[Senate Hearing 107-705]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-705
MAKING AMERICA'S STREETS SAFER: THE FUTURE OF THE COPS PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND DRUGS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 5, 2001
__________
Serial No. J-107-51
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina
Bruce A. Cohen, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Sharon Prost, Minority Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
George Ellard, Majority Chief Counsel
Rita Lari, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Delaware....................................................... 1
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California..................................................... 67
Grassley, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa. 7
Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah...... 9
Kohl, Hon. Herbert, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin... 64
Schumer, Hon. Charles E., a U.S. Senator from the State of New
York........................................................... 68
WITNESSES
Brown, Mike, Sheriff, Bedford County, Virginia and National
Sheriffs' Association.......................................... 35
Dinh, Viet D., Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal
Policy, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C................. 10
Gordon, Hon. Thomas P., County Executive, New Castle County,
Delaware....................................................... 25
Muhlhausen, David, Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation,
Washington, D.C................................................ 45
Westphal, Colonel Lonnie, Chief, Colorado State Patrol, and Vice
President, International Association of Chiefs of Police....... 31
Young, Steve, Lieutenant, Marion City Police Department and
National President, Fraternal Order of Police, Washington, D.C. 39
Zhao, Solomon, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice,
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska............... 42
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Mr. Zhao to questions submitted by the Subcommittee. 67
MAKING AMERICA'S STREETS SAFER: THE FUTURE OF THE COPS PROGRAM
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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2001
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:35 p.m., in
Room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R.
Biden, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Biden and Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Chairman Biden. I think we will begin. Some of my
colleagues will be coming in. There is a lot going on today.
The most important event in Washington today is Strom
Thurmond's ninety-ninth birthday. God love him. We just had a
little party for him. Can you imagine that?
Mr. Dinh. No, sir, I cannot.
Chairman Biden. I think it is astounding, and he is an
incredible guy.
For years and years, we shared this room, shifting in this
seat, him as chairman of the full Committee sitting here and me
here or me as chairman and him sitting here. That does one of
two things. It makes you very close friends or serious enemies,
and it has made us very close friends.
Studs Terkel said, ``Who would want to live to age 99?''
and the response--well, he actually said 90, and his own
response was anybody who is 89.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Biden. I hear people saying, ``Gosh, I do not know
whether I would want to live to be 99.'' Well, let me tell you,
Strom Thurmond, God willing--and as my grandfather would say,
the creek not rising--will be the only Senator in the history
of America ever to serve here--well, he has already broken the
record, but at age 100, that is his goal and, God love him, I
hope he makes it.
Welcome to spring in Washington, D.C., speaking of young
people. We are going to get started here, and I imagine some of
my colleagues will be coming in and out.
I might note for the record, this is the first Subcommittee
hearing of the old--it is kind of like where I started. I used
to be the chairman of the Criminal Law Subcommittee, and here I
have come full circle. I am back to being chairman of the
Criminal Law Subcommittee, although some wag suggested that
when I was chairman of the full Committee, all this was, was a
criminal laws Committee, which I am kind of proud of, actually.
At any rate, I would like to welcome you all to the first
hearing of the Crime and Drugs Subcommittee, which is its
technical name. It is no accident that this inaugural hearing
of the Subcommittee is on ``Making America's Streets Safer: The
Future of the COPS program.''
I have long maintained the view, one shared by most of the
witnesses today, particularly my county executive and his
number-one assistant both having been former colonels of the
New Castle County Police Department--in my State, the second-
largest police department--I have long maintained the view
shared by them and many of you that our communities--our first
responsibility as Government is to make our streets safe. It
comes before everything. It comes before everything, including
things I strongly support, education and a whole range of other
things. If you cannot walk out in the street, all the rest of
your civil liberties are somewhat diminished. Also, they share
our commitment to put cops on the streets, as that being one of
the most effective means of stopping crime.
I used to say back in 1994 when Colonel Gordon, now County
Executive Gordon, was helping me write the crime bill, and many
of you in this room as well, and I do not know how many times
you had to hear me say that the only thing we know for certain
about crime is if there are four corners at an intersection
with three cops on three of the four corners and there is going
to be a crime committed, it will be committed on the corner
where there is no cop. Cops make a difference. Cops prevent
crime, Presence prevents crime.
This afternoon's hearing is on the future of the COPS
program; that is, the Community Oriented Policing Services
program.
We have very distinguished panels of witnesses with us
today, and I am eager to hear your testimony. When I called
this first hearing--and I want to be straight up with you all
because most of the police officers in here are my friends and
we have worked together a long time--I had two reasons for
calling this hearing. I want to have no ulterior motive. I want
my motive straight out front so everybody understands. First of
all, I want to have a hearing on what has been, from The
Heritage Foundation and other places, criticism that the COPS
program does not work. I want to make the case because I think
the studies show it works.
I want to examine the COPS program and hear from local
officials, sheriffs, chiefs, and criminologists on their views
of the program. It was 7 years ago, we passed the Biden crime
bill, and 100,000 new cops, more prisons and smart prevention.
These were part of the equation that I thought, and many of you
in the audience thought, would make our streets safer.
In creating the COPS program, I had two primary purposes in
mind; one, to encourage police departments to make a
fundamental and critical shift in their philosophy by embracing
the notion of community policing, something we all take for
granted now--but back then in 1985, '6, '7, '8, and '9, up
until 1994, it was not the norm--and, secondly, to deliver
needed dollars to our police departments, our local police
departments so they could beef up their forces.
There are some things we have known about crime, as I said,
that where there is a cop, crimes are not committed. This is
not rocket science. Crimes are prevented by the presence of
cops as well as the arrests that follow when one is committed,
and where we are, 7 years later, I think is proof that what we
had in mind made sense and worked.
Crime is down 22 percent from the date the crime bill was
signed. The percentage of cops who are community police
officers went from 4 to 21 percent in just 3 years, and one of
our witnesses today, a criminologist, will testify about the
results of the first conference of academic analysis of the
COPS program and its effects on crime in America. It was a 5-
year study that looked at 6,100 municipalities, covering 145
million Americans, this study being released by the University
of Nebraska, and our first witness today found unequivocally
that more cops on the street result in significantly less
crime.
Specifically, the study found that for every dollar, for
every one dollar we spent per person in a city with a
population of 100,000 or more, it resulted in a decrease of
over five violent crimes and a decrease in almost 22 property
crimes in that jurisdiction. For every dollar per citizen we
spent, it resulted in that change, and the numbers are even
higher for targeted COPS program grants, which we will talk
about later. There, a drop of 13 violent crimes and 45 property
crimes occurred when we spent a dollar per citizen.
It is the crime drop that everybody has been heralding, but
is the crime drop attributed solely to the COPS program? The
answer clearly to me is, no, it is not solely because of the
COPS program, but to think that this increased police presence
has not made a difference or, to put it another way, that we
would have had these reductions in crime had we not passed the
crime bill, I think is equally as foolish.
Any police chief in the country will tell you that the best
way to deter crime before it starts is to have a visible
presence of officers in the community. You do not have to take
my word for it. Let's ask police chiefs and sheriffs and county
executives and criminologists on whether the COPS program has
had an impact on the crime rate.
But I call this hearing for a second reason, and I am not
suggesting my reasons are shared by or the reason that my
friend from Iowa is here. He may or may not agree with me on
these. I am speaking only for myself. The second reason for
calling this hearing is that this Nation is now in a very
difficult time, engaged in a war against terrorism, and three
developments have made me greatly concerned about the potential
loss of valuable ground we have gained in our struggle against
crime, a fight we have been winning now for almost a decade.
First, I am very concerned that the administration may
propose, as rumor has it, the elimination of the COPS program
for the next budget cycle.
Secondly, the FBI, necessarily, at this moment, has
announced a massive and potentially permanent redeployment of
their agents away from street crime investigations, thereby
creating an enormous gap which State and local law enforcement
will now have to fill if that occurs. I am not criticizing
their judgment. They are now being redirected to counter-
terrorism. Unless we significantly beef up their capability,
which I happen to support, there is going to be the necessity
for them to pull away from bank robberies, auto thefts across
State lines, all the things they are involved in now relating
to local crime.
The third concern that I have is the economic downturn is
squeezing localities who will be forced to cut essential
services, and I predict the first among them to go will be law
enforcement personnel. They will have trouble finding the money
to maintain existing police, let alone being able to hire new
police to fill the gap left by the redeployed FBI agents.
So there are three very interesting things happening out
there, just as the crime rate has begun to get in the groove of
continuing to come down, just as we have begun to learn how to
walk and chew gum at the same time from a policy perspective.
What are we thinking about? We are thinking about cutting or
eliminating the very program that the Federal Government
provides local money to maintain cops and cop-related programs.
We are, necessarily and at least temporarily and possibly
permanently, redeploying the FBI and Federal agencies away from
local jurisdictional responsibilities they have taken on,
adding the burden to local police agencies.
Thirdly, a point I did not mention, the incredible drain of
local resources to help in the counter-terrorism fight, to aid
the FBI, has taken local law enforcement people off of the
local crime beat to deal with the more urgent, immediate
threat, and on top of it all, on top of all of this, we have a
budget crisis that is going to, mark my words, get more extreme
for every county executive, I say to my friend from Delaware,
to every mayor, to every governor. That is going to pinch
resources for maintaining even the present size of law
enforcement agencies.
Wouldn't it be ironic if our war on terrorism unwittingly
undercut the successful fight against crime in the United
States? Yet, some have, incredibly, actually suggested in the
administration that we raid the COPS program to pay for the war
on terrorism. We have to win both of these wars, and we are
winning both of these wars. Indeed, it is time, in my view, to
spend more money, not less money--more money, not less money--
on cops. Why penalize what has worked?
You know, it is sort of like cutting grass. We in
Government--and those of you in public service, police
officers--we get penalized for our successes. When, in fact,
things are going really bad, we can get all the money in the
world we need at certain junctures to hire more cops, take
certain actions, and act. Then, guess what? You all go out and
put your lives on the line. You organize in a way that you are
able to get it done. The crime rate actually drops. And what do
we say? Hey, we got it down. We can now stop funding it, or
fund it less.
Professor, I would, respectfully, suggest that it is like
cutting grass. I can cut my grass on a beautiful day in late
May, and it looks magnificent, but it would be somewhat stupid
of me then to turn around and say, ``My grass looks so good, I
am selling my lawn mower. I do not need it anymore.'' It is
literally like cutting grass. If you do not keep at it, the
crime rate will rise. It will rise again.
So where are we? Well, I have a proposal with 52 co-
sponsors we have not acted on yet--events internationally have
overtaken it--52 sponsors, as I introduced several months ago,
that funds enough money to hire 50,000 additional--more police
officers, including money for new technology so law enforcement
can have access to the highest-technology, crime-fighting
equipment to keep pace with today's sophisticated criminals,
and 52 of my colleagues have signed onto that.
When police officers, chiefs, sheriffs, and mayors come to
me today, as they did 7 years ago, and ask for a program to
help them grow and modernize their police departments, I got
all of them around my conference table, literally, not
figuratively, their representatives, and asked them what they
needed. It is time we did that again. It is time we listen to
law enforcement again. They want more flexibility in their
programs. They want more funds for school resource officers.
They want more capability.
I want to know where the administration is on COPS. I hope
the rumors are not true. I hope we can make community policing
a bipartisan issue, as it has been the last several years.
Sometimes I feel like my friends on the other side of the aisle
do not like COPS because it was not invented there. Well, a lot
of Republicans did invent it. A lot of Republicans supported
this being done. If that is the case, let's change the name of
it. Let's call it the Bush crime bill. Let's call it the
Republican crime bill. Let's call it whatever it takes to call
it, if that is part of the problem, to keep the bill going.
As a famous New York mayor put it over a half-a-century
ago, there is no Democratic way or Republican way to clean the
city streets. Likewise, there is no Democratic or Republican
way to clean our streets of crime. The COPS program has a track
record of success, and I say let's stick with it and expand it.
[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows.]
Statement of Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., A U.S. Senator from the State
of Delaware
I would like to welcome all of you to the first hearing of the new
Crime and Drug Subcommittee. It's been a long time since there has been
a subcommittee focused solely on these issues--I look forward to
working with Senator Grassley on this panel.
It is no accident that the inaugural hearing of this Subcommittee
is on ``Making America's Streets Safer: The Future of the COPS
Program.'' I have long maintained the view--one shared by most of our
witnesses today--that our commitment to put more cops on the street is
one of the most effective means of stopping crime before it can occur.
This afternoon's hearing is on the future of the COPS program--that
is the ``Communty Oriented Policing Services'' Program. We have a very
distinguished panel of witnesses here with us, and I am eager to hear
their testimony.
I called this hearing for two simple reasons:
First, I want to find out whether the COPS program has worked?
Let's examine COPS and hear from local officials, sheriffs, chiefs and
criminologists on their views of the program.
Seven years ago, we passed the Biden Crime Bill. 100,000 new cops.
More prisons. Smart prevention. These were part of the equation that I
thought would make our streets safer.
In creating the COPS program, I had two primary purposes in mind:
(1) to encourage police departments to make a fundamental and critical
shift in philosophy by embracing community policing; and (2) to deliver
needed dollars to our police departments so they could beef up their
forces.
There are some things we know about crime, I said at the time. We
know that if there are two street corners in the same city, one has a
cop standing on the corner and one does not have a cop, the chances of
a crime being committed where one has a cop is less than the one where
there is not a cop. This isn't rocket science. Cops prevent crime as
well as arrest perpetrators of crime.
And where are we, seven years later? Seventy three thousand new
police officers are out on patrol. Crime is down 22% from the date the
Crime Bill was signed. The percentage of cops who are community police
officers went from 4 to 21 percent in just the last three years.
And one of our witnesses today, a criminologist, will testify about
the results of the first comprehensive academic analysis of the COPS
program and its effect on crime in America. It was a 5 year study that
looked at 6,100 municipalities covering 145 million Americans. This
study--being released by the University of Nebraska--found
unequivocally that more cops on the street means ``significantly'' less
crime.
Specifically, the study found that for every dollar spent per
person in a city with a population of 100,000 resulted in decrease of
over 5 violent crimes and a decrease in almost 22 property crimes. And
the numbers are even higher for targeted COPS grants--a drop of 13
violent crimes and a drop in 45 property crimes.
Is the crime drop attributable solely to COPS? Certainly not. But
to think that this increased police presence has not made a difference
shows a complete lack of understanding about fighting crime. Any police
chief in the country will tell you that the best way to deter crime
before it starts is to have a visible presence of officers in the
community.
You don't have to take my word for it. Let's ask police chiefs and
sheriffs and county executives and criminologists on whether COPS has
had an impact on the crime rate.
But I called this hearing today for a second reason as well. This
nation is now in a difficult time, engaged in a war against terrorism.
And three developments have me greatly concerned about the potential to
loose valuable ground in our struggle against crime--a fight we've been
winning for almost a decade: (1) I am concerned that the Administration
may propose the elimination of the COPS program for the next budget
cycle; (2) the FBI has announced a massive, potentially permanent
``redeployment'' of their agents away from street crime investigations,
thereby creating an enormous ``gap'' which state and local law
enforcement will have to fill; and (3) the economic downturn is
squeezing localities, who will forced to cut essential services--
including law enforcement personnel. They will have trouble funding
their existing police, let alone being able to hire new ones to ``fill
the gap'' left by redeployed FBI agents.
Wouldn't it be ironic if our war on terrorism unwittingly undercut
our successful fight against crime? Yet some have--incredibly--actually
suggested that we raid the COPS fund to pay for the war on terrorism.
We must do both. Indeed, this is the time to spend MORE on the COPS
program, not less. Why penalize what has worked? It is sort of like
cutting the grass. . . .
The time to extend COPS, with full funding, is now. I introduced a
bill a few months ago that will send more funds out to police
departments--enough to hire up to 50,000 more cops. It includes money
for new technologies, so law enforcement can have access to the latest
high-tech crime fighting equipment to keep pace with today's
sophisticated criminals. Fifty two senators support this plan--It's
time to take action and reauthorize COPS.
When police officers, chiefs, sheriffs and mayors came to me seven
years ago and asked for a program to help them grow and modernize their
police departments, I got all of them around my conference table and
asked them what they needed. It's time to listen to law enforcement
again who want more flexibility in the program and more funds for
school resource officers. My bill provides these things.
I want to know where the Administration is on COPS. I hope the
rumors aren't true. I hope we can make community policing a bipartisan
issue. Sometimes I feel like my friends on the other side of the aisle
don't like COPS because they didn't think of it. If that's the case,
let's change the name, let's call it something else. I don't really
care who gets the credit for this program--I just don't want to see it
wither on the vine.
As a famous New York City mayor put it over a half century ago:
``there is no Democratic way or Republican way to clean the city's
streets.'' Likewise, there is no Democratic way or Republican way to
clear our streets of crime. COPS has a track record of success. I say
let's stick with what works.
With that, let me turn to Senator Grassley for any comments he may
have.
With that, let me turn to my colleague, Senator Grassley,
for any opening statement he may have, and then we will go to
our witnesses.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF IOWA
Senator Grassley. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this hearing and for my being able to serve with you as leaders
of this Subcommittee on crime.
I think if we look over the long haul of the COPS program
that it has had almost unanimous support in the Congress of the
United States. If there has been a difference between
Republicans and Democrats, at least later on, it has been that
Democrats tended to feel that the money ought to go more
directly to the hiring of people as police officers. Whereas,
Republicans have felt that maybe in this country that is so
geographically vast and our population is so heterogeneous,
that Washington does not always know exactly how every city,
even its police departments, should be helped. So we would, in
turn, have given much more discretion to State and local
governments and whether the money would be spent on personnel
or whether it would be spent on other things that local people
feel are necessary for law enforcement, but the amount of money
and the desire to help from the Federal level was backed by
both parties.
Before we dive too much into a discussion of the future of
this program--and I think the future division is still going to
be there for a great extent, as I just described it--I think we
should take a look at the program's past performance because by
analyzing the program's successes as well as flaws, we can
better discuss its future.
As I am sure representatives of law enforcement will
testify, the COPS program has played an essential role in
encouraging local police and sheriff departments to engage in
community policing. It is also helpful to many communities to
bridge the money gap until they could raise the funds to keep
the additional officers on the payroll without Federal
assistance. This has resulted in an increase in officers
engaged in community policing, larger than would have occurred
without the program.
Having said all that, we must also look at the program's
mistakes so that they can be corrected. The previous
administration created the COPS program with two goals, I
believe, that 100,000 officers would be put on the street and
that as a result violent crime rates would go down. Although
the COPS program did a number of good things, it did not
entirely succeed in accomplishing these goals or, maybe in the
case of one, even be totally responsible for that goal.
David Muhlhausen of The Heritage Foundation Center for Data
Analysis, who is here testifying, has consulted a study on the
effectiveness of the COPS program. His research indicates that
the COPS program did not single handedly cause the decrease in
violent crimes that we now enjoy, and I think the chairman made
inference to maybe that being not the total reason as well.
There were many factors that played a role in the recent
reduction of crime, not the least of which were social and
economic. The study by Mr. Muhlhausen also shows that the
national drop in crime began in 1991, a full 3 years before the
COPS program had come into existence.
When community policing is a part of a targeted approach to
fighting crime, it can have an impact on crime. Community
police, when deployed to areas of high-crime intensity during
hours in which violent crimes are most likely to occur, it has
had a significant effect on crime prevent. This type of
targeted approach was missing from the original COPS program.
As to the 100,000 new officers, the COPS program did not
deliver on this promise either. An August 2000 report of the
Office of Justice Programs, the ``National Evaluation of the
COPS Program'' as the title, found that the program would peak
at a maximum of 57,175 additional officers in the year 2001.
I have concerns about two additional problems with the
program. First, the program lacks the flexibility necessary to
adequately meet the needs of local law enforcement, and I have
expressed that that is a difference that has existed for
several years between the two parties, not every member of
every party being divided that way, but at least a major
difference.
Many rural localities would have benefitted, in my opinion,
from grants for training and equipment for their current
officers than they did from grants for brand-new officers.
Those at the local level really do know best about what works
in the fight against crime in their neighborhoods, and the
Federal Government should be helping, but not necessarily
dictating.
Second, the COPS program suffers from a serious lack of
oversight. The COPS office has failed to generate effective
internal controls which could have detected abuse, misuse, and
supplanting of COPS funds.
I have heard from Iowa sheriffs that the only follow-up
taken by the COPS office by grants received was a phone call
checking to see if these offices had freed up an officer to do
community policing. Because sheriffs for the most part are
honorable men--I know the ones I have talked to have been--they
tell the truth. However, they would not have been caught if
they had lied because no one at the COPS office was
corroborating proper application of the funds. As we now begin
to look at the future of the COPS program, I hope the
administration will shed some light on their plans for the
oversight of the reformed COPS program.
In spite of these faults with the program, it can still be
a useful tool in forming a Federal/local partnership for
fighting crime. The aim of the Federal grant program of that
nature should be to assist State and local law enforcement
agencies in carrying out their duties and responsibilities more
efficiently and more effectively. Merely adding additional
officer positions without the necessary equipment and training
is futile.
The ideal Federal assistance program should have a simple
application process and be flexible enough to address the
different needs of State and local departments across the
country, including hiring, retention, education and training,
communications equipment, computers, the purchase of safety
equipment and firearms, and the funding of outreach programs.
Local law enforcement knows their needs best. So the Federal
Government should be striving to meet the needs that they have
identified and not imposing some arbitrary program on them.
So I look forward to working with our chairman as we review
this program, as we consider what the administration might
suggest, and as I am even going to consider the legislation
that my friend, Senator Biden, has put in as a comprehensive
approach to seeing what we should do as we move on into the
next year.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Biden. Thank you, Senator.
