments are pulling officers off patrols at a time when crime rates are beginning to tick upward again.

Some police officials, while acknowledging that crime typically rises when the economy is down, believe that the declining number of cops on America's streets has contributed to slight increases in the number of homicides, rapes and burglaries reported nationally during the past two years.

The officials say that although cutbacks or freezes in police hiring aren't unusual when money is tight, the size of the recent buildup -- combined with Americans' current expectations of low crime rates -- could make these reductions particularly noticeable.

The COPS program's fading impact is being felt across the USA:

* In Minneapolis, $6 million in COPS grants allowed the police department to hire 81 cops and boost the city's number of officers to 938 by 1997. But officials have had to cut 140 positions since then -- including 38 this year. Officers are being shifted from neighborhoods to handle emergency calls; robberies are up by 20% this year, and burglaries are up 3%.

''Our long-term, grass-roots initiatives are starting to fade,'' Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson says. ''We're seeing a resurgence in gang activity. We've got gangsters showing up in hospitals with bullets in them. The real impact will be seen in a year or two.''

* New York City, which got federal grants for 4,700 new officers and had nearly 40,000 cops three years ago, has dropped more than 3,400 since then -- a cut almost equal to the size of Detroit's police department. Retirements and budget cuts caused the erosion, officials said.

Crime rates in New York are down slightly this year, but police executives who regard the city as an indicator of national crime trends say New York is becoming more vulnerable as it loses cops.

* In New Orleans, where the COPS program helped officials add more than 400 officers from 1996 to 2000, nearly 100 have been cut in the last three years. The city now has 1,610 officers. This year, homicides are up 16% (to 211), and rapes are up 14% (to 149).

* Los Angeles, which had 9,705 cops in 1997, cut 800 positions during the next four years. Unlike most cities, however, Los Angeles is hiring again. Concerns about spikes in homicides, robberies, assaults and burglaries in 2002 have led officials to beef up the police force to 9,270 officers -- still well below the city's peak staffing levels under COPS. This year, police have reported declines in all major crime categories.

''There's no question crime can be impacted by numbers,'' Los Angeles Chief William Bratton says. ''What's more important is how you use those resources. We could use 12,000 police officers here.''

COPS a tense political issue

In Washington, the COPS program is becoming the focus of increasingly intense political debate. Police executives -- and Democrats critical of the Republican White House -- are calling on the Bush administration to drop its plans to phase out the program.

Some police officials say the needs of local cops are being overlooked because of broader, albeit warranted, concerns about national security. The U.S. government has sent $6 billion to state and local agencies for emergency equipment, training and planning, and officials plan to send nearly $3 billion more in grants. But none of that money can be used to hire additional police officers or emergency workers.

The COPS program was scheduled to end in 2001, when its initial allotment of money had been distributed. But it has survived the change in administration on much more modest budgets, mostly because of its popularity with the powerful law enforcement lobby.

The Justice Department, which oversees the COPS program, would not make COPS officials available for interviews.

In response to written questions, COPS Director Carl Peed said the program has shown that additional officers guided by a common strategy can drive crime down. But ''it is clear that local budget constraints are forcing some local leaders to make tough decisions and prioritize resources,'' Peed wrote.

Some Democrats see police cuts as a potential issue for them during the 2004 presidential campaign.

''America faces a cop crunch just when we least need it,'' says Jose Cerda III, a senior policy adviser to the Democratic Leadership Council who wrote a report analyzing officer cuts. ''It amounts to a reckless and dangerous hollowing out of the nation's police forces . . . when crime rates are rising and homeland security is placing new strains on the existing force.''

Community policing

Many Americans became aware of the COPS program a decade ago, when it was little more than a catchy slogan of the Clinton administration: We need 100,000 more cops on America's streets.

During a crime wave that was fueled by a recession, crack cocaine and warring drug gangs, the plan for more police was a critical selling point for Congress, which created the COPS program in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

The U.S. government's strategy involved putting more police on neighborhood beats, recruiting block leaders in crime-plagued communities to be liaisons between residents and officers, removing thugs from street corners and disrupting gang and drug activity.

Suddenly, ''community policing'' became the rage in local law enforcement, even though some departments had been experimenting with it for years.

The availability of federal money for more police officers and equipment encouraged departments nationwide to use variations of the strategy in their communities, says law enforcement consultant Joseph Brann, the first director of the COPS program office under then-attorney general Janet Reno.

The Justice Department says it has provided funding for 118,000 officers under the program. But some critics say the net increase in cops was less than that because a few departments used the new hires to offset retirements and recruiting shortages during the late 1990s.

Justice Department audits have found that some agencies improperly diverted COPS grant money. Peed said the department has sought refunds totaling more than $5 million from 159 law enforcement agencies because of various violations.

But many police officials say the grants allowed them to boost their forces significantly.

In Minneapolis, COPS money enabled police to improve responses to 911 calls and to put more officers in troubled areas.

Chief Olson says his department expanded its network of police teams that worked with neighborhood leaders and community groups to keep police informed of potential crime problems. The neighborhood ''safe teams'' are partnerships of officers and civilian police employees. They are the foundation of the city's community policing effort.

Before long, Minneapolis' crime rates had dropped to levels not seen since the 1960s. ''I'd hate to think where we'd be right now'' without the federal help, Olson says.

Today, with the department facing painful cuts in the city's budget, much of that success is at risk.

To try to make up for losing 140 positions, the department has pulled some officers off neighborhood beats to cover emergency calls. There no longer are enough detectives to investigate hit-and-runs and some car thefts. The department also cut its network of 26 ''safe teams'' nearly in half.

Now crime is rising in Minneapolis. In an unusual recognition of the depleted police ranks, state officials temporarily sent 12 state troopers to help investigate a spate of violent crimes last summer.

Brann says the erosion of local police forces ''will not eradicate'' community policing. But, he says, ''the losses will compromise the ability of departments to move forward and continue to help drive crime down.''

Some police executives say that with crime rates ticking back up, governments should not be making police more vulnerable.

''People fire on police cars with AK-47s in Los Angeles because they think they can,'' says John Linder, a consultant to several police departments. ''They think they have an advantage over police. You can think about building down your forces only when you have real control of the crime situation.''

Officers 'losing touch'

Before the latest budget cuts in Minneapolis, Police Officer Catherine Casey and her civilian partner in the community policing program, Karen Abrahamson, were scrambling to cover the needs of three neighborhoods in south Minneapolis.

They attended community meetings and spent months recruiting block leaders who could alert police to problems such as neglectful landlords and illegal drug sales.

Now Casey and Abrahamson are responsible for seven neighborhoods. They're too busy to recruit block leaders. They two rarely attend community meetings. Personal contact with residents has been replaced by apologetic e-mails from the pair.

''We're starting to hear people say, 'You don't care about us any more,' '' Abrahamson says. ''Or they'll say, 'Why should I even call? You don't even come.' ''

Those are alarming signs for Sgt. Barry Nelson, who supervises Casey and Abrahamson. ''When you see officers losing touch with their neighborhoods, that leads to mounting fear. If we're not out there talking to people, we can't do anything to alleviate their fear.''