I am pleased to welcome Viet Dihn to the Subcommittee. Mr.
Dihn, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Mr. Dinh. Yes, sir, it is.
Senator Grassley. I have Senator Hatch's statement.
Chairman Biden. Oh, please do, Senator.
Senator Grassley. I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Hatch has a statement to be put in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Hatch follows:]
Statement of Hon. Orrin G. Hatch, A U.S. Senator from the State of Utah
Mr. Chairman, I want to first thank you for your leadership on
criminal law and drug policy issues over the years. I have enjoyed
working with you and look forward to our continued partnership on so
many issues important to our communities. I also want to commend you
for this timely oversight of the Community Oriented Policing Services
(COPS) program. This program was initiated in 1994 as a 6 year, $9
billion effort with the stated goal of putting more police officers on
the streets. I understand that you have introduced a measure designed
to reauthorize and expand this program. I believe that before we take
that step, it is wise for us to first appraise the effectiveness of the
COPS program to date and determine whether we should continue in the
direction of providing additional police officers to the local
communities or whether different state and local governments may find
other means of assistance more useful and effective in addressing the
needs of their particular communities.
Like you, I believe that a federal-state partnership to help make
our neighborhoods safer is a wise public policy. I would also think
that such partnership should be functioning in a way that takes into
consideration the differing needs of states, cities, and towns that
almost certainly have differing crime statistics, economic situations,
and demographics, so that we can best help the communities we seek to
benefit. We have heard concerns that while a great many states have
received grants through the COPS program, the program may not be
operating in the most efficient or effective manner. Furthermore, I am
concerned that the current distribution of the grants is not being done
on an equitable basis, and I am particularly concerned about reports
that this year my home state of Utah has been seriously disadvantaged
under the present system.
Again, I want to thank you Mr. Chairman and Senator Grassley. This
is an important hearing, and I look forward to the testimony of our
witnesses today.
Chairman Biden. He is the Assistant Attorney General for
the Office of Legal Policy. He is a graduate, a magnum cum
laude graduate, from Harvard Law School, and went on to clerk
with Judge Lawrence Silverman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of
the D.C. Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor.
Mr. Dihn served as associate special counsel to the Senate
Whitewater Committee--there is a name from the past, and thank
God I do not hear that anymore--not you, sir--and as counsel to
Senator Pete Domenici in the impeachment trial before being
confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal
Policy.
Mr. Dihn was a professor of law and deputy director of
Asian Law and Policy Studies at Georgetown University Law
Center.
Mr. Dihn, welcome, and please proceed in any way you would
like.
STATEMENT OF VIET DINH, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, OFFICE OF
LEGAL POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Dinh. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking
Member. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. It is an
honor to be here.
And, Mr. Chairman, you are correct that, thank God, we are
winning both of these wars, the war against terrorism and the
war against crime. We would not be in the position where we are
today without your help and support, the support of Congress
with respect to our activities in combatting terrorism and your
support specifically, Mr. Chairman, and also with respect to
the war on crime.
I do not think that anybody would dispute that all of the
measures that have been effected within the past decade did not
contribute in some way to the current state of crime reduction
that we have today.
I am confident that we will continue to work together to
provide efficient and effective resources to our men and women
in blue in order to continue the progress of both of these
wars.
One thing that I have learned since coming to the
Department is the critical role that State and local law
enforcement authorities play in partnership with the Department
in carrying out our joint mission of protecting freedom through
the law. We value this partnership, but, more than that, we
need this partnership to discharge our responsibility to
protect America against future threats of terrorism and against
threats of common criminals.
I know that this Committee cares about our Federal
Government's relationship with State and local law enforcement
officers. The administration shares that concern and believes
that the Department of Justice must do all that we can to
ensure an effective partnership with State and local law
enforcement officers and their agencies. It is because of this
strong support that we believe it is important to provide
resources, such as those provided through the COPS program,
responsibly and effectively to our men and women in blue.
Since the inception of COPS in 1994, $8.6 billion has been
used through COPS grants to add officers to our streets,
enhance technologies, support crime prevention, and advance
community policing. All of these efforts have been undertaken
with the objective of creating and maintaining an effective
partnership with State and local law enforcement. Like you, the
Department recognizes the benefits to be derived from a Federal
partnership with local law enforcement and strongly advocates
community policing.
It is not enough, however, simply to put a dollar amount or
a certain number of officers on the street. Rather, the
challenge is to provide resources to State and local law
enforcement agencies in a fiscally responsible way, so as to
address the most pressing needs of law enforcement and to
maximize the results. This is our overriding objective for the
COPS program.
As you know, the President, through his budget proposals,
has indicated a shift of funding priorities from the previous
administration for COPS. This shift is one away from federally
funded hiring of officers and toward the provision of adequate
equipment and technology to State and local law enforcement
agencies, which agencies consistently cite technology as one of
their most critical needs, but let me repeat, the objective
remains the same. We want to create, maintain, and cement an
effective partnership with State and local law enforcement
through programs like COPS.
Particularly, in this new war on terrorism, it has been
demonstrated that having up-to-date technology is crucial for
the successful investigation and sharing information that is
desperately needed among law enforcement agencies at all
levels.
Technology is the key to successful law enforcement, and
the proper equipment enhances the efficiency, effectiveness,
and, most importantly, from my and the Department's
perspective, the safety of officers on the streets.
Consistent with the goals of COPS, the provision of
technologies that offer police departments more efficiency
leads to officers spending more time away from their desk or at
the station house and actually being on the street.
We seek to shift resources to provide the flexibility to
police departments that was missing in the initial hiring
grants available through COPS in this funding priority shift.
In addition to the clear need to shift our resources to
where they will be most useful, I must be honest and
acknowledge that the grants provided through COPS for hiring
additional officers have not been as effective as we had hoped
and, indeed, have been difficult to monitor, as the Ranking
Member has highlighted. The COPS program has provided
significant resources in the past, but with well-documented
flaws that were identified, for example, in the 1999 Inspector
General's audit report of COPS and also earlier in the GAO
report.
The President and the Department do not believe anyone
supports the use of COPS dollars for inappropriate activities.
While such abuses have occurred in a very small fraction of the
total COPS grants awarded, the Department and COPS office are,
and have been, striving to prevent future abuses. Our focus is
to improve these programs, to support community policing. We
are committed to making COPS a more effective grant-making
organization.
As new problems confront law enforcement in our country,
COPS will be an intricate part of combatting these problems.
The Department remains committed to community policing and
looks forward to continued success in our fight against crime,
a fight in which COPS is clearly a part.
As you know, the Attorney General designated Mr. Carl Peed
to head the COPS office earlier this year, in early September I
believe, and he has a strong background in State and local law
enforcement. We think that Mr. Peed will bring the right
emphasis to the program, and I have previously submitted a more
lengthy written statement which I ask to be submitted to the
record, but in the interest of time, I will be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dinh follows.]
Statement of Viet Dinh, Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy,
Department of Justice
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. It is an honor.
Chairman Biden, the Administration and the Department acknowledge and
appreciate your continued friendship with and support of state and
local law enforcement. We value your efforts in this area. The
Department was pleased to work with you, and to support, your amendment
to S. 1, the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, which
reauthorized school resource officers as part of the COPS Program I am
confident that we will continue to work together to provide efficient
and effective resources to our men and women in blue.
One thing I have learned since coming to the Department is the
critical role state and local law enforcement authorities play in
partnership with the Department in carrying out our joint mission of
protecting freedom through law. The bonds of this partnership have been
strengthened in our common endeavor to protect the safety and security
of Americans against the current threat of terror. In this war, the
Department depends on the 18,000 state and local police agencies to
help us prevent future attacks. We value this partnership, but more
than that, we need this partnership to fully discharge our
responsibility to protect America against future threats. The COPS
office is one very tangible way the Department has maintained its
partnership with state and local law enforcement agencies by assisting
those agencies in their policing efforts.
I know that you have scheduled this hearing because the members of
this Committee care about our federal government's relationship with
state and local law enforcement officers. The President and the
Attorney General share that concern and believe that the Department of
Justice must do all it can to ensure an effective partnership with the
state and local law enforcement officers who protect us on the front
lines within the United States. It is because of the Department's
strong support for the men and women in blue that we believe it is
important to provide resources, such as those provided through the COPS
program, responsibly and efficiently.
Since the inception of COPS in 1994, $8.6 billion has been used
through COPS grants to add officers to our streets, enhance technology,
support crime prevention, and advance community policing. All of these
efforts have been undertaken with the objective of creating and
maintaining an effective partnership with state and local law
enforcement. Like you, the Department recognizes the benefits to be
derived from a federal partnership with local law enforcement, and
strongly advocates community policing. Community policing disrupts,
displaces and ultimately prevents street crime. The Department and the
Administration are committed to a beneficial local/federal law
enforcement partnership, but it is not enough to simply put a dollar
amount or a certain number of officers on the street as evidence of our
commitment. Rather, the challenge is to provide resources to state and
local law enforcement in a fiscally responsible way so as to address
the most pressing needs of law enforcement and to maximize the results.
This requires a willingness to improve grant programs like those
provided through COPS, to ensure that limited funds are well spent and
provided in the most effective and useful way to those local agencies
that need assistance.
The President, through his budget proposals, has indicated a shift
of priorities from the previous Administration. This shift is one away
from federally funded hiring of officers and toward the provision of
adequate equipment and technology to state and local law enforcement
agencies which often go without necessary law enforcement technology.
In fact, law enforcement agencies consistently cite technology as one
of their most critical needs. Particularly in this new war on
terrorism, it has been demonstrated that having up-to-date technology
is crucial for successful investigations and for the information
sharing that is desperately needed among law enforcement agencies at
all levels. The partnership between the Department of Justice and state
and local law enforcement is of the highest importance in our war on
terrorism, in which these local officers are on the front lines every
day. We rely on state and local agencies and thus, must be committed to
using our resources in the most efficient manner to support them.
Technology is the key to successful law enforcement.
In addition, investigations require current equipment and
technologies, comparable to the very equipment and technologies to
which terrorists and other criminals have access. Information sharing
among law enforcement agencies is incomplete if agencies lack the
'necessary equipment and technology to record, store, and retrieve such
information. For example, state and local law enforcement agencies must
have adequate equipment to fully use existing federal resources such as
RISS, the Regional Information Sharing System. And, consistent with the
goals of COPS, the provision of technologies that offer police
departments more efficiency leads to officers spending more time on the
streets and less time in the office. Unfortunately, recent
appropriations for COPS have extensively earmarked our technology
assistance funds, removing much of our flexibility for working with
state and local law enforcement agencies.
Although this shift from hiring to technology was made prior to
September 11th, the events of that day only reinforce the
need for this shift in priorities. .Having already well exceeded the
previous Administration's goal of funding an additional 100,000
officers on the street, we need not set new artificial goals in terms
of the number of officers. Instead, we seek to shift resources while
retaining the availability of hiring grants that will provide the
flexibility to police departments that was missing in the initial
hiring grants available through COPS. I also would like to note that
COPS continues to pursue a strong training and technical assistance
program in support of community policing.
In addition to the clear need to shift our resources to where they
will be most useful, it must also be recognized that the grants
provided through COPS for hiring additional officers have not been as
effective as hoped, and have indeed been difficult to monitor. The COPS
program has provided significant resources in the past, but with well-
documented flaws that were identified in the 1999 Inspector Generals
Audit Report of COPS. The President and the Department do not believe
anyone supports continued use of COPS dollars for inappropriate
activities. While such abuses have occurred in a very small fraction of
the total COPS grants awarded, the Department and the COPS Office are
striving to prevent any future abuses. Our focus is to improve these
programs to support the community policing purpose of COPS. We are
committed to making COPS a more effective grant-making organization.
It should be recognized that the grants provided through COPS have
been difficult to monitor. However, in response to the critical report
issued by the Inspector General, the COPS Office has implemented a
comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to monitor more than 32,700
grants. This approach includes annual progress reports submitted by
grantees and more intensive monitoring of high-risk grantees, including
Inspector General audits of those grantees. The COPS Office thoroughly
investigates all allegations of grant misuse which come to their
attention through the media, citizen complaints, union or officer
complaints and grantees themselves. The Office also conducts site
visits and desk reviews. By focusing grant funds on local law
enforcement needs and monitoring grants after they have been awarded,
the Department believes the COPS program will be able to provide even
better support to local law enforcement agencies.
Just as we are accountable to this Committee and the American
people for the responsible administration of COPS, we must demand that
these grant programs be accountable to the men and women in blue, whom
these programs are intended to support. The Department seeks to improve
the COPS grant programs by making them more user friendly, effective,
and accountable for any failings. We want to see progress as a result
of the dollars spent and we need to see police departments provided the
resources they actually need. In short, the Department is committed to
improving the COPS Program, not maintaining the status quo.
When the Attorney General appointed Carl Peed as the Director of
COPS, he clearly demonstrated his commitment to the COPS program as
part of a larger commitment to responsibly providing assistance to
police departments. This is a commitment the President shares
wholeheartedly. Carl Peed has been involved in state and local law
enforcement for nearly 30 years and brings with him the experience and
perspective necessary to provide law enforcement agencies with the best
resources. The Department has complete confidence in Director Peed's
ability to carry out these policies through effective and flexible
programs.
As new problems confront law enforcement in our country, COPS will
be an intricate part of combating these problems. The Department
remains committed to community policing and looks forward to continued
success in our fight against crime, a fight in which COPS is clearly a
part.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to be here today and would
be happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Biden. Without objection, the entire statement
will be placed in the record. Thank you for your testimony.
Let me ask you. Are you talking about spending the same
amount of total dollars, just allocating them differently to
local law enforcement?
Mr. Dinh. As you know, Mr. Chairman, the President's budget
request in fiscal year 02 differ from that which Congress
appropriated to the COPS program in fiscal year 02. So there
are two sets of different numbers from which your question may
be derived upon.
At this point, we are still in the budgeting process within
the executive branch, and we still continue conversations
between the Department of Justice and the Office of Management
and Budget. The discussions are sufficiently preliminary or not
sufficiently final that I am not confident enough to give you a
definitive answer to that question.
Chairman Biden. Thank you. Now, in light of your--
Senator Grassley. Well, you ought to be able to tell us
what the Department has requested of the Office of Management
and Budget for the program. You may be negotiating with them on
a final figure, but what are you requesting compared to, well,
along the lines of his question?
Mr. Dinh. I think my answer will have to be the same. The
process is continuing. We are formally in those numbers in a
joint effort, and it would not be appropriate for me to--
Senator Grassley. So you were told not to tell us.
Mr. Dinh. Like any--
Chairman Biden. In other words, it is less.
Mr. Dinh. No. Like any deliberations within the executive
branch, even on budgeting issues, I think we would like to have
those deliberations in a concerted manner before we present
them to you or to the public.
Chairman Biden. I thank you for your try, Senator.
Since I left the chairmanship of this full Committee, I
have been chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Are you
sure you are not with the State Department? It sounds like a
State Department answer. I am used to the cops being straight,
not that you are not straight, but I mean in giving very frank
answers.
So my first question is, A, are you going to spend as many
total dollars and we are going to find that out, B, you are
going to change the nature of your assistance to local law
enforcement, and you are putting great emphasis on technology
and supporting community policing both. Correct?
Mr. Dinh. We are supporting community policing, yes, and
police agencies through a myriad of programs, but specifically
for COPS, we are putting our emphasis on providing technologies
to the police agencies consistent with the fiscal year 02
budget request that the President sent up.
Chairman Biden. Are there any of the programs that you
would, if you are able to or so inclined, list as Federal
assistance to local enforcement? Are there any of those
programs that, in fact, condition their support on the
maintenance of a community policing operation at the local
level?
Mr. Dinh. I do not know the specifics of the condition in
authorizing language of the specific programs, but let me make
it clear. We believe in community policing. I, myself, believe
in community policing, and we will do everything through the
COPS program and through other programs of the Department of
Justice to not only help State and local law enforcement
agencies, but to press as much as possible to support community
policing. Whether or not it is through a conditionality of
funding or through other proactive efforts, I cannot speak to
in specific.
Chairman Biden. Are you aware that community policing costs
the locality more money than when they do not have community
policing? Are you aware of that?
Mr. Dinh. No, sir, I am not.
Chairman Biden. I assure you, it is true, and the reason it
is true is you have to take police and put them out on the
street. It requires you to cover more territory in addition to
covering what you have in-house.
The reason, I might add, if you would take a piece of
unsolicited advice or information--
Mr. Dinh. I am taking notes, sir.
Chairman Biden. The reason why I wrote the community
policing requirement into the law, as many of the chiefs here
will tell you, sheriffs and executives will tell you, local
police agencies did not want to go to community policing, and
the reason they did not want to go to community policing was,
first of all, it was a method that was still being debated. I
am not trying to be solicitous. Not everyone was where Colonel
Gordon was at the time, who had already moved that way. A lot
of folks thought it is not the best way, that you do not get
the biggest bang for the buck by having community policing.
But, secondly, it costs more money to do it, and it
required more people. So what I found was unless we tied in the
requirement that in order to get a cop, your whole department
has to be into community policing, we would have never
transformed the country as radically as the police agencies did
by going from, I think, 2 or 3 or 4 percent of all police
departments in the Nation being in community policing to a
multiple of 10 to 12 times that greater impact, and that is the
reason we did it, but I am sure in your deliberations you will
take a look at that and make that judgment on your own.
A third question I have, and not attempting to be
confrontational here, if you give direct grants to the mayors,
county executives, governors, local officials for technology
alone and not the police hiring part of it, do you believe or
have any reason to believe that they will maintain the size of
their police forces as they exist?
Mr. Dinh. Senator, that is a very good question, and I
thank you also for your advice and observation. The two, I
think, go hand in hand.
I think it is undoubted that more police officers on the
street deter more crime, and, therefore, it would have a lessen
of social cost to the local communities and our overall
society.
Where we sit right now at this stage is that, having met
the funding priorities of putting the targeted numbers of
police positions and officer positions on the street, how then
do we best get the bang for our buck in this investment? Do we
try to give the police officers the tools that they need now
that they are on the street in order to increase their
efficiency, effectiveness, and their safety, or do we continue
funding more officers? That is the core of our deliberations.
These are the conversations and the consultations that this
process is in.
With respect to the maintenance of the strength in force of
existing State and local agencies, I know that maintenance of
the officer positions, those funded by the COPS program was a
subject that is of inquiry and interest to the GAO report and
also to the Inspector General. I do not have any definitive
conclusions as to where we are on that as a sociological and
management matter for the State and local agencies, but I can
say this. Whatever happens to the grants or additional grants
or no grants in the future, those that are in the pipeline,
that is, those that have been granted, will not be affected.
The officer positions that are currently being funded by COPS
are based on grants that have 3-year commitments, except, of
course, of the MORE program, 3-year commitments which
commitments were funded at the year of the award. So whatever
transition there may be, existing officer positions will not be
affected in that transition.
Chairman Biden. Are you aware of--and this is not an exam
here.
Mr. Dinh. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Biden. Obviously, from your resume, you do
incredibly well on exams. Are you aware of the number of
requests that have come in from localities this year that
have--
Mr. Dinh. Yes, sir. I am. We have outstanding
solicitations, not specifically for fiscal year 02, but for the
COPS in School program, we have 1,191 pending applications for
the universal hiring program. We have 1,950 pending
applications and approximately 2,000 departments on a COPS
waiting list should we come out with another solicitation in
fiscal year 02, and we have 1,220 pending applications in the
MORE program. Based upon the availability of funds and the
pending applications, we may come out with a further
solicitation for fiscal year 02 in COPS.
Chairman Biden. Lastly, since my time is up in this round,
if, in fact, the increase in monies for technology resulted--if
it did--resulted in fewer total number of police officers on
the street locally, would you consider your program a success,
or does it need to be--you made the statement, your objective
now--I might note, parenthetically, my COPS-2 bill provides for
over a third of a billion dollars for technology assistance,
but direct technology assistance, and $600 million for COPS
allows them to maintain existing cops. It provides the
flexibility to take the cops they already have on under the
COPS program and extend the men overtime hours, but that is a
different issue.
You indicated that cops on the street matter, and now you
want to give them the tools, additional, more modern tools to
deal with crime on the street, the technology grants. Would
your purpose be met if there were a significant reduction in
the total number of cops on the street, not withstanding the
fact that you had technology grants?
Mr. Dinh. Sir, that is a great hypothetical, and I take it
in the spirit that this is not an exam, but your question--
Chairman Biden. With the permission of my colleague, if I
can go over just a minute, I really am not playing a game with
you. Maybe I have been here too long. I got here in 1973 as a
local official who had moved to vastly expand the police
department in the jurisdiction which I was a local official,
the county. We had a thing called the LEAA program, which
sounds vaguely similar to your philosophy, which was lets give
the local guys what they need and what they say they need, and
since we do not know what it is, we will do that.
Secondly, we said we had a lot of programs that when I
became a Senator that I helped pass and draft that gave money
to governors and mayors for law enforcement purposes, and we
found two things. I think knowing how schooled you are on the
academic side of this question, you will go back and be able to
check it out. Two things happened. We found with the additional
monies prior to 1994 we gave for law enforcement, local
officials decided that it was a lot easier to hire, with
Federal money, public defenders and pay for judges' salaries
with the money and not hire cops because they did not want to
be responsible for hiring public defenders because they knew
they were susceptible to criticism. ``You took my tax dollar.
The guy I am running against took my tax dollar and hired those
public defenders to hire to defend those criminals.'' So they
took the Federal money that was meant for COPS, and they hired
public defenders. They took the Federal money that was intended
for COPS, and they made--it was law enforcement-related--put up
traffic lights. They did everything but hire cops because,
guess what, county executives mostly, governors mostly, and
mayors mostly are just like CEOs. They do not want to hire
people because when they hire people they have to pay pensions.
They have other costs that are attached to it. So, when you
give them money, guess what? They will do everything but what
the money was intended for, to hire cops.
If you go back and look at the criticism in the LEAA
program, the criticism was it was not spent, and I was a local
official in with this. We used to sit in a county council
meeting. My colleague will appreciate this. We used to have an
executive meeting where, before the open meeting, the
councilmen would all sit down in a room and go over the agenda,
and the president of the council would say, ``Well, we have
this new program,'' and I would say, as a 27-year-old kid,
``Well, how much will it cost?'' The following response would
come, and it was a Republican county executive. It would have
come from a Democratic county executive, the following phrase,
and you have heard it in your earlier career, ``Oh, it is
Federal money.''
Senator Grassley. Yes, it is free.
Chairman Biden. It is free. Seriously, it is not a joke. It
is Federal money.
And do you know what we found out with the LEAA program
when we gave the local officials total discretion on meeting
their needs? They laid off in my community 10 or 12 percent of
the local fire department, 10 or 12 percent of the local police
department, and then they took the Federal money for COPS and
rehired those people with the Federal dollars. They went back
to their constituents and said, ``We did not raise your taxes.
Those big spenders in Washington did, and by the way, we have
not reduced your services,'' but they did not add a single cop,
did not put one additional uniform on the street in many of
these locations. So I hope when you are looking at this, you
will look at the record.
I will end by saying there was one of my favorite poets,
who you may like as well, actually more of an essayist, Ralph
Waldo Emerson. He once said, ``Society is like a wave. The wave
moves on, but the particles remain the same.'' I promise you,
you give total flexibility, I am willing to bet you my career
there will be significantly fewer people with a badge working
for local officials in the United States of America.
At any rate, having said that, let me yield to my
colleague.
Senator Grassley. My response to that was the first
sentence of my opening statement.
Chairman Biden. I know that.
Senator Grassley. So I will not respond further.
I want to make an assertion and then ask you if it is
valid. It seems to me that setting up the COPS office under the
purview of the Office of Justice Programs would have been
logical and consistent with other grant programs administered
by the Justice Department to aid State and local law
enforcement agencies. It would have eliminated duplicative
bureaucracy and made more sense in terms of accountability and
information-sharing, shielding the COPS office from OJP
oversight and establish administer procedures and policies,
make it appear that the office functions at the pleasure of the
Deputy Attorney General and the administration without
traditional program accountability. And you heard in my opening
statement my concern about accountability.
Mr. Dinh. Senator, thank you. I cannot answer that question
with a simple yes or no. If you permit me one or two sentences,
you know the 1994 Crime Act gave the Attorney General the
flexibility of using existing components or establishing new
components in order to house the COPS program. The Attorney
General chose to establish a freestanding office, the COPS
office, that is outside of the Office of Justice Programs and
outside the purview of Deborah Daniels, the Assistant Attorney
General for Justice Programs.
I think that reflects the priority that the community
policing had in the previous administration, a priority that
obviously as I in my statement said we shared. So keeping it a
freestanding office outside of the Office of Justice Programs
has that symbolic and some other practical effects of
maintaining an autonomous, if you will, semi-autonomous program
from the Office of Justice Programs.
By the same token, by your premise, I think everyone
recognizes that the COPS program and the Office of Justice
Programs served many of the same functions of grant-making. For
example, actually, the two offices shared a joint financial
system for disbursement of the grants, and some of the line
items that go under community-oriented policing services are
actually administered by the Office of Justice Programs. So
there is an operational recognition that the overlap can be
eliminated with the Office of Justice Programs.
With respect to where we go from there, because I expect
that will be your next question, if not the chairman's next
question--
Senator Grassley. That is my next question.
Mr. Dinh. Where we go from there--
Senator Grassley. I hope you would agree that whether you
have a separate program, a new one established, or use OJP, you
still got the same American tax dollars, and we ought to have
the same certainty of accountability.
Mr. Dinh. No question, Senator, and this goes back to
answering the chairman's last remarks regarding accountability.
That is the overriding objective of our reorganization plan,
the Department of Justice reorganization plan, and our 5-year
strategic management plan that the Attorney General unveiled on
November 8th, and that is to make the grant-making programs
more accountable and to direct the monies where they are best
used and to make the money count and work toward our
objectives. So, wherever they are, they will have to be subject
to the same level of accountability. The accountability within
the OJP program may make some more sense. The autonomy of the
program for operational reasons may also make sense. These are
the questions that we are evaluating as we finalize the
Attorney General's reorganization plan pursuant to his
strategic management plan that we announced on November 8th.
Senator Grassley. Well, then following along in the same
vein, and this will be my last question, but it is a little
more specific, I refer to the Office of Inspector General's
July 1999 report called ``Management and Administration of the
Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program.'' The
Inspector General gave several examples of instances where
recipients of COPS grants engaged in supplanting. You know what
that is.
The report includes examples of how grant recipients would
engage in supplanting such as, one, when a department with a
vacant position at the start of a grant period or at any time
thereafter hires no new officers other than COPS grant-funded
hires or, two, when no timely hiring other than COPS grant-
funded hiring is done by the department to replace vacancies
created by attrition existing at or beginning at the--or after
the beginning of the grant program and, lastly, when the grant
funds are used to replace or to allow the reallocation of funds
already committed in the local budget for law enforcement
purposes.
So what actions have been taken or what do you anticipate
taking to address these problems, and what further
accountability measures will the COPS office be implementing to
prevent abuses like this, if you consider them abuses? And I
do, at least to the intent of the law.
Mr. Dinh. Yes, sir, they are abuses because they are in
contravention of the original mandate of the 1994 act which
requires that COPS grants be used to augment and not to replace
existing personnel. So we take those obligations very seriously
at the Department to follow the letter and the spirit of the
law, but, more importantly, just as a good management and good
housekeeping matter, we want to know that the money that we
send out in our grant program actually goes to the objective
that we set up for that grant program.
After the 1999 report, I understand that the COPS program
instituted a number of review procedures that I have outlined
in more specific details in my opening statement. I think they
are a first good step, but as I said, we are looking at not
just the COPS program, but all of our grant-making programs
with the overriding goal of meeting one of the key objectives,
one of the eight objectives of the strategic management plan,
which is to ensure that our grant-making programs are efficient
and effective in carrying out the objectives of the grants as
set forth by the Congress and as envisioned by the
administration where there is discretion.
Senator Grassley. I thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to leave because I have got to go
to a meeting of the stimulus package conference.
Chairman Biden. I would like you to take care of that so we
can have a Christmas. If you would go ahead and do that, I
would appreciate it. I appreciate the chairman of the Finance
Committee--the Ranking Member now of the Finance Committee has
probably the fullest plate of anybody here, and I appreciate
you being here.
As my friend is packing up to leave to take care of the
stimulus package, I would say if he thinks he has seen
supplanting now, he ain't seen nothing yet. If you go over the
COPS program without it mandated by law to be spent on cops,
you ain't seen nothing yet.
I will submit for the record, without taking the time of
the Committee, what I believe to be the legitimate critique of
the GAO report in terms of their criticism of the COPS program,
which I think has been taken out of context.
Now let me ask you a question, and maybe my problem has
been I have been hanging around cops so long now, I am
beginning to think like one, I think.
Mr. Dinh. That is not a problem. It is a bonus.
Chairman Biden. Well, it is a problem in the sense that I
think the difference between--maybe not the difference. I
think--well, let me just speak for myself, and I am being
serious. I think I think like a cop in the sense that they look
through all of the regulations and all of the minutia of what
we tell them and all of the theory, and they want to know--and
they do know from their experience--certain practical things
that work.
For example, if you do not have the COPS program sitting
out there separately, it ain't going to get the same attention.
They know if you are hired by the chief to be his or her
primary assistant and you get an office in another building,
you may have the title, but you ain't going to have any impact.
They know the person who is most going to impact on what their
decisions are as the person who is in the office next door
because that is the way crises work. A crisis works and you
turn and say, ``Charlie, what do you think,'' and if Charlie is
two buildings away. They could make good State Department
people. That is why they know National Security Advisors tend
to become more influential with Presidents than Secretaries of
State because they are in a different building, because that is
not the way human nature works. Human nature works, you deal
with the crisis at the moment. At that second, you turn to the
person who is there, and that is how they think and I think
they are right.
The reason I say that, that is the reason we modeled this
COPS program the way we did, and when I say ``we''--I do not
want to blame anybody else--me and the cops. The reason we did
is we found out that where you are in line, where you sit
determines what you get. This is the first program ever that I
am aware of, you could apply directly as a cop. The department
could apply. You got to get signed off by your immediate boss,
but it does not have to go through the State legislature. It
does not have to go through anybody. It does not go to the
Governor. It can go as a one-page application, bang, you are
getting the deal.
So one of the questions I have for you relates to the
redeployment issue, and I will let you go after this question.
This morning's Washington Post ran an interesting article
entitled the ``FBI's Focus on Terrorism Sidelines Other
Categories of Crime.'' It notes that with thousands of FBI
agents concentrating on terrorism, the FBI's field offices have
put aside a wide array of other matters such as undercover drug
investigations, pursuit of nonviolent fugitives, and the mix of
cases involving white-collar crime. The Post notes, ``The FBI
has been forced to rely on State and local police departments
and other Federal law enforcement agencies to fill the gaps
creates by the massive redeployment of FBI agents after the
September 11th terrorist attack in New York City and
Washington. FBI agents and Federal prosecutors said that the
FBI continues to transform itself into more of a counter-
terrorism organization. Those agencies, i.e., State and local
departments, will be asked to take on added responsibilities
for drug enforcement and investigations of street crime.
Moreover, Director Mueller has acknowledged this shift in
focus. Just this week, he stated that some non-terror cases
have been set aside, and the Bureau will decide soon whether to
permanently pass off investigations to State and locals,
including drug probes, bank robberies, and other forms of
street crime, the very ones which State and local will be
called upon to handle. Director Mueller stated, 'Are there
areas where we will be doing less, and if so, who will take up
the slack? When you don't do something, you have to fill the
gap.' Filling the gap''--and this is a very new reality--
``Filling the gap left by redeployment of Federal agents on the
war on terrorism is going to be filled by local law enforcement
officials.''
So that we will, I am confident, fight over--in my view, it
will be the most important fight I engage in next year--whether
or not we have a COPS program and how big it is and whether it
is cut, but we are also going to have a fight over--hopefully,
we will not have a fight over it--total allocation of
resources.
Does the Department acknowledge that if we did not change a
single thing other than the redeployment of FBI agents away
from street crimes that there is going to be more of a burden
placed upon local law enforcement agencies next year than there
was last year?
Mr. Dinh. Mr. Chairman, short answer, yes, but let me
amplify that in one sentence. We all know that September 11th
was a wake-up call to America and law enforcement agencies,
Federal, State, and local, have bore the brunt of the burden of
that response. The FBI, as you noted, and the entire Department
of Justice has shifted its priority to where our overriding
objective now is to prevent and disrupt terrorist activities,
so that the threat of a same catastrophic event will not happen
again.
Our partners in State and local government have been
essential in this fight. We have a force multiplier of 18,000
State and local agencies that we have called upon during this
fight, and they have answered that call very, very quickly and
very valiantly and very usefully. We will continue to call upon
them in the fight against terrorism.
At the same time, we recognize that, obviously, resources
are limited, but crime does not stop. So we will be focusing
these efforts at working with our State and local partners,
talking with the men and women in blue through organizations
like the Fraternal Order of Police so that we can continue to
not only redeploy our cases, but also redeploy the resources to
where they are most needed in order to jointly fight crime and
fight terrorism.
Chairman Biden. Well, I hope--and I know you cannot
answer--you can, you are capable of, but you are not in the
position to be able to answer some of these questions. I hope
your Department will have made, and has made, a study of the
additional cost, out-of-pocket cost to local budgets of
assisting you and me at the Federal level in that fight on
terrorism, just that alone, nothing else, not even picking up
the additional street crime requirements that they are going to
have to pick up, just the mere cost in overtime, not just in
New York City and Los Angeles and Houston. Every time, God
bless him, the Attorney General comes out with an unspecific
alert and it is debatable and arguable whether it should or
should not be done--and I recognize there is not clear-cut
answer, but every time that happens, our police departments all
across the country go on overtime. They go on alert. More
people stay out. It drains the budgets.
Now, they are not complaining. They are not saying we are
not Americans and we should not do that, but I sure hope that
you all recognize when you are doing your total calculation
here that they are going into debt. With the economy changing
as drastically as it is, unemployment increasing, lower tax
revenues forecasted, they are in addition being asked to pick
up, which they are willing to do, a Federal responsibility--a
Federal responsibility--at the very time, it seems to me--
My mom has an expression, God love her. When I would say,
``Can I go down and hang out''--I came from a little town
called Claymont--``down on the corner by Buffington's with the
guys?,'' she would say, ``No. You are going to get in trouble
down there. Those guys are trouble.'' I said, ``Mom, I will not
get into trouble,'' and she said, ``Joey, if it looks like a
duck and it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, it is
probably a duck.'' I kind of new what she meant. It did not
matter whether I got in trouble or not. If I was standing down
on the corner with the guys getting in trouble, I would be
perceived to be in trouble. So, when the cops ousted us, I
would be with them. It would not matter.
Well, I may be wrong, but I think I see a duck in you guys,
a duck in administrative clothing which says that, ``Hey, we
really want to help these guys, but, you know, I cannot tell
you whether we are going to have a total amount of more money
for law enforcement for them.'' I am willing to bet you your
job and mine, my job versus yours--and I am up for reelection--
I will bet you somehow you come out with the total number to
assist local enforcement that is less than the total number for
last year. I will make you a bet. I will make you a bet. And if
that is true, it kind of looks like a duck to me because they
are already hurting, their budgets are being crunched. They are
being asked to do now Federal requirements. They have
jurisdiction to do them, but they are basically a Federal
responsibility like street crime is basically a local
responsibility. Terrorism is basically a Federal
responsibility. Less input in drug efforts, less input on a lot
of things, and then I am going to be very interested to see
whether you come along and say we recognize that.
So, even though we are jiggering this COPS program, which I
hope you do not do, but I know you will, instead of spending
one dollar next year like we did last year, we are going to
spend $1.47 because we realize the added expense. My guess is
you are going to spend 87 cents, but I hope I am wrong. I am
sure we will get a chance to have this again once the review is
done, and I invite you to make any closing comments you would
like to make because I do not want to end it by my having
painted a picture that you might not want to be associated
with.
Mr. Dinh. No, sir. I do appreciate the fact that we all
recognize that we are living in a world of limited resources,
and resources have been much more limited since March of this
year--or actually since last week when everybody says we have
been in recession since March of this year. So I think that the
question as to how we deploy those resources will be a critical
one as we go through this budgeting process and also the manner
through which we assist our State and local partners will be
one that we are currently deliberating and I am sure we will
have a chance to visit again on that matter.
One thing I would like to say is to thank you for your
continuing leadership in these matters and in the fight against
terrorism, and we look forward to working with you in this
process and in the future.
Chairman Biden. Well, I look forward to working with you,
and I know these are going to be hard calls. That is why I am
not pressing you too hard today, but as your colleagues--on the
political side of this equation in the Justice Department, that
is good, not bad. I am not being critical about that--make the
case to you that we should spend less, remind them that these
are the guys who spend a whole life talking about unfunded
mandates. We basically have, necessarily, an unfunded mandate
going on out there, and that is, everyone from the New Castle
County Police Department to the State Police, of the sheriffs
in Virginia to the State police in Montana, we are saying to
them help us fight terrorism, help us deal with borders, help
us deal with a thousand other things, which are Federal
responsibilities. I hope we recognize we have to help them out.
At any rate, thank you very much. I appreciate it. I will
submit some questions in writing, with your permission, in the
next week or two, and if you are able to respond, I would
appreciate it.
Mr. Dinh. Thank you, sir. I will do it before Christmas.
Chairman Biden. Thanks an awful lot. I do not want to slow
up. If you do not have them done by Christmas, wait until New
Year's. I do not want to ruin your Christmas.
Mr. Dinh. Thank you.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much.
The next panel are a group of very distinguished local
officials who have had some national reach. The first is, I
have to admit to you, one of my good friends and closest
allies, but, most importantly, a close personal friend for over
30 years, Thomas P. Gordon, the County Executive of New Castle
County in the State of Delaware.
Tom, why don't you come up and sit in the middle there or
wherever they put your name down.
Tom spent more than two decades in New Castle County Police
Department, including 7 years as chief. He brought it through a
transition period that was literally astounding. It is
recognized as--and I realize I am parochial--one of the finest
police agencies in the country and clearly one of the finest
county police agencies in the country. During his tenure as
police chief, he made New Castle County Police Department into
this nationally recognized model for community policing.
By my count, New Castle County has received over 60
officers through the COPS program, and crime is down by one-
third since 1996 in the county, thanks much to the tutelage of
their then-chief who was then handed over to a woman sitting
behind the county executive who succeeded him as chief of that
department and continued the same exact tenure with the same
results.
Next, we will hear from Colonel Lonnie Westphal, chief of
the Colorado State Patrol. Colonel Westphal is the fifth vice
president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
I am told your president is currently a night law student. I
wish him the best of law in his exams, which I understand
precluded his attendance here today.
Colonel Westphal became chief of the Colorado State Police
in 1995. He holds a master of arts degree in public
administration at the University of Denver and is a graduate of
both the National Executive Institute of the FBI and the John
F. Kennedy School of Government for Senior Executives at
Harvard. I thank you for being with us this afternoon.
Steve Young is the president of the Fraternal Order of
Police. The FOP is the largest law enforcement union in the
Nation, with more than 299,000 members.
I am sure he was happy to hear our previous witness, Mr.
Dihn, say they are going to be consulted. Let me know how the
consultation goes.
Mr. Young is a lieutenant in the Marion City Police
Department in Ohio and a graduate of the FBI's National
Academy.
Mike Brown is a sheriff of Bedford County, Virginia. He has
held the position since 1996 and is here today representing the
views of the National Sheriffs' Association.
Sheriff Brown has been a staff support specialist with the
CIA, a senior special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms, and he is a veteran of the U.S. Army.
Sheriff Brown holds degrees in police administration and the
administration of justice from American University.
Dr. Solomon Zhao, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Mr. Zhao. Right, yes.
Chairman Biden. Dr. Zhao is the assistant professor of
Criminal Justice, the University of Nebraska in Omaha. Dr. Zhao
received his Ph.D. at Washington State University in 1994 and
joined the faculty of Nebraska in 1995. His research focuses on
evaluation of criminal justice innovation and organizational
changes, particularly as they relate to community policing.
Dr. Zhao is the co-author of a new study measuring the
effects the COPS grants have on the crime rate, and it is a
pleasure to have him here with us today.
Finally, David--please pronounce it.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Muhlhausen.
Chairman Biden. Muhlhausen. That is what I thought. I am
getting blind as well, David, as getting old.
David Muhlhausen is the policy assistant of The Heritage
Foundation. He holds a master's degree in policy science from
the University of Maryland, and I understand that before
joining The Heritage Foundation, he served as a staff member to
this Committee.
I apologize for not remembering that, David. I am sorry.
Thank you for being here today, and welcome back.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I am glad to be here.
Chairman Biden. We will now proceed with 5-minute opening
statements from each of the witnesses, starting with you, Tom,
if you are willing.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS P. GORDON, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, NEW CASTLE
COUNTY, DELAWARE
Mr. Gordon. Good afternoon, Subcommittee Chairman Biden. I
am Tom Gordon. I am currently serving as the County Executive
for New Castle County, Delaware, which is the proud hometown of
Senator Joe Biden.
Although I am somewhat new as an elected official, my
career prior to public service, public office, was in law
enforcement. My background in law enforcement began in 1975
when I was sworn in as a police officer. Throughout my career,
I have served as a detective, sergeant, commander of
investigations, white collar corruption unit, co-commander of a
murder task force, commander of serial task force
investigation, and many other diverse positions, and to
ultimately being promoted to the rank of chief of police.
Until my experience as chief of police, however, nothing in
my entire career taught me the most critical component of
successful policing, not the long hours of surveillance, not
the murder convictions, nor the arrest of rapists and child
molesters, not the innovative police training, weapons or
tactics. None of these were most critical, while in itself
virtually important to success of policing.
My 8 years as chief of police taught me that the most
critical component of successful American policing is money.
Moreover, not until I became responsible for a multimillion-
dollar budget, local government budget, and billions of
dollars, capital projects, did I likewise learn the critical
component of successful local governance money.
I imagine that many of you remember serving in somewhat
lesser positions prior to your current honored seats. Perhaps
some of you even served in local governments where every tax
dollar is publicly scrutinized, every referendum is voted down,
and every bid goes to the lowest bidder.
In most of America, law enforcement is the responsibility
of local government, all of which has competing demands upon
very limited financial resources. American law enforcement
needs financial help to continue to improve its performance.
The continued reliance upon the sole source of local tax
revenue only dictates the resultant public policy of local
policing at low bid. Most local police departments cannot
afford much else.
When law enforcement competes for the same local tax
dollars that other lobbyists and special interest group
coveted, law enforcement seldom wins. You see, there are really
few proponents for more money for law enforcement. The daily
customers of police, if you will, are criminals who generally
are not active lobbyists for more police officers on our
street.
Compare, for example, the activists who lobby government
for the precious limited dollars to build more libraries, to
operate more parks, or construct more sewer lines. Local
elected officials need local campaign contributions and popular
support to win elections. Therefore, they listen to the
builders, to developers, to business groups, the lobbyists, and
activists who are generally silent about the allocation of tax
dollars for police instead of their preferred projects of
sewer, roads, and building projects. No doubt about it,
policing is costly.
Quality policing is even more expensive. American policing
should not be relegated to shoestring budgets already strapped
with demands from local government services. American policing
needs the continued investment of Federal dollars.
The COPS program and Federal funding has benefitted local
law enforcement and local communities with astonishing results.
Let me illustrate some of the successes attained in New Castle
County by the COPS program.
New Castle County has a population of just over 500,000. It
comprises an area of 440 square miles. The county encompasses
1,200 distinct communities, 13 incorporated areas, and is
categorized as an urban/suburban mix, and it is true that, much
of the Nation in the past 20 years, we have experienced
extraordinary growth that has put a strain on our resources and
resulted in the need to continually add officers just to keep
up with the growing population.
In addition to this challenge, the 1980's saw a steady
increase in calls to the 911 center. Using a traditional
approach to crime of policing, we were complaint-driven.
Demands for services were increasing at a rate of about 7
percent per year, growing faster than our ability to respond.
Each incident was treated as a singular event outside the
context of pertinent historical data. There were no systematic
effort to determine implications for the future. The police
process was reactive and cyclical. A complaint was received; an
officer was dispatched. Upon apprehending a suspect, he or she
was put through the court's process and hopefully, eventually,
incarcerated. After a few months, a few years, this same person
went back on the streets, and the cycle began again.
Until the COPS program, we partnered with the Harvard
University experts from the Kennedy School of Government, Mark
More. Dr. More's guidance instituted community policing, first
and foremost. We pattern our police force after the best
examples of private industry by instituting philosophy of
citizen accountability. We tailored our services to fit
community policing, and it is labor intensive because we take
officers and locate them in the communities to be served. On
foot, on bikes, on horseback, on motorcycle, the officers go
into our neighborhoods, not only to respond to the community,
but to become familiar with the presence in our community, to
be identified as a partner.
Our officers talk to citizens. They encourage the formation
of the active role of civic associations, and they have earned
the trust of those that they serve. Community policing,
however, is more important than just putting officers on a
street and in a neighborhood. It also provides a wide range of
opportunities for citizens to be involved in public safety.
We divided the county into four geographic areas and formed
citizen advisory councils in each of those areas. We offer
citizen police academies. We have now graduated 13 classes to
help our interesting citizens better understand police work.
And for the younger people, we have instituted youth police
academies. All of these efforts take live bodies.
Since 1993, 47 officers and 12 civilians have been hired by
New Castle County Police, utilizing the COPS program. It is
important to note the value of hiring civilians.
Those employees took over many administrative
responsibilities and freed officers who required more
specialized training and were generally more highly compensated
so that they could get out on the street.
What is the net effect? Well, since 1996, the crime rate
has dropped 32 percent county-wide. Crime rates have been cut
almost by one-third.
Let's look at some other specifics. One of the greatest
challenges and frustrations in law enforcement is domestic
violence. Victims often recant their complaints. Traditionally,
the huge percentage of homicides has been linked to domestic
violence. Utilizing COPS funding, we produced two training
videos regarding the problems of domestic violence to be used
both by law enforcement personnel as well as in the community.
We purchased pocket tape recorders and instant cameras for all
patrol officers. Officer tape their interviews with victims
immediately, thereby strengthening the case for prosecution. We
hired a civilian to track all cases of domestic violence and
identify problem residents immediately for early intervention.
The results tell the story. There has been a 24-percent
increase in successful prosecution of domestic violence cases.
Even more dramatic, the percentage of homicides that are
domestic-related has dropped from 86 percent to 18 percent.
Let's look at specific communities. The neighborhood of
Brookmont Farms in New Castle County has long been a poor
stepchild. While the county-wide poverty rate is 7 percent, the
census track including Brookmont Farms was 24 percent. All of
the worst elements that can be found in an impoverished
community exist in Brookmont Farms.
Drugs were bought and sold in an open-air market. Shootings
were common. Housing was not maintained, and over three-
quarters of the properties were rental units. When we first set
up a trailer to be used for community policing, it was burned
to the ground. I publicly talked about bulldozing the entire
community.
Utilizing the COPS funding through the advanced community
policing grant, we put all of the elements of community
policing to work in Brookmont Farms. We sent out walking and
bike patrols. We formed innovative partnerships and worked to
increase community involvement and enlisted their assistance in
lowering the crime rates.
The numbers are impressive. Calls for service are down by
1,500. Assaults have dramatically declined, a 70-percent drop.
Burglaries have dropped 66 percent. Thefts are down by 60
percent. Even incidents of disorderly conduct registered a 65-
percent drop. That is what it takes to turn communities around,
to provide law-abiding citizens with a safe environment where
their children can play and wait for school buses without
placing themselves in harm's way. That is what money buys you.
Yes, crime is down across this country. Yes, violence is
decreasing across our country. Yet, quality of life in our
cities and our suburbs is improving. This is no time to
decrease funding for local law enforcement.
Historically, when the economy turns down, there is a
predictable rise in crime. Our economy is staggering with slim
hopes of rapid return to an economic boom. The law enforcement
community is aware that layoffs and downsizing and the
bankruptcies and the homelessness and the plight of the newly
impoverished families will spawn a rise in crime. Domestic
violence, car thefts, home burglaries will increase. The drug
business will track more entrepreneurs seeking any employment
opportunity. More drugs means more addicts. It means more
criminals. Law enforcement needs to continue the support of
Federal dollars.
In recognition of our time constraints, I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to address this country's
esteemed subgroup of the Judiciary Committee. Please allow me
to thank you as representatives of our Federal Government for
the past financial support of law enforcement. We in government
and we in the ranks of police appreciate your help.
You know, like most of you, I am sure I remember exactly
what I was doing on September 11th as it unfolded. I was
huddled in the county executive's office with the colonel and
chief of police along with other key staff members. In horror,
we watched the news channel to see the disaster unfold before
our eyes.
As the shock set in, we simulated the possible
ramifications in our lives. Our first act was to place the
police department on full alert. Ultimately, they were deployed
for hundreds of hours and readiness in support of citizens in
responding to an immeasurable amount of suspicious reports.
I turned to the police department not because I was county
executive and not because I was a former chief, but because I
needed help immediately. I needed the best protection for our
local community. That is what police officers are. They protect
our peace, our property, our children, and our lives. Our
American police are modern-day Knights of the Round Table.
Whenever the unthinkable happens, our police officers are
called upon to solve it.
From street crimes to civil unrest, from terrorism to
homelessness, from riots to a lost child, our police officers
are the first line of protection and our best line of
protection. American policing needs the continued financial
support from our Federal Government. The COPS program has been
one of the most successful Federal programs in the history of
policing.
Across the Nation, there are tangible results and real
success stories. It is an ironic twist that the funding could
disappear for the very heroes all Americans are thanking since
September 11th.
We hope we can continue to rely on your support, and thank
you, Senator Biden.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gordon follows.]
Statement of Thomas P. Gordon, County Executive, New Castle County,
Delaware
Good afternoon, Subcommittee Chairman Biden, Ranking Member
Grassley, and distinguished members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs. My name is Tom Gordon; I currently
serve as the County Executive for New Castle County, Delaware, which is
the proud hometown of Senator Joe Biden. Although I am somewhat new to
elected office, in comparison to Senator Biden, my entire career, prior
to public office, was in law enforcement. My background in law
enforcement began in 1975, when I was sworn in as a police officer.
Throughout my career, I have served as a detective, sergeant, commander
of investigations, and white collar corruption, co-commander of murder
task force, commander of serial rape investigations, and many other
diverse positions, until ultimately being promoted to Chief of Police.
Until my experience as Chief of Police, however, nothing in my
entire career taught me the most critical component of successful
policing. Not the long hours of surveillance, not the murder
convictions, not the arrests of rapists and child molesters, not the
innovations in police training, weapons or tactics-none of these is the
most critical; while each is, in itself, vitally important to
successful policing.
My eight years as Chief of Police taught me that the most critical
component of successful American policing is money. Moreover, not until
I became responsible for multi-million dollar, local-government
budgets, and billion dollar, capital-projects did I, likewise, learn
the most critical component of successful local governance- money. I
imagine that many of you remember serving in somewhat lesser positions,
prior to your current honored seat. Perhaps some of you even served in
local government, where every tax dollar is publicly scrutinized, every
referendum is voted down, every bid goes to lowest bidder.
In most of America, law enforcement is the responsibility of local
government, all of which have competing demands, upon very limited
financial resources. American law enforcement needs financial help to
continue to improve its performance. The continued reliance upon the
sole source of local tax revenue only dictates the resultant public
policy of local policing at low bid. Most local police departments
cannot afford much else.
When law enforcement competes for the same local tax dollars that
other lobbyists and special interest groups covet, law enforcement
seldom wins. You see, there are really few proponents for more money
for law enforcement. The daily ``customers'' of police, if you will,
are criminals. . . .who are generally not active lobbyists for more
police officers on our streets. Compare, for example, the activists who
lobby local government for precious, limited dollars to build more
libraries, operate more parks, or construct more sewer lines. Local
elected officials need local campaign contributions and popular support
to win elections; therefore they listen to the builders, developers,
business groups, lobbyists, and activists who are generally silent
about allocation of tax dollars to police, instead of their preferred
projects of sewers, roads, building projects, etc.
No doubt about it: policing is costly. Quality policing is even
more expensive. American policing should not be relegated to shoe-
string budgets, already strapped with demands for other local
government services. American policing needs the continued investment
of federal dollars. The COPS Program and Federal funding has benefited
local law enforcement and local communities with astonishing results.
Let me illustrate some of the successes attained in New Castle County
because of the COPS program.
New Castle County has a population of just over 500,000 and
comprises an area of 440 square miles. The County encompasses over 1200
distinct communities, 13 incorporated areas and is categorized as
urban/suburban mix.
As is true in much of the nation, in the past 20 years we have
experienced extraordinary growth that has put a strain on our resources
and resulted in the need to continually add officers just to keep pace
with a growing population.
In addition to this challenge, the 1980s saw steady increases in
calls to the 911 Center. Using the traditional approach to crime and
policing, we were complaint-driven. Demands for service were increasing
at a rate of 7 percent per year, growing at a rate faster than our
ability to respond. Each incident was treated as a singular event
outside the context of pertinent historical data. There were no
systematic efforts to determine implications for the future. The police
process was reactive and cyclical. A complaint was received, an officer
dispatched. Upon apprehending a suspect, he or she was put through the
court process and, hopefully, eventually incarcerated. After a few
months, or a few years, the same person was back on the streets and the
cycle began again.
Utilizing COPS dollars, we instituted Community Policing. First and
foremost, we patterned our police force after the best examples of
private industry by instituting a philosophy of citizen accountability.
We tailor our services to fit our citizens' needs.
Community Policing is labor-intensive because we take officers and
locate them in the communities to be served. On foot, on bikes, horses
or motorcycles, the officers go out into the neighborhoods--not only to
respond to complaints, but to become a familiar presence in the
community, to be identified as a partner. Our officers talk to
citizens, they encourage the formation and active role of civic
organizations and they earn the trust of those they serve.
Community Policing, however, is more than just putting officers on
the streets and into neighborhoods. It is also providing a range of
opportunities for citizen involvement in public safety. We have divided
the County into four geographic areas and formed citizen advisory
councils in each of those areas. We offer Citizens Police Academies--we
have now graduated 13 classes--to help interested citizens better
understand police work and, for young people, Youth Police Academies.
All these efforts take live bodies. Since 1993, 47 officers and 12
civilians have been hired in New Castle County utilizing COPS funding.
It's important to note the value of hiring civilians. Those employees
took over many administrative responsibilities and freed officers--who
require more specialized training and who are generally more highly
compensated--to get out on the streets.
What's the net effect? Well, since 1996, crime rates have dropped
32 percent countywide--crime rates cut by almost one-third.
Let's look at some specifics. One of the greatest challenges and
frustrations in law enforcement is domestic violence. Victims often
recant their complaints. Traditionally, a huge percentage of homicides
have been linked to domestic violence. Utilizing COPS funding, we
produced two training videos regarding the problem of domestic
violence, to be used for both law enforcement personnel and in the
community. We purchased pocket tape recorders and instant cameras for
all patrol officers. Officers tape their interviews with victims
immediately, thereby strengthening the cases for prosecution. We hired
a civilian to track all cases of domestic violence and identify problem
residences immediately for early intervention.
The results tell the story. There has been a 24 percent increase in
successful prosecutions of domestic violence cases. Even more dramatic,
the percentage of homicides that are domestic-related has dropped from
86 percent to 18 percent.
Let's look at a specific community. The neighborhood of Brookmont
Farms has long been New Castle County's poor stepchild. While the
countywide poverty rate is 7 percent, in the census tract including
Brookmont, it was 24 percent. All the worst elements that can be found
in an impoverished community existed in Brookmont. Drugs were bought
and sold in open-air drug markets. Shootings were common. Housing was
not maintained and over a third of the properties were rental units.
When we first set up a trailer to use for Community Policing, it was
burned to the ground. I publicly talked about simply bulldozing the
community down.
Utilizing COPS funding through the Advanced Community Policing
grant, we put all the elements of Community Policing to work in
Brookmont. We sent out walking and bike patrols, we formed innovative
partnerships and worked to increase community involvement and enlist
their assistance in lowering the crime rate. The numbers are
impressive. Calls for service are down by 1500. Assaults have
dramatically declined--a 70 percent drop. Burglaries have dropped 66
percent. Thefts are down by 50 percent. Even incidents of disorderly
conduct register a 65 percent drop.
That's what it takes to turn a community around and to provide law-
abiding citizens with a safe environment where their children can play
and wait for the school bus without placing themselves in harms way.
That's what money buys you.
Conclusion
Yes, crime is down across our country. Yes, violence has decreased
across our country. Yes, quality of life in our cities and in our
suburbs is improving. This is no time to decrease funding for law
enforcement.
Historically, when the economy turns down, there is a predictable
rise in crime. Our economy is still sagging, with slim hopes of a rapid
return to an economic boom. The law enforcement community is aware that
the lay offs, the downsizing, the bankruptcies, the homelessness, and
the plights of newly impoverished families will all spawn a rise in
crime.
Domestic violence, car thefts, and home burglaries will increase.
The drug business will attract more entrepreneurs seeking any
employment opportunity. More drugs means more addicts, which means more
criminals. Law enforcement needs the continued support of our federal
dollars.
In recognition of our time constraints, I would like to thank you
for the opportunity to address our country's esteemed subcommittee of
the Senate Judiciary. Please allow me to thank you, as representatives
of our federal government, for the past financial support of law
enforcement. We, in local government, and we in the ranks of police,
appreciate your help.
You know, like most of you I'm sure, I remember exactly where I was
when the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded,. I was huddled in our
Executive Offices with Colonel Cunningham, the current Chief of Police
and other key staff members. In horror, we watched the news channel to
see the disaster unfold before the eyes of all America. As the shock
set in, we assimilated what the possible ramifications in our lives.
Our first act was to place the police department on full alert.
Unfortunately they were deployed for hundreds of hours in readiness, in
support of citizens and responding to immeasurable suspicious reports.
Not because I am County Executive, and not because I was Chief of
Police, but because I needed immediate help. I needed the best
protection for our local communities. That's what police officers are.
They protect our peace, our property, our children, our lives. Our
American police are modern day knights of the roundtable. Whenever the
unthinkable happens, our police officers are called upon to solve it.
From street crime to civil unrest, from terrorism to homelessness,
from a riot to a lost child, our police officers are our first line of
protection and our best line of protection.
American policing needs the continued financial support from our
federal government. The COPS Program has been one of the most
successful federal programs in the history of policing. Across the
nation, there are tangible results, and real successes. It is a ironic
twist that funding could disappear for the very heroes all Americans
are thanking daily since September 11th.
We hope we can continue to rely on your support.
Chairman Biden. Tom, thank you for taking this appearance
so seriously and for your statement.
Colonel?
STATEMENT OF COLONEL LONNIE WESTPHAL, CHIEF, COLORADO STATE
PATROL, AND VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS
OF POLICE
Mr. Westphal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you said, I am
Colonel Lonnie Westphal, chief of the State Patrol of Colorado.
I am also the fifth vice president for IACP, and after 28 years
in the State Patrol, I, too, think like a cop.
Chairman Biden. You have good reason to.
Mr. Westphal. I am very pleased to be here today on behalf
of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. As you
may know, the IACP is the world's oldest and largest police
organization, founded in 1893, with the current membership
exceeding 18,000 law enforcement executives.
The IACP has been, and continues to be, a strong supporter
of the COPS program and the COPS office. Since its inception in
1994, the COPS program and the community policing philosophy it
fosters has been very successful in helping law enforcement
agencies throughout the Nation reduce crime rates and maintain
safer communities.
During the last decade, communities throughout the Nation
have witnessed the remarkable decline in the rate of crime.
America today is a far safer place than America of 1991. Years
of innovative and effective efforts by Federal, State, and
local law enforcement agencies have transformed our
neighborhoods from havens of fear to safer, more secure
communities.
Our success in reducing the level of crime can be traced to
several factors. In 2001, the police officers are better
trained, better educated, and better equipped than their
predecessors. In addition, advances in communication and
information technologies have allowed law enforcement
administrators to develop comprehensive, integrated crime
reduction strategies.
However, one of the most significant factors in the
reduction in crime levels has been the partnership between law
enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. By
embracing the philosophy of community policing, law enforcement
agencies have been able to work with citizens to create safer
towns and cities. We have learned that to be effective, police
cannot operate alone. They must have the active support and
assistance of citizens and the communities.
It is the IACP's belief that the COPS program has played an
integral role in achieving this success. By providing law
enforcement agencies with the necessary resources, training,
and assistance, the COPS program has become an invaluable ally
to State and local law enforcement agencies.
The numbers speak for themselves. Since 1994, the COPS
office has invested more than $8.5 billion to assist State and
local law enforcement agencies in hiring officers, acquiring
vital crime-fighting technology, and assisting agencies in
receiving training and other technical assistance.
In addition, because it is dedicated only to meeting the
needs of the Nation's law enforcement agencies, the COPS office
has become a key component in the Federal, State, and local law
enforcement partnership. In fact, because of its focus on law
enforcement issues, the COPS office is often the first place
that State and local law enforcement agencies turn when they
need financial assistance to meet emerging public safety needs.
The success of the COPS program, however, is not solely due
to the amount of Federal assistance funds that have been made
available to State and local law enforcement agencies, but also
to the manner in which the program has operated. The key to the
success of the COPS program is that it works with the
individuals who best understand the needs of their States and
communities, State and local law enforcement executives. By
adopting this approach, the COPS office ensures that the right
funds are being provided to the correct agencies to address the
appropriate needs.
At this critical time, it is vital for the Federal
Government to ensure that it has an efficient and effective
means of providing State and local law enforcement agencies
with the assistance they require. For the last 7 years, the
COPS office has demonstrated that it is the agency to
accomplish this task. It is because of its unique role in
serving the needs of State and local law enforcement that the
IACP strongly believes that the COPS office must remain an
independent component within the Department of Justice.
It is also important to note that the COPS program is not
entirely about hiring officers or providing law enforcement
agencies with new equipment. The program also serves as a
catalyst for the innovative policing programs that address
urgent law enforcement issues and develop policies, programs,
training, and technical assistance to help law enforcement
solve those issues. As I appear before you today, combating
terrorism looms at the most urgent issue facing our members and
the communities they serve.
Although the primary mission of law enforcement agencies
has always been to ensure public safety, the events of
September 11th have dramatically and significantly changed the
focus of law enforcement operations. Suddenly, agencies and
officers who have been trained and equipped to deal with
traditional crimes are now focused on apprehending individuals
operating with different motivations, who have different
objectives, and who use much deadlier weapons than traditional
criminals. As a result, law enforcement agencies and officers
will need new training and new equipment to meet this new
threat.
As agencies prepare to meet this challenge, the IACP
believes that the COPS office can play a vital role in assuring
that the necessary resources are made available to State and
local law enforcement agencies. In particular, the IACP
believes that the COPS office would be the logical agency to
provide assistance funds to State and local law enforcement
agencies so that they may purchase necessary safety equipment
for their officers, provide terrorism-related training
programs, and to meet the increased manpower demands placed on
agencies since September 11th.
It is the IACP's hope that at this difficult time for our
Nation's law enforcement agencies, the COPS office will
continue to provide them with the assistance and the support
they have enjoyed over the last 7 years.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement, and I would be
glad to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Westphal follows:]
Statement of Colonel Lonnie Westphal, Vice President of the
International Association of Chiefs of Police
Good Afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Senator Grassley, and Members of the
Committee:
I am pleased to be here today on behalf of the International
Association of Chiefs of Police. As you may know, the IACP is the
world's and largest police organization, founded in 1893, and with a
current membership exceeding 18,000 law enforcement executives.
The IACP has been, and continues to be, a strong supporter of the
COPS program and the COPS Office. Since its inception in 1994, the COPS
program, and the community policing philosophy it fosters, has been
very successful in helping law enforcement agencies throughout the
nation reduce crime rates and maintain safer communities.
During the last decade, communities throughout the nation have
witnessed a remarkable decline in the rate of crime. America today is a
far safer place than the America of 1991. Years of innovative and
effective efforts by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies
have transformed our neighborhoods from havens of fear to safer, more
secure communities.
Our success in reducing the level of crime can be traced to several
factors: in 2001 the police officers are better trained, better
educated and better equipped than their predecessors. In addition,
advances in communication and information technologies have allowed law
enforcement administrators to develop comprehensive, integrated crime
reduction strategies.
However, one of the most significant factors in the reduction in
crime levels has been the partnership between law enforcement agencies
and the communities they serve. By embracing the philosophy of
community policing, law enforcement agencies have been able to work
with citizens to create safer towns and cities. We have learned that to
be effective, police can not operate alone; they must have the active
support and assistance of citizens and communities.
It is the IACP's belief that the COPS program has played an
integral role in achieving this success. By providing law enforcement
agencies with the necessary resources, training and assistance, the
COPS program has become an invaluable ally to state and local law
enforcement agencies.
The numbers speak for themselves. Since 1994, the COPS Office has
invested more than 8.5 billion dollars to assist state and local law
enforcement agencies in hiring officers, acquiring vital crime fighting
technology, and assisting agencies in receiving training and other
technical assistance. In addition, because it is dedicated only to
meeting the needs of the nation's law enforcement agencies, the COPS
office has become a key component in the federal, state, and local law
enforcement partnership. In fact, because of its focus on law
enforcement issues, the COPS office is often the first place that state
and local law enforcement agencies turn to when they need financial
assistance to meet emerging public safety needs.
However, the success of the COPS program is not due solely to the
amount of federal assistance funds that have been made available to
state and local law enforcement agencies, but also to the manner in
which the program has operated. The key to the success of the COPS
program is that it works with the individuals who best understand the
needs of their states and communities: state and local law enforcement
executives. By adopting this approach, the COPS Office ensures that the
right funds are being provided to the correct agencies to address
appropriate needs.
At this critical time, it is vital for the federal government to
ensure that it has an efficient and effective means of providing state
and local law enforcement agencies with the assistance they require.
For the last seven years, the COPS Office has demonstrated that it is
the agency to accomplish this task. It is because of its unique role in
serving the needs of state and local law enforcement that the IACP
strongly believes that the COPS Office must remain an independent
component within the Department of Justice.
It is important to note that the COPS program is not solely about
hiring officers or providing law enforcement agencies with new
equipment. The program also serves as a catalyst for innovative
policing programs that address urgent law enforcement issues and
develop policies, programs, training and technical assistance to help
law enforcement solve those issues. And as I appear before you today,
combating terrorism looms as the most urgent issue facing our members
and the communities they serve.
Although the primary mission of law enforcement agencies has always
been to ensure public safety, the events of September 11th have
dramatically and significantly changed the focus of law enforcement
operations. Suddenly, agencies and officers who have been trained and
equipped to deal with traditional crimes are now focused on
apprehending individuals operating with different motivations, who have
different objectives and who use much deadlier weapons than traditional
criminals. As a result, law enforcement agencies and officers will need
new training and new equipment to meet this new threat.
As agencies prepare to meet this challenge, the IACP believes that
the COPS office can play a vital role in assuring that the necessary
resources are made available to state and local law enforcement
agencies. In particular, the IACP believes that the COPS office would
be the logical agency to provide assistance funds to state and local
law enforcement agencies so that they may purchase necessary safety
equipment for their officers, provide terrorism-related training
programs, and to meet the increased manpower demands placed on agencies
since September 11th.
It is the IACP's hope, that at this difficult time for our nation's
law enforcement agencies, the COPS office will continue to provide them
with the assistance and support that have enjoyed over the last seven
years.
This concludes my statement. I would be glad to answer any
questions you may have.
Chairman Biden. Colonel, thank you. I do have questions,
but I am going to hear from everyone else in the meantime, and
by the way, thanks for being here. It is a big deal.
Mr. Westphal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Biden. Sheriff, welcome north.
STATEMENT OF MIKE BROWN, SHERIFF, BEDFORD COUNTY, VIRGINIA, AND
NATIONAL SHERIFFS' ASSOCIATION
Mr. Brown. Thank you. Delighted to be here. It is always
great to be at the seat of government.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for
the opportunity to come before you today and to speak about
this program called the COPS program.
Sheriffs are elected officials, like yourself, and as such,
we work for the constituents, the voters. Because of this
unique relationship, sheriffs are closer to the community than
most, and naturally we come to know our communities very well.
Community policing is a natural fit for the sheriff, and we
think that has been demonstrated by the President's pick of
former Sheriff Carl Peed to lead the COPS office. He is the
right man for the job, and I know he has the support of the
3,088 sheriffs throughout this great Nation.
My name is Mike Brown, and I am the Sheriff of Bedford
County, Virginia. Bedford County lies in the Blue Ridge
Mountains, between Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia, and is the
home of the National D-Day Memorial.
I am a retired Federal agent with 34 years in the law
enforcement and intelligence community, but I am honored to
have been the Sheriff for Bedford County since 1996.
Today, I am pleased to represent the National Sheriffs'
Association, where I serve on the board of directors and am a
member of the Congressional Affairs Committee.
At the outset, let me say that we support the COPS program,
and nearly two-thirds of all sheriffs in this Nation have
received a COPS grant. With this added capability that the COPS
grant provides, I believe we have reduced crime, streets are
safer, and honest law-abiding citizens feel more secure in
their communities, but while we support the office of COPS,
there are some changes that can be made that we feel would
benefit sheriffs and other law enforcement officials.
As you may know, sheriffs around the Nation depend on the
COPS program to supplement their law enforcement capabilities.
Sheriffs need the additional funding provided so that they can
better protect and serve their communities. The COPS program
has been, as far as we are concerned, an overwhelming success
and has had a tangible and positive impact on crime reduction.
Is it the sole reason for crime reduction? Possibly not,
but that does not diminish its value to law enforcement. Many
factors have contributed to crime reduction. However, COPS has
played an important role, and I think it would be a mistake to
say that the mission of the COPS office has been completed,
therefore, the program can be eliminated.
The National Sheriffs' Association supports a flexible COPS
program that allows sheriffs to determine their own needs and
apply for funds accordingly. Sheriffs have overwhelming
technology needs that can be addressed through the COPS
technology grant programs. In that vein, we are grateful that
Congress has reconsidered the need to prove the redeployment of
officers as a result of the technology. In our experience, this
burden discourages sheriffs from submitting worthy programs for
funding and led agencies to play games with redeployment
figures.
The COPS program can help sheriffs purchase state-of-the-
art technology. In this information age, it is more important
than ever that we strive to achieve telecommunications and
systems compatibility among criminal justice agencies, improve
our forensic sciences capability at the State and local levels
and encourage the use of technology to predict and prevent
crime. The total package of law enforcement support that COPS
provides is an integral part of crime control in America.
COPS is also a valuable ally in the fight against school
violence. The COPS in Schools program provides a school
resource officer for jurisdictions to better understand the
unique needs of law enforcement in schools. These SROs provide
a strong link between school administrators and law enforcement
officials. It also provides an immediate response capability to
any criminal activity on school grounds.
Beyond hiring and technology, COPS has a role to play in
the national fight against terrorism. As you know and are
aware, the National Sheriffs' Association directs and maintains
the National Neighborhood Watch program. We believe that this
program can be a way for the average American to join the fight
against terrorism. Just as the program currently helps
neighbors spot suspicious activity, we feel that with Federal
support the program can evolve to help neighbors look out for
one another and prevent terrorists from hiding deep in American
society, as did those who attacked New York City and the
Pentagon.
Calling all Americans ``soldiers in the war against
terrorism,'' President Bush encouraged citizens to report
suspicious activity and remain ``in a heightened state of alert
for more terrorist attacks.'' In what Attorney General John
Ashcroft described as ``another step in what is, in effect, a
national neighborhood watch,'' he urged Americans who may have
``seen the hijackers or been in contact with them'' to contact
the FBI with any information they may have.
Neighborhoods across the Nation are facing a new reality
since the tragic events of September the 11th. People fear
continued victimization at the hands of terrorists. Our Nation
cannot afford to wait until terrorists show themselves through
further cowardly attacks. Terrorist must be detected before
they strike again.
The experience of September the 11th has shown that current
law enforcement and intelligence operations lack an early
warning capability to identify terrorists before the attack. An
observant and alert neighbor could have tipped, and can
possibly tip, law enforcement to the presence of terrorists in
the community.
In our view, COPS can take a lead role in adapting
Neighborhood Watch programs for the prevention of terrorism. A
Neighborhood Watch program that energizes average Americans in
the fight against terrorism will greatly enhance the security
of our Nation and make Americans safe in their homes,
neighborhoods, and communities.
In conclusion, COPS is a program that is vital to law
enforcement and to sheriffs in both rural and urban
jurisdictions. We especially appreciate the fact that the COPS
office is user friendly. It makes applying for grants
significantly easier and much less intimidating. The direct
connection that COPS has with law enforcement allows it to be
effective and meet its goals.
Mr. Chairman, without COPS, I firmly believe our
communities would be a little less safe and a little more
dangerous. Thank you again for your commitment to reducing
crime. Know that the National Sheriffs' Association will do our
part in the fight against crime, and given the proper
resources, we can truly make a difference.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing me to speak
this day.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]
Statement of Mike Brown, Sheriff, Bedford County, Virginia, and
National Sheriffs' Association
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to come before this distinguished committee to talk about
the COPS program. I like to tell people that sheriffs have been doing
community policing well before that term entered our vocabulary.
Sheriffs are elected officials, like yourself, and as such we work for
the constituents--the voters. Because of this unique relationship,
sheriffs are closer to the community than most and naturally, we come
to know our communities very well. Community policing is a natural fit
for sheriffs and we think that has been demonstrated by the President's
pick of former Sheriff Carl Peed to lead the COPS office. We are
pleased to see him working on behalf of our nation's state and local
law enforcement. He's the right man for the job and I know he has the
support of the 3,088 sheriffs across this great country.
My name is Mike Brown and I am the Sheriff of Bedford County,
Virginia. Bedford County lies in the Blue Ridge Mountains, between
Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia, and is home to the National D-Day
Memorial. Bedford County is the third largest county (in land mass) in
the state with a population of nearly 60,000 residents. I am a retired
federal agent with 34 years of law enforcement and intelligence
experience and it has been my honor to be the Sheriff of Bedford County
since 1996. Today I am pleased to represent the National Sheriffs'
Association, where I serve on the Board of Directors and am a member of
the Congressional Affairs Committee.
At the outset, let me say that we support the COPS program and
nearly two-thirds of all of the sheriffs in the nation have received a
COPS grant. With the added capability that a COPS grant provides, I
believe we have reduced crime, streets are safer and honest law-abiding
people feel more secure in their communities. But while we support the
office there are some changes that can be made that we feel would
benefit sheriffs and other law enforcement officials.
As you may know, sheriffs around the nation depend on the COPS
program to supplement their law enforcement capabilities. Sheriffs need
the additional funding provided so that they can better protect and
serve their communities. The COPS program has been an overwhelming
success and has had a tangible and positive impact on crime reduction.
Is it the sole reason that crime is down? Probably not, but that does
not diminish its value to law enforcement. Many factors have
contributed to crime reduction, however, COPS has played an important
role and I think it would be a mistake to say that the mission of the
COPS office has been completed therefore the program can be eliminated.
NSA supports a flexible COPS program that allows sheriffs to
determine their own needs and apply for funds accordingly. Sheriffs
have overwhelming technology needs that can be addressed through the
COPS technology grant programs. In that vein, we are grateful that
Congress has reconsidered the need to prove the redeployment of
officers as a result of the technology.
In our experience, this burden discouraged sheriffs from submitting
worthy programs for funding and led agencies to play games with
redeployment figures.
The COPS program can help sheriffs purchase state-of-the-art
technology. In this information age, it is more important than ever
that we strive to achieve telecommunications and systems compatibility
among criminal justice agencies, improve our forensic sciences
capability at the state and local level and encourage the use of
technologies to predict and prevent crime. The total package of law
enforcement support that COPS provides is an integral part of crime
control in America.
COPS is also a valuable ally in the fight against school violence.
The COPS In Schools program provides a school resource officer for
jurisdictions to better understand the unique needs of law enforcement
in schools. These SROs provide a strong link between school
administrators and law enforcement officials. It also provides an
immediate response capability to any criminal activity on school
grounds.
Beyond hiring and technology, COPS has a role to play in the
national fight against terrorism. As you know, the National Sheriffs'
Association directs and maintains the National Neighborhood Watch
program. We believe that this program can be a way for the average
American to join the fight against terrorism. Just as the program
currently helps neighbors spot suspicious activity to thwart burglary,
we feel that with federal support the program can evolve to help
neighbors look out for one another and prevent terrorist from hiding
deep in American society as did those who attacked New York City and
the Pentagon.
Calling all Americans ``soldiers in the war against terrorism''
President Bush encouraged citizens to report suspicious activity and
remain ``in a heightened state of alert for more terrorist attacks.''
(October 30, 2001) In what Attorney General John Ashcroft described as
``another step in what is, in effect, a national neighborhood watch,''
he urged Americans who may have ``seen the hijackers or been in contact
with them'' to contact the FBI with any information they may have.
(September 28, 2001)
Neighborhoods across the nation are facing a new reality since the
tragic events of September 11th. People fear continued victimization at
the hands of terrorists. Our nation cannot afford to wait until
terrorists show themselves through further cowardly attacks; terrorists
must be detected before they strike again. The experience of September
11 has shown that current law enforcement and intelligence operations
lack an early warning capability to identify terrorist before the
attack. An observant and alert neighbor could have tipped law
enforcement to the presence of terrorists in the community.
In our view, COPS can take a lead role in adapting Neighborhood
Watch programs for the prevention of terrorism. A Neighborhood Watch
program that energizes average Americans in the fight against terrorism
will greatly enhance the security our nation and make Americans safe in
their homes, neighborhoods and communities.
In conclusion, COPS is a program that is vital to effective law
enforcement and to sheriffs in both rural and urban jurisdictions. We
especially appreciate the fact that the COPS office is user friendly.
It makes applying for grants significantly easier and much less
intimidating. The direct connection that COPS has with law enforcement
allows it to be effective and meet its goals.
Mr. Chairman, without COPS, I firmly believe our communities would
be a little less safe and a little more dangerous.
Thank you again for your commitment to reducing crime. Know that
NSA will do our part in the fight against crime and given the proper
resources, we can truly make a difference.Thank you, Mr. Chairman for
your time this afternoon. I look forward to answering any questions the
Committee may have.
Chairman Biden. Sheriff, thank you as well, and I might
note for the record that IACP as well as the sheriffs and the
next outfit really did draft this COPS bill. I mean, this goes
back to 1993, sitting around that table in my office, and it
literally was--I do not know. There may be other times when
that has been done, but I do not think there has ever been a
time where a major piece of legislation, which is part of the
criticism we get, has been drafted. And I am going to come back
to you, Sheriff, to give you a little heads-up, in the
questioning, so you can think about it.
Just because we have a COPS program, just because it was
written the way it was, it does not mean it cannot be improved.
So I would like to hear from you all. I am going to give you a
heads-up now. When we get to questioning, I am going to ask you
about what kinds of things you think we should be doing to
improve the COPS program, but, at any rate, that is just to
give you time to think while you are waiting to hear other
people's testimony.
Steve, fire away.
STATEMENT OF STEVE YOUNG, LIEUTENANT, MARION CITY POLICE
DEPARTMENT AND NATIONAL PRESIDENT, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE
Mr. Young. Thank you, Senator.
Before I get into my prepared remarks, I would like to
share with you that yesterday in the afternoon, I attended the
medal ceremony for the New York City Police Department, and 23
of those medals were handed out posthumously. Next May 15th as
we gather here on the West Lawn of the White House to honor the
fallen officers across the country, we anticipate that we will
be honoring about 225 officers.
I say that because I want to thank you for the effort you
gave personally to increase the public safety officer's
benefit, and as you see the spouses and the children and the
families that have been impacted by these tragedies, our
appreciation for your efforts there cannot be overstated, but
at the very least, I wanted to say thank you.
Chairman Biden. Well, Steve, I want to thank you, but as
you know, when you attend that police memorial, as I have for
every year for as long as I can think of, that is all you got
to do. All you got to do is just be there, just be there once,
and you understand that as you look at those women and men
survivors, the spouses, the mothers, the fathers, the kids, it
does not take much to figure out that we did not even increase
that for inflation. So me moving it to a quarter-of-a-million
dollars, I appreciate the wonderful and hundreds of people who
have contacted me to thank me for that, but, God, it hardly
does anything.
What you all put on that memorial service and the strong
support of this President and the last President for that
particular ceremony is also vitally important. People see it.
People feel it. All you got to do is see it. You will feel it,
and you will understand what we did is the minimum--minimum we
should be doing, but you are kind to recognize it.
Please go ahead with your statement.
Mr. Young. Senator, as you know, my name is Steve Young,
and I am the national president of the Fraternal Order of
Police, the largest law enforcement labor organization in the
Nation, representing more than 299,000 members.
I am here today to speak about our organization's strong
support for the Office for Community Oriented Policing
Services, or COPS.
The COPS program and the local law enforcement block grant
program are the two most effective Federal anti-crime programs
today. Both programs allow Federal resources to be focused and
directed to the local level, but this year, we are faced with
the grim reality that the authorization for the COPS program is
close to expiring and the block grant funding was cut by more
than 23 percent, which amounts to $121.8 million.
In our view, the COPS program is, and should remain, the
back bone of direct Federal aid to local and State law
enforcement agencies. The block grant program provides funding
to the local unit of government with a great deal of latitude
in the use of the money, whether it is lighting for a
recreational park to reduce criminal activity at night or to
purchase additional squad cars. This type of flexibility is
important. However, the strength of the COPS program is that it
provides targeted funding which goes directly to the local law
enforcement agency to increase the number of law enforcement
officers available to patrol our streets or serve in our
schools as school resource officers.
Congress, with the strong support of a united law
enforcement community, made great strides in addressing crime
in America by enacting the COPS program as part of the 1994
Crime Act. Today, Congress and the law enforcement community
pledged to reduce crime by following the advice of law
enforcement: More officers equals less crime.
This simple formula has proved enormously successful. Ahead
of schedule and under budget, the COPS office has made good on
the congressional pledge, enabling communities to hire or
redeploy more than 100,000 law enforcement officers in more
than 11,000 State and local agencies across the Nation.
My own department in Marion, Ohio, has received $825,000
from the program, allowing us to hire 11 new officers and
redeploy officers into our school resource program. The State
of Ohio received an aggregate of $227 million from the COPS
office, adding 3,638 officers to the street. Simply put, there
is no other Federal program that offers this type of direct
assistance to law enforcement agencies. It has a tremendously
positive impact on public safety in communities like mine in
Marion, Ohio. This, Mr. Chairman, is a great testimonial to the
success of the program.
Crime rates have fallen to their lowest levels in decades.
A reduction in crime means that there are Americans who likely
would have been crime victims had the 1994 Crime Act not been
passed and the COPS program never implemented. It is important
to emphasize this point: Lives and property were saved because
of this program and the efforts of the dedicated men and women
in the law enforcement profession.
The COPS program also represents something as equally
valuable as more officers on our streets. The COPS program was
the centerpiece of a plan to launch a new national law
enforcement strategy, community-oriented policing. This
practice, which had already proven successful in many
communities, is now found in virtually all jurisdictions.
Departments were able to implement community-oriented
policing because the COPS program enabled them to call upon
Federal resources to get the officers needed to make the
strategy work in their communities. Without these resources,
law enforcement agencies will be unable to continue this
successful strategy.
I cannot imagine that anyone here would want to give back
the ground that we have won in the fight against crime. What we
must keep in focus is that the community policing strategy has
worked to reduce crime in our country. The FOP, along with the
rest of the law enforcement community, clearly recognizes the
value of this program.
For this reason, we will be working with members of the
Senate and the House to not only continue our support of COPS,
but to reauthorize the program.
We strongly support your bill, Mr. Chairman, S. 924, the
Protection Act, would reauthorize the COPS program through 2007
to hire and retain police officers, pay overtime, and reimburse
officers for pursuing college and advanced degrees to enhance
their job skills as well as providing Federal money for new
technology.
The FOP believes this legislation builds on a solid
foundation of success. We have here a Government program that
works. It is inexplicable to me that we would end such a
successful program.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Grassley, for
inviting me to participate in this hearing today, and, of
course, I would be pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:]
Statement of Steve Young, Lieutenant, Marion City Police Department,
National President, Fraternal Order of Police
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Senate
Subcommittee on Crime, my name is Steve Young, and I am the National
President of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest law enforcement
labor organization in the nation, representing more than 299,000
members.
I am here this morning to speak about our organization's strong
support for the Office for Community Oriented Policing Services, or
COPS.
The COPS program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant (LLEBG)
program are the two most effective Federal anti-crime programs today.
Both programs allow Federal resources to be focused and directed to the
local level, but this year we are faced with the grim reality that the
authorization for the COPS program is close to expiring and the LLEBG
was cut by more than twenty-three percent (23%), totaling $121.8
million.
In our view, the COPS program is and should remain the backbone of
direct Federal aid to local and State law enforcement agencies. The
block grant program provides funding to the local unit of government
with a great deal of latitude in use of the money--whether it is
lighting for a recreational park to reduce criminal activity at night,
or to purchase additional squad cars.
This type of flexibility is important, however, the strength of the
COPS program is that it provides targeted funding which goes directly
to the local law enforcement agency to increase the number of law
enforcement officers available to patrol our streets or serve in our
schools as School Resource Officers.
Congress, with the strong support of a united law enforcement
community, made great strides in addressing crime in America by
enacting the COPS program as part of the 1994 Crime Act. Together,
Congress pledged to reduce crime by following the advice of law
enforcement: More officers equal less crime.
This simple formula has proved enormously successful. Ahead of
schedule and under budget, the COPS office has made good on the
Congressional pledge, enabling communities to hire or redeploy more
than 100,000 law enforcement officers in more than 11,000 State and
local agencies across the nation. My own Department has received more
than $825,000 from the program, allowing us to hire or redeploy eleven
new officers in Marion, Ohio. The State of Ohio received an aggregate
$226.9 million from the COPS office--adding 3,638 officers to the
street.
SImply put, there is not other Federal program that offers this
type of direct assistance to law enforcement agencies. In has a
tremendously positive impact on public safety in communities like
Marion.
This, Mr. Chairman, is a greater testimonial to the success of this
program than anything anyone here today can say for the record.
Crime rates have fallen for more than eight consecutive years now.
A reduction in crime means there are Americans who could have been
crime victims if the 1994 Crime Act never been passed and the COPS
program never been implemented. It is important to recognize this
point--lives and property were saved because of this program and the
efforts of the dedicated men and women in law enforcement.
The COPS program also represents something as equally valuable as
more officers on our streets; the COPS program was the centerpiece of a
plan to launch a new national law enforcement strategy--``community-
oriented policing.'' This practice, which had already proven successful
at the local level, is now found in virtually all jurisdictions. Local
departments were able to implement ``community-oriented policing''
because the COPS program enabled them to call upon Federal resources to
get the manpower they needed to make the strategy work in their
communities. The most important thing I believe we must keep in focus
is that the community policing strategy has worked to reduce crime in
our country. Community policing as a strategy was possible because of
the COPS program and the Federal resources offered to the local
departments and agencies through this program. Local departments will
be unable to continue this successful strategy.
I cannot imagine that anyone here would want to give back the
ground that we have won in the fight against crime. What we must keep
in focus is the community policing strategy has worked to reduce crime
in our country. The F.O.P., along with the rest of the law enforcement
community, clearly recognizes the value of this program.
For this reason, we will be working with Members of the House and
Senate to not only continue our support of COPS, but to reauthorize the
program.
We strongly support your bill, Mr. Chairman, S. 924, the
``PROTECTION Act,'' would reauthorize the COPS program through 2007 to
hire and retain police officers, pay overtime and reimburse officers
pursuing college and advance degrees to enhance their job skills as
well as providing Federal money for new technology.
The F.O.P. believes this legislation builds on a solid foundation
of success. So few government programs work and so many do not, it is
inexplicable to me that we would end a program that works! I would like
to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Grassley for inviting me
to participate in this hearing today. I would be pleased to answer any
questions.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much, Steve. I appreciate
it.
Doctor?
STATEMENT OF SOLOMON ZHAO, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL
JUSTICE, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT OMAHA
Mr. Zhao. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. My name is Solomon Zhao. I
am professor of criminal justice at University of Nebraska at
Omaha.
Today, I am honored to have the opportunity to share with
you the major findings of a research project that my co-author,
Dr. Quint Thurman, and I just recently finished.
As you know, the crime rates have dropped significantly in
most large U.S. cities since the mid-1990's. While there is
considerable speculation about the causes of this decline, one
explanation credits the recent implementation of community-
oriented policing funded principally through the Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services, the COPS office, under
the 1994 crime bill.
Unfortunately, on a national level, prior to this study,
the extent to which this is the case was largely unknown. This
is due to the fact that much of the research is designed to
assess the impact of the COPS program on crimes either limited
to individual programs or individual cities.
Chairman Biden. Let me make sure I understand that,
Professor. You say the previous studies primarily focused on
individual crimes or individual cities. Is that what you said?
Mr. Zhao. Previous studies looking at the effect of COPS
usually focused on one city like New York City--
Chairman Biden. Got you. That is what I thought you said.
Mr. Zhao. --why it is so successful, or a few cities or one
program just like domestic violence.
Chairman Biden. Or one program.
Mr. Zhao. Yes.
Chairman Biden. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I
understood what you said.
Mr. Zhao. So this is the national study to cover all of
these.
Chairman Biden. Got you.
Mr. Zhao. We examined the effect COPS office grants awarded
to local law enforcement agencies between 1994 and 1998 had on
the crime rates. The COPS office grants can be categorized into
three general groups: hiring grants, innovative grants, and
MORE grants.
In the analysis, we looked at the relationship between the
COPS office grants in 6,100 cities, accounting for a total
population of over 145 million Americans between 1994 and 1999.
These 6,100 cities are located in 2,680 counties, and there are
only about a little bit over 3,000 counties in the United
States. Two categories of crime rates are looked at. The
violent crime rate include murder, rape, robbery, and
aggravated assaults. The property crime rate includes burglary,
larceny, and auto thefts.
The analysis indicates that in the cities with greater than
10,000 population, an increase in one dollar in grant funding
per resident in the form of hiring grants lead to a
corresponding decline of five violent crime incidents and about
22 property crime incidents per 100,000 residents. Regarding
innovative grants, a one-dollar increase in innovative grant
funding contributed to 13 fewer violent crime incidents and
about 45 property crime incidents per 100,000 population
between 1995 and 1999.
So here is an example. In a typical city with 100,000
residents, if you invest $100,000--that means one person, one
dollar--you are going to expect, in terms of innovative grants,
there will be what leads to a decrease of 13 violent crime
incidents and 45 property crime incidents.
On the other side, the analysis of cities with population
less than 10,000 reveals a different picture. Unlike larger
cities, these findings show that the hiring grants are
positively associated with violent crime reporting. That means
this indicates that a one-dollar increase per resident in the
form of hiring grants will lead to about one violent crime
report and about nine property crime reports in these cities.
So it is different between greater than 10,000 and less than
10,000.
Having said these findings, I have two primary
observations. The first observation is that the crime reduction
is not a unitary phenomenon in the United States. The
difference between the two groups of cities is apparent with
respect to their crime patterns over the 6-year period of time
when national crime rates overall dropped significantly.
Cities greater than 10,000 experienced a greater decrease
in crime than smaller cities. In addition, the data indicate
that COPS office hiring and innovative grants have contributed
significantly to decreasing crime in these U.S. cities.
According to the Uniform Crime Report, approximately 89 percent
of police departments in the United States serve cities with
populations greater than 10,000.
Chairman Biden. So 89 percent, greater than 10,000.
Mr. Zhao. Greater than 10,000.
Chairman Biden. And one of the reasons why the rate is more
productive, if you will, in cities over 10,000--
Mr. Zhao. Yes, 10,000.
Chairman Biden. --is they are the cities that take more
advantage of the innovative grants as well. Is that correct?
Mr. Zhao. Yes. Overall, innovatives have reduced 13 violent
crime incidents.
Chairman Biden. I got that, but do the cities under 10,000
employ the innovative grant proposals as frequently as cities
over 10,000 using those? Do you understand?
Mr. Zhao. Yes. I think the cities less than 10,000, we do
not find the innovative grants as significant.
Chairman Biden. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Zhao. And the second observation is that findings show
that COPS hiring grants are positively correlated with the
crime reporting in cities with populations less than 10,000. So
there has been very limited research on how police do their
business in those small cities. Literally, I searched all of
the literature. I found only two books about how small police
agencies do fight against crime.
One possible explanation for this relationship is that
smaller cities may have fewer officers. The addition of one
officer means a big percentage increase in their force. The
average number of officers in those cities less than 10,000 is
9.6. So, if you add one more body, that means one officer
equals a 10-percent increase. This almost equals to hire about
4,000 police officers to New York City Police.
Chairman Biden. Exactly.
Mr. Zhao. So, when you have one officer increase, they may
be doing community policing, and the crime reporting by the
citizens might increase. That would be a reasonable
speculation. We have not checked into that yet, but that is a
speculation.
When I was presenting this at the Society of American
Criminology, one professor came over and said it might be the
case because in small communities--and when usually the
sheriffs do not have graveyard shifts, it is the State police
or the city police--it is the sheriff who took over on the
graveyard shifts. So now you have the city police who have one
more officer, and he takes the report. So the crime might
increase, and she gave me that explanation. Those are the
speculations.
In conclusion, this is by far the most comprehensive
statistical analysis to date regarding the COPS program. It
examines the greatest number of cities across the longest
length of time in a way that is far superior to any previous
studies.
I thank the chairman for inviting me to come here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zhao follows.]
Statement of Solomon Zhao, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice,
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Dear Chairman Biden and Fellow Senators:
My name is Solomon Zhao, professor of Criminal Justice at
University of Nebraska at Omaha. Today, I am honored to have the
opportunity to share with you the major findings of a research project
that my co-author, Dr. Quint Thurman, and I have recently finished.
As you all know, crime rates have dropped significantly in most
large U.S. cities since the mid-1990s. While there is considerable
speculation about the origins of this decline, one explanation credits
the recent implementation of community oriented policing funded
principally through the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
(COPS) under the 1994 Crime Bill. The direct involvement of the COPS
Office in providing funding for over 100,000 community police officers
may have significantly contributed to this crime decrease.
Unfortunately, on a national level, prior to this study the extent to
which this is the case was largely unknown. This is due to the fact
that much of the research designed to assess the impact of COPS
programs on crime is either limited to individual programs or to
individual cities.
We examined the effect COPS Office grants awarded to local law
enforcement agencies between 1994 and 1998 had on crime rates. COPS
Office grants can be categorized into three general groups: hiring
grants, innovative grants, and MORE grants. Hiring grants are designed
to directly assist local law enforcement in the hiring of community
police offices. Innovative grants fund specialized programs targeted at
specific jurisdictions and/or categories of crime. The last category of
grants is the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grant
program that provides funding to law enforcement agencies to acquire
new technology and civilian personnel.
In the analysis, we examine the relationship between COPS Office
grants in 6,100 cities, accounting for a total population of over 145
million Americans between 1994 and 1999. These 6,100 cities are located
in 2,680 counties in the United States. Two categories of crime rates
are examined. The violent crime rates include murder, rape, robbery,
and aggravated assault. Property crime rate includes burglary, larceny,
and auto theft.
The analyses indicate that in cities with greater than 10,000
population, an increase in one dollar in grant funding per resident in
the form of hiring grants resulted in a corresponding decline of 5
violent crime incidents and about 22 property crime incidents per
100,000 residents. Regarding innovative grants, a one-dollar increase
in innovative grant funding contributed to 13 fewer violent crime
incidents and about 45 property crime incidents per 100,000 population
between 1995 and 1999.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ For example, in a typical city with 100,000 in innovative
grants (one-dollar per resident) will lead to a decrease of thirteen
violent crime instances and forth-five property crime instances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the other side, analysis of cities with population less than
10,000 reveals a different picture. Unlike in larger cities, these
findings show that hiring grants are positively associated with violent
crime reporting. This indicates that a one-dollar increase per
residents in the form of a hiring grant leads to an increase of about 1
violent crime reports and about 9 property crime reports in these
cities.
Having highlighted the findings, I have two primary observations.
The first observation is that crime reduction is not a unitary
phenomenon. The difference between the two groups of cities is apparent
with respect to their crime patterns over the six-year period of time
when national crime rates overall dropped substantially. Cities greater
than 10,000 experienced a greater decrease in crime than smaller
cities. In addition, the data indicate that COPS Office hiring and
innovative grants have contributed significantly to decreasing crime in
these U.S. cities with populations greater than 10,000 people.
According to the Uniform Crime Report, approximately 89% of police
departments in the United States serve cities with populations greater
than 10,000.
The second observation is that findings also show that COPS hiring
grants are positively correlated with the crime reporting in cities
with populations less than 10,000. There has been very limited research
on how police officers in these small cities fight crime. One possible
explanation for this relationship is that smaller cities have many
fewer officers, therefore, the addition of even one officer can mean a
substantial increase in department size that can significantly affect
citizen crime reporting. The average number of sworn officers for
cities between 1,000 and 10,000 was 9.6 in this sample. It is
reasonable to speculate that in these smaller cities, this additional
officer may be involved with a variety of community policing
activities. This increased officer presence may encourage citizens to
increase crime reporting which can substantially increase the crime
rate in these small communities.
In conclusion, this is by far the most comprehensive statistical
analysis to date regarding the COPS program. It examines the greatest
number of cities across the longest length of time in a way that is far
superior to any previous studies. The COPS program appears to have
played an important role in the reduction in violent and property crime
for the vast majority of the population of the United States.
Chairman Biden. Well, thank you, and thank you for your
undertaking.
Mr. Muhlhauser.
STATEMENT OF DAVID MUHLHAUSEN, POLICY ANALYST, THE HERITAGE
FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Biden. Muhlhausen. I'm sorry. You can call me
``Bidden'' if you want. I apologize. I mispronounced your name
twice, and I apologize.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Don't worry about it. I am used to having
my name mispronounced.
Chairman Biden. No, but I do not like it when mine is.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Just for the record, I would like to remind
the Committee that my name is David Muhlhausen, and I am a
policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation specializing in
program evaluation.
In beginning my testimony, I must stress that the views I
express are entirely my own and should not be construed as
representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
With that understanding, I am honored to be asked by the
Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, to
testify today on the Community Oriented Policing Services
program.
The September 11th terrorist attacks have quickly reshaped
Washington's priorities to efforts that will strengthen the
Government's ability to protect Americans. Congress should
shift dollars away from programs that are wasteful, unproven,
or demonstrably ineffective, and instead fund those that are
central to the Federal Government's core mission.
After 8 years and about $9 million, COPS qualifies as such
a program that is ineffective, wasteful, and not providing
services that are the testimony of the Federal Government. As
my written testimony provides in greater detail, the COPS
program has done little to reduce violent crime, and it will
likely never add 100,000 additional officers, as promised.
Some observers claim that the COPS program is a proven
success because crime has declined every year since the
program's creation. This assertion is very misleading. The
Nation's violent crime rate began to decline in 1991, 3 years
before the program was created. Not only did COPS not start the
national drop in crime, but publicly available research by The
Heritage Foundation indicates that since its inception, COPS
has done little to reduce crime.
We examined the effects of COPS grants on violent crime
rates in 752 counties from 1995 to 1998. I am submitting a copy
of this report to the community for the record.
After accounting for socioeconomic and other factors, the
COPS hiring and redeployment grants, its primary components,
failed to show a statistically measurable effect on reducing
violent crime rates. In contrast, the Heritage analysis found
that COPS hiring grants targeted on reducing specific problems,
like domestic violence, youth firearm violence, and gangs, are
somewhat effective in reducing violent crime. Narrowly focused
COPS grants are intended to help law enforcement agencies
tackle specific problems, while the COPS hiring and
redeployment grants simply pay for the operational costs and,
thus, less likely to target specific problems.
If Congress insists on keeping the COPS program, the
program needs will be radically transformed to hold localities
accountable to the taxpayer, while boosting flexibility which
the current program lacks.
First, before the COPS grants are awarded, applicants must
be required to develop a clear plan on how they intend to
prevent crime.
Second, a system to measure and evaluate the effectiveness
of COPS grants must be in place before the awarding of funds.
Third, COPS-funded activities must be evaluated for their
effectiveness in reducing crime.
To summarize these steps, device a plan that includes
outcome measures, implement the plan, then evaluate the plan.
Plan, implement, evaluate. If grantees cannot take these
responsible steps, then they should be barred from Federal
funding.
To improve flexibility, Congress must recognize that
problems in Des Moines, Iowa, and Wilmington, Delaware, can be
very different from problems in large urban cities. Let the
localities decide what actions need to be implemented to
address their problems, but as a grant condition, the grantee
must develop a strategic plan that targets crime-risk factors
in their community. This plan must include the ability to
measure the plant's success. As long grantees are not held
accountable for their use of COPS funds, Federal handouts will
continue to produce ineffective results.
I will conclude by offering a few comments on the strengths
of the Heritage study. Our study analyzes the relationship
between COPS funding and crime at the county level. The county-
level analysis allows researchers to include local law
enforcement efforts that help explain the change in crime. If
the Heritage study included only Federal funds, then the true
impact of COPS on crime would be overstated, and the all-
important role of local police spending would be excluded.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I am submitting my
written statement for the record along with two of Heritage
Foundation's studies.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Muhlhausen follows:]
[Additional material is being retained in the Committee
files.]
Statement of David Muhlhausen, Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation
Mr. Chairman, my name is David Muhlhausen. I am a policy analyst at
the Heritage Foundation specializing in program evaluation. In
beginning my testimony I must stress that the views I express are
entirely my own, and should not be construed as representing any
official position of The Heritage Foundation. With that understanding,
I am honored to be asked by the Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, to testify today on the Community
Oriented Policing Services grant program.
Misplaced Priorities: The Failure of the COPS Program
The September 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon have quickly reshaped Washington's priorities,
particularly regarding the Department of Justice (DOJ), to efforts that
will strengthen the government's ability to protect Americans. Even in
the best of times, common sense dictates sound budgeting of
government's resources. Today, with our nation at war, the
Administration and Congress should redouble its efforts to shift
dollars away from programs that are wasteful, unproven, or demonstrably
ineffective, and instead fund those that are central to the federal
government's core mission.
A detailed study by The Heritage Foundation shows that after eight
years and about $9 billion, the Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services qualifies as a program that is wasteful, ineffective, and is
not providing services that are the responsibility of the federal
government. As I will show in greater detail in my testimony, the COPS
program has done little to reduce violent crime, and it will likely
never add 100,000 additional officers as promised. With new and urgent
national priorities, responsible budgeting requires the elimination of
the COPS program and a transfer of its funds to more critical
Department of Justice activities.
Failure to Reduce Violent Crime.
Some observers claim that the COPS program is a proven success
because crime has declined every year since the program's creation.\1\
This assertion is very misleading. The nation's violent crime rate
began to decline in 1991--three years before the program was created.
Not only did COPS not start the national drop in crime, but publicly
available research by the Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis
indicates that since its inception, COPS has done little to reduce
crime.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., ``Bush: Don't Cut COPS,'' The
Baltimore Sun, April 16, 2001, p. A7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The crime policy arena is filled with assertions about what is or
is not effective in reducing crime. Many of these assertions are based
solely on anecdotal evidence, since all too often there is a lack of
empirical research with which to judge the accuracy of specific claims.
For instance, when a city receives COPS funding and crime
simultaneously declines, it is easy to assert that COPS caused the
decline.
Observing that the crime rates dropped when COPS grants flowed to a
particular community is not conclusive evidence that the grants helped
to decrease crime. As the Congressional Budget Office has noted,
socioeconomic factors need to be considered in understanding why crime
rates change.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Congressional Budget Office, Budget Options, Appendix A,
February 2001, at http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=2731&sequence=33
(April 16, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assertions about the effectiveness of COPS grants are therefore not
credible if factors that influence crime are ignored in the analysis.
Anecdotal examples of decreasing crime rates in a community that
received the COPS grants could be offset by other examples of
communities that received COPS grants and experienced increases in
crime. For example, from 1994 to 1998, Delaware received almost $20
million in COPS grants, and, according to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, its violent crime rate increased by 35.9 percent.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Calculations based on data from U.S. Department of Justice,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 1994
(Washington, D.C., 1995), p. 69, and Crime in the United States 1998
(Washington, D.C., 1999), p. 75.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One should not conclude that COPS grants caused the increase in
crime, without accounting for other factors that can affect crime. The
statistical approach used by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data
Analysis (CDA) includes control variables and allows for the inclusion
of many cases in order to test competing hypotheses. CDA Analysts
examined the effects of COPS grants on violent crime rates in 752
counties from 1995 to 1998.\4\ I am submitting a copy of this report to
the subcommittee for the record. After accounting for socioeconomic
factors, the COPS hiring and redeployment grants--its primary
components--failed to show a statistically measurable effect in
reducing violent crime rates at the county level. The CDA analysis
suggests that simply continuing funding for the COPS program will be
ineffective in reducing violent crime. Previous research indicates that
there are at least two reasons for this:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ David B. Muhlhausen, ``Do Community Oriented Policing Services
Grants Affect Violent Crime Rates? '' Heritage Foundation Center for
Data Analysis Report No. CDA01-05, May 25, 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merely paying for the operational expenses of law enforcement
agencies without a clear crime-fighting objective will continue to be
ineffective in reducing violent crime.
The actual number of officers funded by these grants and added to
the street will be substantially less than the funding level would
indicate, and
The current program fails to give law enforcement agencies the
flexibility to decide how funds should be spend.
Promoting Effective Crime-Fighting Strategies.
In contrast to hiring and redeployment grants, which were not shown
to be effective, the CDA analysis found that COPS grants which were
targeted on reducing specific problems--like domestic violence, youth
firearm violence, and gangs--were somewhat effective in reducing
violent crime.\5\ Narrowly focused COPS grants are intended to help law
enforcement agencies tackle specific problems, while COPS hiring and
redeployment grants are intended simply to pay for operational costs
and thus are less likely to target specific problems.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to a 1997 Justice Department review of crime-fighting
programs, entitled Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's
Promising, community policing with no clear strategy for targeting
crime-risk factors has been ineffective in reducing crime.\6\ Research
indicates that targeting crime-risk factors--such as high-crime ``hot
spots'' and arresting serious repeat offenders--enables the police to
reduce crime.\7\ ``While the COPS Program language has stressed a
community policing approach,'' the report states, ``there is no
evidence that community policing per se reduces crime without a clear
focus on a crime risk factor objective.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Lawrence W. Sherman, ``Policing from Crime Prevention,'' in
Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise Gottfredson, Doris MacKenzie, John Eck,
Peter Reuter, and Shawn Bushway, Preventing Crime: What Works, What
Doesn't, What's Promising; A Report to the U.S. Congress (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, February
1997), p. 37.
\7\ Ibid.
\8\ Ibid., pp. 41-42.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jersey City, New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts provide us with
examples where developing a clear plan that targets crime-risk factors
can have a positive impact. A 1999 randomized study headed by Anthony
Braga at Harvard University found that in Jersey City neighborhoods
where specific plans were developed to reduce crime, such as aggressive
order maintenance and changes to the physical environment, these
neighborhoods experienced significant reductions in crime.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Anthony A. Braga, David L. Weisburd, Elin J. Waring, Lorraine
Green Mazerolle, William Spelman, and Francis Gajewski, ``Problem-
Oriented Policing in Violent Crime Places: A Randomized Controlled
Experiment,'' Criminology, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1999), pp. 541-580.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A 2001 study by Anthony Braga and his colleagues found that
Operation Ceasefire could be credited for the dramatic drop in the
number of Boston's youth homicides.\10\ Operation Ceasefire
successfully reduced youth homicides by targeting a small number of
chronically offending youth gang members. Working with probation and
parole officers and community groups, law enforcement identified
violent gang members and told them that violence would no longer be
tolerated. Gang members were promised that if they continued their
violence, then their action would provoke an immediate and intense
response, often ending in a prison term. After gang members were caught
and prosecuted, the task force returned to the gangs and said ``this
gang did violence, we responded with the following actions and here is
how to prevent anything similar from happening to you.'' \11\ The
message stuck and youth homicides dropped.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Anthony A. Braga, David M. Kennedy, Elin J. Waring, and Anne
Morrison Piehl, ``Problem-Oriented Policing, Deterrence, and Youth
Violence: An Evaluation of Boston's Operation Ceasefire,'' Journal of
Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2001), pp. 195-225
\11\ Ibid., p. 200.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we have learned from Boston and Jersey City is that the police
can make a difference. Research indicates that developing a clear plan
to target resources at a problem can reduce crime. Simply spending more
federal dollars to put more officers on the streets will be less
effective, than targeting resources wisely.
Now, I turn to the COPS program's hiring objective.
Less Than 100,000 New COPS Officers.
Despite recent claims, the COPS program has not put 100,000
additional officers on America's streets since it began in 1994. A 2000
study by The Heritage Foundation found that by 1998, only 39,617
officers were added to the streets above the historical hiring trend
from 1975 to 1993.\12\ A copy of this report is included with my
testimony. Even in 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice's own Office of
Inspector General doubted that the goal could be reached; it estimated
that, at most, only 59,765 additional officers would be added by the
end of FY 2000.\13\ In its 2000 National Evaluation of the COPS
Program, a report funded by the COPS Office and published by the
Justice Department, the Urban Institute estimated under an optimistic
scenario that the number of officers added to the street by COPS would
peak at 57,175 by 2001.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Gareth Davis, David B. Muhlhausen, Dexter Ingram, Ralph
Rector, ``The Facts About COPS: A Performance Overview of the Community
Oriented Policing Services Program,'' Heritage Foundation Center for
Data Analysis Report No. CDA00-10, September 25, 2000.
\13\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General,
Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit
Findings and Recommendations, Report No. 99-14, April 1999.
\14\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
National Evaluation of the COPS Program, 200, p. 163.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General found in 1999
that the program had counted officers as COPS-funded even when the law
enforcement agencies receiving the grants had rejected the grants or
had failed to hire all of the officers funded.\15\ For example, COPS
officials claim that the Spokane Police Department had hired 56 new
officers based on three COPS grants worth $4.2 million, but the Spokane
Police Department said that it had hired only 25 officers.\16\
Nevertheless, COPS officials counted the 31 ``missing'' officers in the
total number of additional officers it supposedly put on the streets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General,
Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit
Findings and Recommendations.
\16\ U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing
Services, at http://www.usdoj.gov/cops/foia/foia--errhtm (October 11,
2000). See the Internet link for Washington State; and Spolkane Police
Department at http://www.spokanepolice.org/total--cops--funding.htm
(October 11, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grants provide
technology and civilian salaries to move officers from administrative
assignments to patrolling the streets. The Justice Department's Office
of Inspector General has found that some MORE grant recipients have
been unable to demonstrate that the grants lead to the redeployment of
officers to the streets.\17\ For instance, when the inspector general
asked the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia to
provide a list of the officers redepolyed to the street with almost $11
million in COPS funding, one officer was deceased, 10 officers were
retired, and 13 were no longer working for the department.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General,
Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit
Findings and Recommendations.
\18\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General,
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Grants to the
Metropolitan Police Department, District of Columbia, Executive
Summary, (GR-30-01-003), December 29, 200, at http://www.usdoj.gov/ori/
copsumma/g3001003.htm (November 30, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Failure to Provide Flexibility. While the Heritage Foundation
research has not specifically addressed the issue of flexibility,
Congress must recognize that problems in Des Moines, Iowa and
Wilmington, Delaware can be very different from problems in large urban
cities. Communities may not need to hire additional officers or
purchase technology. Instead, training officers on how to replicate
successful tactics used by other police departments may be more
effective. Localities need the ability to decide what actions need to
be implemented to address their problems.
Reforming COPS: What To Do.
If Congress insists on keeping COPS, the program needs to be
radically transformed to hold localities accountable to the taxpayer,
while boosting flexibility, which the current program lacks.
First, before COPS grants are awarded, applicants must be required
to develop a clear plan on how they intend to use the funds to prevent
crime. The COPS program should give the grantee the flexibility to
decide how the grant funds should be used. Second, a system to measure
and evaluate the effectiveness of COPS grants must be in place before
the awarding of funds. Third, after the funds have been spent, the COPS
funded activities must be evaluated for their effectiveness in reducing
crime.
To summarize these steps: Devise a plan that includes measuring the
outcomes of the plan. Implement the plan. Then evaluate the program.
Plan. Implement. Evaluate. If grantees cannot take these responsible
steps, then they should be barred from federal funding.
Congressional reform to foster accountability should begin with the
application process. The ease with which the COPS program has
distributed grants has created a lack of accountability. The current
system allows grantees to gain easy access to cash, but they are not
required deploy officers in activities that have been empirically
demonstrated to reduce crime.
To demonstrate my point, all you have to do is look at the
application forms. An application form used for 2000 UHP grants is only
four pages long.\19\ No where on the form does the grantee have to
explain how the officer is going to be used effectively. Other grant
forms contain multiple choice checklists for how the grants will be
used.\20\ Checking boxes is no substitute for a clear and focused plan
to reduce crime.In conclusion, I will focus on reform efforts before
Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ This application was obtained from http;//www.usdoj.gov/cops/
pdf/gpa/uhp/uhp--pdfs/e22k0060.pdf (December 1, 2001).
\20\ This application was obtained from http://www.usdoj.gov/cops/
pdf/toolbos/comforms/cp--information--worksheet.pdf (December 1, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
Based on the Heritage Foundation study of the COPS program and
similar efforts, Senator Biden's bill to reauthorize the COPS program,
S. 924, will do little to improve the program. There are no provisions
in the bill to increase accountability and flexibility. Under the bill,
up to 50 percent of hiring funds will be reserved for grantees whose
original grants have expired. The bill creates a new federal obligation
to fund local officers' salaries--tantamount to establishing a new
federal entitlement for localities.
If agencies cannot retain COPS funded officers as required by their
original grants, then this problem clearly indicates that the grantees
failed to develop a plan for officer retention. COPS was originally
intended to be a helping hand, not an everlasting funding source. If
grantees fail to follow the rules of the grants, then they should not
be allowed to permanently drain funds from taxpayers.
For these reasons, S. 924 will fail to improve upon the COPS
program's already limited ability to be an effective crime-fighting
strategy.
The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and
educational organization operating under Section 501(C)(3). It is
privately supported, and receives no funds from any government at any
level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work.
The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in
the United States. During 2000, it had more than 150,297 individual,
foundation, and corporate supporters representing every state in the
U.S. Its 1999 contributions came from the following sources:
Government 0.0%
Individuals 51.2%
Foundations 17.0%
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The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with
less than 1.6% of its 2000 income. The Heritage Foundation's books are
audited annually by the national accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche.
A list of major donors is available from The Heritage Foundation upon
request.
Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals
discussing their own independent research. The views expressed are
their own, and do not reflect an institutional position for The
Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much.
I will try to get you out of here in the next 25 minutes or
so, but I do have some questions, and if any of you have planes
or trains to catch, let me know and I will go to you first.
Does anybody have a particular constraint at the moment?
All right. Let me begin where we just ended. I read with
great interest, and this is one of those things that I guess
for parochial reasons I actually do myself read these things,
as the guys behind you are nodding their head they know that I
have spent more time on this.
At any rate, The Heritage Foundation studies, I have two
things I would like you to respond to, and then maybe, Dr.
Zhao, you could respond or anyone else. You looked at counties,
752 counties, to determine whether the COPS grants had an
impact on crime rates. I understand the rationale of using the
counties was that COPS grants to cities would be captured in
this analysis.
Mr. Muhlhausen. yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. Yet, an awful lot of those counties--one of
the criticisms of your study has been that they have an
unreasonable assumption, and that is that particularly in
counties where COPS funded only a small number of the cities,
in some cases, as little as one city, it does not give you the
reading that it is accurate.
For example, the example they give is Susquehanna County,
Pennsylvania, where there are 12 law enforcement agencies that
fight crime. COPS has funded one of those agencies in Montrose,
Pennsylvania, with just one officer. Yet, you use Susquehanna
County to determine if COPS grants were effective in lowering
the crime rate in the county as a whole.
The other criticism--and I will ask you to respond to both
because I am sure you have heard them before--is that your
analysis--not yours personally, but The Heritage Foundation's
analysis is further flawed by its reliance on arrest data
rather than crime data; that is, only listing those cases where
there was an arrest made as opposed to where there was a crime
committed, that it measures only crimes that result in arrest,
not crimes that are known to the police, but do not result in
arrest, and the crimes known to police are a better indicator
of actual crime. How do you respond to those two?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Senator Biden, I want to take up your
second statement. Our study, the dependent variable was
reported offenses by police departments. Arrests were not
included in the dependent variable. So our study shows that the
COPS hiring grants and redeployment grants had no impact on
crime rates, official offenses reported to the police.
We did use as a variable to account for changes in crime
rates, arrests, but we dropped that variable noting that there
are criticisms of it, and it still did not change our results.
The hiring and redeployment grants--
Chairman Biden. Oh, I see. I am sorry. I thought you did
not change that. So you went back, in effect, based on the
criticism, and reassessed your judgment based upon the actual
reported crimes?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Actually, the original paper started with
official offenses reported to the FBI.
Chairman Biden. Got you.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Uniform Crime Report data.
In our analysis, an entire paper, nothing has changed in
the paper, nothing that I have stated. We have not changed the
paper since its official publication date.
We ran an analysis and we found that, actually, when you
control for the percentage of people or the percentage of
offenses that ended in an arrest, it was effective in reducing
crime.
What some people say were methodological reasons, you
cannot include that as a variable, not as a dependent variable,
as an independent variable. So, later on in the record, what is
in the report, we dropped that variable, and the findings still
do not change.
Chairman Biden. Okay.
Mr. Muhlhausen. The hiring grants and the MORE grants were
ineffective.
Chairman Biden. Okay. How about the first one, the choice
of counties?
Mr. Muhlhausen. When we got together a while ago and
decided to do this study, we had to look at the data and what
was available, and we wanted to look at two questions. We
wanted to evaluate the COPS program, its success, but we also
wanted to know what impact, what role does local law
enforcement expenditures play in law enforcement. So the only
data that we knew of that we could find that controlled for,
that we could include that accounted for local law enforcement
expenditures was on the county level. So we aggregated the COPS
funding data to the county level and did the analysis because
we want to control for factors that influence crime and, a very
important measure, a way to control or account for what affects
crime is looking at State and local law enforcement
expenditures. We just did not want to depend on the Federal
Government.
Chairman Biden. Now, the State and local law enforcement
expenditures, did they account for reductions in crime at all?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Yes, they did.
Chairman Biden. They did.
Again, I am thinking like a cop. Did you ever think that
maybe the States would not have increased their local law
enforcement expenditures had the Federal Government not put the
money up? Have you looked at the past experience where when we
did not, they did not?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Well, from reports of the GAO and the
Inspector General's office, there are not cases where law
enforcement agencies used COPS funding to supplant. So, instead
of hiring--
Chairman Biden. No, that is not what I am talking about. By
the way, they took 1.1 percent of the most egregious places, or
1.5. Plus, they acknowledged that it was in the first 3 years
of the program and a lot of other things, but let's stipulate
that that is correct.
Move beyond that. I am asking the broader question. Is
there any correlation between the amount of money that the
Federal Government has put into local law enforcement efforts
through the COPS program and the willingness of the local
agencies to increase local funding for law enforcement?
Mr. Muhlhausen. I am not aware of any studies.
Chairman Biden. Okay. I do not have a study, but just as a
practitioner of the process, I have found that there is very
seldom a case where many police departments in the country and
local law enforcement agencies--and I have no data to support
this under the anecdotal--has made a significant increase in
the allocation of local tax dollars to law enforcement, absent
a circumstance where the Federal Government has come in and
made a commitment and effectively prime the pump to be able to
do that, in large part, because this is fungible money, but
also it sets the stage.
For example, one of the reasons we set--and you can comment
on this, and I have no data for this. My instinct told me--and
your study would suggest I am wrong--in 1994 that the reason
why we made this conditional and made it available by having
the law enforcement agencies being able to apply is--again,
thinking like a cop--most chiefs of police were more popular
than mayors. When the chief comes in and says to the city
council, ``By the way, there is Federal money out here. If you
put up two dollars, they will put up one dollar,'' it makes it
awful hard when the public wants something done about crime for
the mayor to say, ``No, no. We are not going to do that.''
Conversely, if you come in and there is either just flat
Federal money or no Federal money, it makes it very much harder
for the chief to make the case to the mayor or the county
executive that, ``By the way, we need more cops, and the way to
do it without raising taxes a lot is cut the money for parks or
cut the money for public health or cut the money for prisons or
cut the money for whatever.''
So I would be interested in just your instinct, but, also,
maybe somebody will do a study some day that ought to be able
to have control variables here to determine whether when the
Federal money has gone in, has there been an impact on local
officials making the decision to put more local money in, or,
conversely, when there is no Federal money in, do local
officials come forward and increase spending.
My recollection is, prior to the passage of this bill, the
largest 20 municipalities in the United States of America,
although the crime rate went up multi-fold, there was a total
increase of only 1.1 percent in the total number of police
officers in those 20 cities over the previous 10 years. Yet,
when we, in fact, came in with the crime bill in the COPS
program, those cities--and I do not have hard data. It would be
easy to assemble it. But those cities, in addition to the COPS
money that came in, put a larger percentage of their local
budgets into local law enforcement as well, but I may be wrong
about that. It would be interesting for someone at Heritage or
somewhere else to take a look at that to see if that is
correct.
Mr. Muhlhausen. We could meet at a later date, and our
staff--we can discuss it and maybe we could do something for
you.
Chairman Biden. And maybe you could, for the record, submit
something. Again, I am not being a wise guy here. If I am wrong
about this, the one thing I do not want to do is to be wasting
money. If I am wrong about it, there are other ways we can deal
with law enforcement, if I am wrong.
Doctor, would you comment on the assertions? I mean, how
could your study be so different than the Heritage study?
Mr. Zhao. I think the major difference is that we are
looking at the cities and they are looking at the counties,
but, actually, the COPS funding goes to the city. It does not
go to the county.
What I am concerned about here is that only 60 percent of
the cities in the counties, at the county level in The Heritage
Foundation, actually received COPS funding. The other 40
percent are non-funded agencies.
I am more concerned about that 40 percent for two reasons.
The first reason is those are small agencies, not bigger ones,
usually. In our analysis, we noticed the crime drop in America,
a difference from greater than 10,000 and less than 10,000. So,
for greater than 10,000, there is a 22-percent drop of violent
crime from 1994 to 1999, but when you look at less than 10,000,
actually, the crime drops from 1994 to 1996 and then it leveled
off, an increase a little bit, then level. So it is a different
pattern. So, when you include those small agencies in the
analysis, it is not accurate in that way.
Second, particularly, the problem for those less than, in
our analysis, we looked at the greater-than-10,000, 1,000, less
than 10,000, that group. We have a reason. There is a city
called Lakeview, Colorado. At first, one would look at the data
and we would say we can look from New York City, 7 million, to
Lakeview, Colorado, 12 residents. It is a city. I did not find
it on the map.
Chairman Biden. Did you say 12 residents?
Mr. Zhao. I said 12 residents--11 residents.
Chairman Biden. And want a new cop.
Mr. Zhao. Yes, in Lakeview.
So we were excited. We said that it almost covered the
whole range, all the cities. In 1996, they did not report any
crime. In 1997, they reported 12. Okay. Think about that 12.
When we talk about crime rates, we talk about incidents per
100,000. So, 12 divided by 11, it is 1.1, times 100,000.
Chairman Biden. That is a lot of crime.
Mr. Zhao. It is 87 percent--87 times more than New York
City.
Chairman Biden. Well, I will tell you what, I do not want
to live in that small town in Colorado.
Mr. Zhao. It could be an error.
Chairman Biden. I do not want to raise my kids in that
town.
Mr. Zhao. It could be an error. It could be a reporting
error.
Chairman Biden. No, no. I understand your point.
Mr. Zhao. Yes.
Chairman Biden. I think the point is well taken.
Mr. Zhao. So the data estimation is inflated.
Chairman Biden. Yes.
Mr. Zhao. So that is why we decided to get rid of any city
less than 1,000 because it is just not accurate. Just remember
that for cities. If you have 20 residents in a city, one crime
rate, you surpass New York.
Chairman Biden. One crime.
Mr. Zhao. One crime.
Chairman Biden. One crime, you surpass New York.
Mr. Zhao. You surpass New York. It would be 1 out of 20.
Chairman Biden. Let me ask you--and then I want to get to
the officers here, or the policemen. Mr. Muhlhausen, do you
think The Heritage Foundation study would have concluded--and
it may not. It may be an unfair question to ask, and if it is,
do not answer it and tell me.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I can answer it.
Chairman Biden. Do you think that if you just took the top,
the 50 largest cities in America, and did the same study that
you would reach the same result, that it would be that there
was no impact, positive impact by the COPS program?
Mr. Muhlhausen. As my biography has not been discussed, I
am a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland-Baltimore
County, and I am doing my dissertation on almost 60 large
cities across the United States. I am going to look into that
question, and I am going to let the numbers fall where they be.
Chairman Biden. So you do not know. The straightforward
answer is you do not have enough data to know the answer.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I had the data. I just have not been able
to analyze it.
Chairman Biden. That is what I meant.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I am in the process.
Chairman Biden. I am not trying to play a game with you. At
any rate, I got it.
Let me proceed with some of the questions I have for my
colleagues. Let me go back to you, Sheriff. You indicated to me
that there were some improvements that you would like to see
that could be made in the COPS program that would help you the
most.
By the way, before I forget, one of the assertions made,
generally, when there are criticisms of the COP program is--and
The Heritage Foundation and some others have made it as well, I
think. I think Heritage has. That where the money goes is not
where it is most needed. It does not necessarily relate to the
money for the COPS program, whether it is technology or a
badge. It may go to a place where it could be better used going
someplace else.
One of the things I found interesting was--and that
criticism has been brought up a number of times by some of my
colleagues to me as well--is that--correct me if I am wrong,
staff. I cannot find it now. But my recollection tells me that
where the cities--the 1 percent of the cities and
municipalities that had the highest murder rate and the highest
rate of violent crime got something like 30-some percent of all
of the COPS money.
Now, I will submit that for the record, to be precise, but
one might answer, well, why, when I wrote this bill, did I
include localities as small as 12 to be able to apply for a
COPS grant, and it is for the same reason that we insisted
everybody be in the Social Security system, which bothers The
Heritage Foundation as well. You have got to get 51 votes. That
is a very basic simple reason. If everybody ain't in the deal,
no one wants to be in the deal.
As a very practical matter, I think it does have positive
impact, but the truth of the matter is that you need to gain
consensus. It is the same reason why when we do not send money,
when I was chairman, anyway, we do not send money to the
governors to distribute because, when the governors distribute
the money, what they do is they have to deal with the
legislature, and every legislator of the 42 members of the
House in Delaware, unless the governor gives them all a piece
of it, they are not going to get it passed. They are not going
to get it through. So these are practical political
considerations that--not political--partisan, Democrat,
Republican, practical governance problems.
But having said that, what is it that we could most help
you, Sheriff, and your folks in changing the COPS program in
some way? I know you strongly support the program, but how
could we make it better from your perspective?
Mr. Brown. I do, Mr. Chairman. In fact, depending on what
side of the issue you are on, you may or may not want to hear
my comments because I have had nothing but positive results
with the COPS program.
I came in as sheriff in 1996, had to get involved with the
COPS program as soon as I came in. I applied for the COPS
grant, got two COPS positions. We got two more later on. We
have now funded them through the Sheriff's Department in
Bedford County, and Bedford County is a small- to medium-size
department. We have 84 sworn officers in the county. It is a
very large county, the third-largest in the State. But I have
had nothing but positive feedback from other--
Speaking on behalf of the National Sheriffs' Association,
most recently at the national convention in Florida in June, I
heard nothing but positive comments in reference to the COPS
program.
Me,, personally, Bedford County, we have had nothing but
positive action there.
What I think would help us some would be--I would like to
see--and this came from my grant administrator within the
department before I left. She said, ``See if you cannot get
them to put the COPS application online.'' I do not know since
she last filled one, if they have gone online. I do not know.
Chairman Biden. I do not know the answer to that, but it is
not a bad idea.
I should tell you, the day after we passed the crime bill,
2 days later, the Attorney General came in to see me in 1994,
to thank me. I said, ``General, I would like you to stick
around a while.'' She said, ``Why?'' I said, ``I want to help
you write the grant application program.'' She said, ``Well, we
are working on that.'' ``I just want to make it clear to you.
It better be one page. It better be one page. I do not want to
hear anything about''--and she said, ``I thought the role of a
legislator was to pass the law and let the administrators
administrate the application.'' I said, ``No, no. I have got
too much invested in this one. I want to make sure it gets
simplified.''
So, to the extent that if we still have this program we can
simplify it by putting in online, it makes some sense. I do not
know whether it is online or not. It is not online.
Mr. Brown. It is not. Well, that was certainly her request
when I came, in the route up here.
Chairman Biden. Colonel, how about you? I mean, is there
anything you would like to see? For example, here is what I
hear. I hear--and I think it is correct--I hear from elected
officials as well as--mostly, quite frankly, more from elected
officials than I hear from the officers that we would like to
be able to be in a position to use COPS money to retain cops.
In other words, ``The new COPS bill, if you get it passed, Joe,
we want to be able to, for example, use it for overtime. We
want be able to use it for the ability to keep a sworn officer.
The 3 years of funding has run out, and we do not have the
money to keep that person going. Can we use part of the money
to retain a cop that we have already gotten in the COPS
program? We need more money for technology.'' So the new COPS
bill calls for $600 million on the hiring side--correct me if I
am wrong, guys--$375 million for technology grants, and also
$100 million for more prosecutors, local prosecutors, because
we found we were having backlogs. We were finding you guys were
doing such a good job, we were not able to get them through the
system, and local prosecutors were in dire trouble.
So there are some of the kinds of things I have been urged
to change, assuming we can keep this going. Do you have any
input on that? Are there things we can do to help it?
Mr. Westphal. Mr. Chairman, let me respond in a few ways on
that particular question. I do hear that, that there are
certainly decision-makers that do not support retaining the
officers after the 3-year period that they have been funded,
but you were talking about that a little bit ago as far as
priming the pump, and I wanted to share with you a success
story from my particular agency where the COPS grant that we
got back in 1996, it was a COPS MORE grant, and it was for
technology. It was for 100 mobile data computers, which we were
implementing that process to try and make officers more
effective, more efficient, and, in turn, put more officers back
on the street as opposed to sitting around doing reports and so
on and so forth.
That has been a very effective program, and our State
legislature has followed up by the funding of an additional 350
mobile data computers. We now have mobile data computers in all
of our cars, and it has created an additional 20 officers on
the street that we have been able to redeploy to do other
things with a grant that only amounted to about a half-a-
million dollars and it was a pump-priming grant.
Chairman Biden. You needed that data equipment earlier, and
you were not getting it until you got it through the Federal
level.
Mr. Westphal. That is exactly right, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Biden. I do not know how we study that, and,
again, the two academics--I am not being critical. I am being
serious. When I take a look at studies on this and many other
issues, I find it hard to figure out--and there may be a way to
have a control variable as to knowing whether or not you can
measure that, for lack of a better phrase, psychological impact
on things going. I do not know. I mean, is there a way to do
that, or is this anecdotal information just that, anecdotal? Is
there any way to measure whether or not when the Federal
Government steps up to the ball and says we are going to do
something and they start something, it puts pressure, political
or otherwise, on localities to then do what they were not
doing?
Tom, we got a lot of money for those computers in your
officers' cars. Talk to me about that. What was the effect of
that? Was that just more hype?
Mr. Gordon. No. That has been very effective, and it is
certainly the future. It is not a toy. It does a couple of
things. It first gave them the ability to be able to do
criminal checks. So, when a police officer is out there at
night, they would normally have to call the 911 center, wait
for the frequencies to clear to check a car. So the safety
factor is immediate where they can run a check of a tag, even
before they pull it over, and find out that is a very dangerous
criminal, that is a very dangerous car. The effects of this are
just exponential in terms of officer safety. We could not have
afforded that without the siphon. You cannot as a local
government get that million dollars.
You can maintain it. We can maintain it now, never need the
Federal Government, but we have been years away for getting
this technology, which should have been done immediately upon
its discovery to be able to give these officers such a safety
factor, to be able to now communicate. Instead of traveling the
airwaves, waiting for a dispatch, they can now dispatch right
over their radio. So, immediately, they are getting dispatches.
All of their cars are watching the same dispatches. They are
not relying on a single frequency which, when now you see what
we have, looked to be a very dangerous system before we
realized how systematic and how safe it could be.
This is one of the greatest abilities of the Federal
Government to come down and allow--I think every police
department in this country will have this ability. They must
have this ability as the danger in the roadways and the
terrorism is out there. These officers have a tool because of
this COPS program that is saving lives every day.
Chairman Biden. Now, what technology, guys? The
administration indicated--they did not indicate what they would
do with the COPS program, but they indicated the need for
Federal investment in technology for local law enforcement, at
least that is how I understood the testimony. What are the
kinds of technologies? If you would rather submit this in
writing, that is fine, but what are the kinds of technologies
that would be most valuable for you to get help from the
Federal Government now, either to entice your State government
or your local government or to supplement what they are already
doing that makes the life of the officer more secure and
increases your ability to do the job of crime-fighting more?
Are there technologies out there that are particularly useful
that you would need help on?
Yes, Colonel.
Mr. Westphal. Senator, one of the issues that we are
certainly working on in IACP right now is figuring out how we
are going to share intelligence among the Federal agencies,
State agencies, local agencies, and make that a two-way sharing
of information.
One of the issues in technology is how you have proper
communication so that you have computer systems that share
information, two-way sharing, and you also have voice
communications where you can actually talk to each other when
incidents occur. That is certainly one of the arenas where
technology is very, very important for local law enforcement
agencies.
In many States where agencies are putting in new voice
communications systems, the local agencies are not able to buy
into the system because they do not have the money to buy the
mobile radios to put in their vehicles. So they are not really
a part of this integrated system and that certainly is
something that needs to be addressed in some way, and I think
the Federal Government could certainly assist in that.
Chairman Biden. Anecdotal, but, locally, we had a
particular problem in our largest city, which is a small city,
our largest city, relating to murders as a consequence of
firearms. Getting to the FBI the ballistic checks and, in fact,
the ID was a very, very--correct me if--now, County Executive
Gordon will know this better than I will. It was a time
constraint, and you have got to get in line. It was a very
difficult time lag between the overworked facility at the FBI
and/or in some States that exist at the State level. So we got
through one of the grants through to the COPS MORE. We got the
technology grant to get into the City of Wilmington and New
Castle County this ability to do ballistic tests that allowed
them to trace very quickly where this gun--was it used in
another crime and so on.
One of the other things people talked about--I am going to
raise these two in here. I just want to know what the
consequence is, if every police car in America had them.
What is that thing called, Tommy, where you put your thumb
in and you get the automatic--
Mr. Gordon. The AFIS computer.
Chairman Biden. Yes. Now, if every police car in America
had that available to them, what would be the impact on that,
Sheriff, for you and your law enforcement efforts in terms of
the safety? I realize we are talking FOP, a lot of guys walking
the street, too. So I am not suggesting it is always the
automobile. What are some of the things that are there on the
market that if we were able to get and train every police
agency in the country that would have real impacts on, my first
concern, the physical safety of the police officer and,
secondly, in turn, the reduction of crime? What are some of
those things?
Mr. Brown. Mr. Chairman, if I may. Mr. Gordon and Colonel,
I think hit on both of them, and that is, as far as the officer
on the street, it is the on-board computers. I cannot emphasize
enough the safety factor involved with having on-board
computers, the mobile data terminals within the cars. We are
receiving 10 as a result of the COPS MORE grant.
As Mr. Gordon and the colonel said, you can check it. The
officer can check it even before the car is stopped. It is just
immense safety concerns there or immense safety concerns in
stopping vehicles.
The other is the compatibility of the radios. We, right
now, in Bedford County consider our department pretty
progressive. We have three radios in our car, one for the State
police, one for the city police, and one for the county. We
cannot afford to go with the 800-megahertz systems. We cannot
afford it.
Chairman Biden. I am not trying to be critical, and I mean
this sincerely, of your local governments, but one of the
things that you hear from some of my colleagues, ``Well, that
is a local responsibility. Why isn't your mayor, your county
executive, your governor coming up with that money?''
Mr. Gordon. And it probably is a local responsibility, but
we are still going to go out and beat the bushes and try to get
you as the Federal Government involved in this. We need help.
We need it. We will take it any way we can get it.
Chairman Biden. Does anybody want to respond to that last
question?
Mr. Westphal. Senator, I will respond to that. We in
Colorado are putting in an 800-megahertz system, and the State
is responsible for the infrastructure and all the State
agencies. Many of the local agencies are participating, but we
have agencies in Colorado that they are so small, small
sheriff's departments that have two or three deputies, that
have a budget that is so minute that the price of one mobile
radio is their operating money for the year, and they really
need assistance somewhere, and the State simply is not
providing it at this point in time. So I think it is an
important issue.
I would also like to address the issue on the AFIS and the
fingerprinting. The technology is there--and it has been
available for some time--to be able to transmit fingerprints
and mug shots from a car digitally and wirelessly to apprehend
criminals and identify fugitives. It is the fact that the money
is not available to buy that technology, and it is very
expensive to be able to do that mobile and transmit photos and
fingerprints.
Chairman Biden. It seems to me, by the way--and I realize
this is a little afield, but I have got to take advantage of
your expertise here. This goes beyond the COPS program. It
seems to me that with the new and understandable evidence on an
area that I have worked on for 28 years in my career in
counter-terrorism that this increases expedientally the need
for this.
Mr. Westphal. Yes.
Chairman Biden. I am not poor-mouthing this across the
board here, and I am being honest. I hope we get into the
Defense appropriations bill we are about to debate, monies that
will be available for first responders, including police as
well as fire services, that will supplement some of the needs
that you have here to deal particularly with terror activities.
Senator Byrd has--I think it is--do not hold me to the
figure, but it is over a hundred--it is $50 million, I think it
is, in this bill. I think it is $50 million for first
responders to deal with technologies as well as letting the
localities make the decision.
Training. One of you mentioned the need for additional
training. When we got a problem--and I am not being facetious.
When we get a problem in Delaware, we do not call the FBI. We
call Colonel Freebery sitting behind you in her previous
capacity or we would call the State police or we would call the
local city police or we would call the town police in Frederica
to respond, and they are the first ones on the scene. I do not
want to paint too bleak a picture here. Hopefully, we are going
to get more monies in that help localities with the added
burden that has occurred as a consequence of the focus on and
the realization that terror is a real deal, and it ain't going
to happen other than locally when it happens.
God love them, and I am a great supporter of the FBI. There
were not any FBI agents running in that building because they
were not there. There were cops running into those Twin Trade
Towers. The FBI would have run in if they were there. They
would have run in, just like they would have. So there will be
some of that.
Steve, you started to say something, I thought, and I cut
you off by accident.
Mr. Young. In your opening statement, you said that
fundamental principle of the Government is to defend, to
protect its people. I do not understand, perhaps, some of your
colleagues' thinking that this is a local issue. If I am within
the boundaries of this country, why should I have less
protection in a small town in Ohio than I would have in
Colorado Springs because of the ability of the local government
to provide that protection? I mean, that strikes me as a
statement of the privileged. Those folks feel that their
communities have adequate protection; therefore, they do not
need to be concerned with others.
Chairman Biden. It is called devolution of power, I think
is what they call it at other places.
Mr. Young. But if that is, indeed, the case, it is the
Federal Government's responsibility to protect the citizens of
the country and to make sure that when we exercise our freedoms
to go from city to city and State to State, the protection is
equal.
Chairman Biden. Well, Steve, I happen to agree with you,
and I was being a little facetious when I called it devolution
of Government. As some of my friends at some of the think-
tanks, Heritage as well as many others in town, viewed from
conservative to liberal, they talk about the new paradigm, and
there is a new paradigm being pushed hard by the intellectual
right which is the devolution of power and that local thing
should be handled locally and the Federal Government should not
be involved.
Even if you accept that premise, which I do not fully
accept, personally, there is--just to make sure, I want to make
it clear, and then I will let anybody make any closing
statement they want because I have gone beyond the time I told
you. It is 11 after 4:00 already.
One of the reasons why I make no apologies for my pushing
as hard as I do to expend Federal money for local law
enforcement is because I would argue, and do argue, that a
significant portion of the crime you have to deal with in a
Colorado super highway or in a back crown-top road in the Blue
Ridge Mountains or in a suburban area of New Castle County or
in the inner city in Detroit, Michigan, relates to the fact
that there has been a failure at the Federal level to deal with
a significant portion of the cause of all the crime you face,
and that is international and national drug policy.
You could do everything perfect in each of your
jurisdictions, and you do not control the inflow of all of that
cocaine from Colombia. You do not effect all of that heroin
coming from Afghanistan, coming from Colombia now, and there
are certain national responsibilities that relate to things
that are uniquely and only able to be handled federally. You
can come up with 55--well, it would be 53, but 50 States, 50
different brilliant drug strategies in your State, and you
cannot cross the line from Ohio into Illinois and tell them
what they are going to do there and follow the line the same
way.
So I would argue that we have an overwhelming obligation,
federally. I happen to agree with your basic point, why should
someone in Colorado Springs get less or more protection than
someone in Dagsboro, Delaware. They are American citizens, but
it is the nature, and I love your phrase. It seems to be the
assertion of the privileged when you are there, but I just
think that there is room for legitimate debate.
I want to state for the record, even though I will be
coming to each of your organizations and there are three
organizations represented here of police organizations of the
seven major ones, asking for the help like I always have in the
past for this legislation.
I want to be clear to you. There is not a pride of
authorship here in the sense that if you think something I am
proposing does not work or it could work better. As your staffs
will tell you, I am open. I am open. If it ain't working, I do
not want to do it.
I came out of a school of thought that when I first got
here as a 29-year-old kid in 1973--actually elected in 1972--
that there were a lot of people--I used to be called--which
will shock Mr. Muhlhausen. I used to be called an iconoclast. I
was not a liberal because I thought we should have crime
legislation, and I thought public housing did not work and I
thought of things that were sort of sacrilegious at the time.
I came away from my formative years in politics concluding
that no matter how well-conceived a program is, if it does not
produce results, what will happen is you will have the entirety
of the initiative lose support of the public at large and
nothing will happen.
So, if you have a housing program that 70 percent works and
30 percent does not, you had better correct the 30 percent that
does not because that will be used as the club to beat the 70
percent that does work, and you will have no housing program.
That is why I say very, very frankly, I want your help if
the administration concludes to consolidate, reduce, eliminate,
et cetera, the impact. I am open to see. If they got a better
idea than the COPS, I am open to that idea, but we need
significant help at the local level.
I want to make it clear. If what we are proposing and what
we have done is not working well or as well as it could, let's
change it. Let's change it. I am anxious, and I am not kidding,
David.
I read not with an eye of skepticism. I read with genuine
interest The Heritage Foundation--you have got some of the
brightest people in the country over there, including
yourself--
Mr. Muhlhausen. Thank you.
Chairman Biden. --and I mean that. We have different
philosophies sometimes on how we approach it, but some of this
stuff, we just got to sort of slog through and decide because I
think we are all on the same page. We are all trying to figure
out what works, what works, what works.
Again, I step back and think a little bit like--I am not
going to repeat it--like a cop again, but I think just like
most citizens thing, and a phrase that Ronald Reagan used to
always use every time I would go to see him about something and
as a Senator for the 8 years that I overlapped with him, of the
seven Presidents I have served with, he used his phrase he
loved. It was if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I do not know
what it is that caused--I am not prepared to say I know for
certain what caused the reduction in crime that has occurred
over the last decade or more, but whatever it is, I hope the
hell we keep it going.
I just know one thing, and I will end where my friend
began. One of the things that is very much in vogue to say in
this town by Democrats and Republicans is that money does not
solve all of the problems. I agree with that, but I do not know
many big problems they could solve without money. I have not
figured many of them. Money does not guarantee it gets solved,
but I sure do not know many that are solved without money. I do
not know how we get those radios in your car. I do not know how
we get those computers in the car. I do not know how we get
cops on the street. I do not know how we do that without money.
And that does not mean to suggest--and I mean this sincerely,
and I hope I have demonstrated in my career that I do not think
if it ain't working, if the money is not being used
effectively, I do not want in on it because then the very thing
I am trying to accomplish, I lose all credibility on it.
So I want to keep this program going, and I would offer as
evidence to that the way we amended the thing I care most about
of anything I have ever done, the Violence Against Women Act.
We amended it. We changed it. Parts of it were not working. We
got rid of the parts of it that were not working. Even though I
wrote it, if it did not work, it proves to me they were not
getting the bang for the buck, and we emphasized other parts.
That is what I am looking forward to trying to do, and I hope
the administration will either as a consequence of an
independent decision they reach to try to work it that way or
as a consequence of thinking of not being able to get 51 votes
they will think that way, but I hope we can get this thing
worked out.
I would like to ask unanimous consent to insert a statement
from Senator Kohl in the record as if he were here, and I will
now yield the floor.
[The prepared statement of Senator Kohl follows:]
Statement of Hon. Herbert Kohl, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Wisconsin
Mr. Chairman,
Thank you for calling this hearing today on the COPS program.
Since1994, COPS has become an indispensable part of our ongoing fight
against crime. When we ask law enforcement officers in Wisconsin how we
can help them do their jobs and protect our communities, they
consistently cite the COPS program as the most beneficial use of
federal money. We have received countless requests for community
police--from small towns with only two or three officers to the largest
cities in Wisconsin. Police departments and sheriffs offices throughout
the state have benefitted from the 1,340 new officers in Wisconsin
since the program began.
Today, our panelists will argue whether the COPS program is
responsible for the consistently lower crime rate during the last half
of the 1990s. While that is an interesting academic discussion, we know
what the police and sheriffs in our communities tell us--that COPS have
made a tremendous difference.
Now that the authorization for the program has ended and there have
been rumblings about significantly cutting COPS, we need to think about
what comes next. Mr. Chairman, we must reauthorize the program for
50,000 new officers as you have proposed and many of us have supported.
The law enforcement officers on the street and the citizens in our
neighborhood know what a difference the program has made. There is no
sense in shutting down or significantly altering a program that works.
We must build upon the success of the program and guarantee its future.
The program is much more than ``cops on the beat''. It is also
school resource officers, funds to combat the spread of methamphetamine
and other drugs, and important new crime fighting technologies. For
example, during the last two years, COPS technology funding has allowed
the Milwaukee Police Department to upgrade an antiquated communications
network. The new system is designed to coordinate the response of
numerous public authorities in the event of a terrorist or bio-
terrorist event.
Mr. Chairman, the COPS program may be more important now than ever.
Federal law enforcement officials have very different priorities today
than they did when we created this program. As a result, they will be
far less able to assist states and localities in solving and preventing
crime. More will be expected of state and local law enforcement, and we
must continue to help them.
Thank you.
Chairman Biden. In the order you each testified, if anybody
would want to have anything to say in closing here, I welcome
any comments you may have.
Tom, anything?
Mr. Gordon. Sure. Senator, I agree with our distinguished
FOP president that it is the United States constitutional right
for public safety delegated to the States, and I think we have
an obligation where those States are failing at some of the
very basics to assist them.
I can see it working, again, both as a former chief and now
I am running the government, and I certainly would not be
adding police now just for the sake of adding police. I know it
works, and I could do a study in my county to prove that, but I
can share with you that. I did not study the numbers, but they
were pretty clear.
Chairman Biden. Tom, for the record, roughly, how big is
your county?
Mr. Gordon. It has 500,000 people.
We had a pretty consistent--as I looked at the numbers, as
you said, during a 10-year period before 1991, those numbers in
this country did not grow, and they stayed stagnant. Crime
grew.
I can tell you that I do not know how you can measure the
difference between county and State, giving money to public
safety, because this is a siphon. Every time you pick up three
police officers, you are funding them 2-1/2, 3 years down the
road, almost immediately with some of the matching grants. So I
do not know how you distinguish between exactly where the money
has gone because it did encourage the locals, the States, and
the counties to become more involved in public safety and they
did have to step up to the plate. That is the best part of
this. It was not forever. You had to get a program in. The
chief had to make it work, and then he had to sell it to the
body or he lost the officer. It works.
Thank you.
Chairman Biden. Thank you.
Colonel?
Mr. Westphal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
On behalf of IACP, I will just say that it don't need no
fixing because it ain't broke.
If we are going to do anything, we should add more money,
not less money. We think it should be left as a separate office
within the Department of Justice because we want an office that
addresses just law enforcement issues.
I would agree with David Muhlhausen that we need to make
sure that we do submit a plan and we implement it and we
evaluate it. I think that is only fair, and I think that is
what everybody wants here. That is what we have been talking
about today is we need to make sure that we are spending money
on a program that works, and I think it works. On behalf of
IACP, we would like to see the program continue.
Chairman Biden. As our first witness, Mr. Dihn, was kind
enough to acknowledge, he indicated the COPS program after that
first 3-year assessment has more people on board. They realize
they got to do that now. They have been doing it now, and,
hopefully, it is being effective.
Mr. Westphal. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
Chairman Biden. I do not disagree.
Sheriff?
Mr. Brown. Mr. Chairman, again, like my distinguished
colleagues, I can only echo what they have said, and on behalf
of the National Sheriffs' Association, I thank you very much.
And I will be delighted to come north at any time to chat with
you.
Chairman Biden. Well, as beautiful as the county you
represent is, I think we should have the next meeting in the
south.
At any rate, Steve? Mr. President?
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, I have some concern over the push
for hard statistical data. Data is a snapshot of the past,
though I do realize that, absent statistics, you just simply
have an opinion.
Policing is not as simple as adding X and Y and coming up
with Z. Predicting crime is something that no one has perfected
yet. So, to insist that a program earn its way by meeting an
exact criteria of statistical data is made difficult by the
fact that you have a human element involved. I would hate to
see us go so far that the program is driven by those numbers
and not by the practicality of what it is really intended to
do, and that is the prevention of crime.
It is easy enough to measure the crimes that have been
committed, but how do you measure the crimes that have been
prevented? And that seems to be lost in this argument.
Chairman Biden. Another thing that seems to be lost in this
argument we all have is the number of cops in America that did
not die, the number of cops in America that were not injured,
and the attitude of the cops in America about how they do their
job.
I am telling you, I have been doing this for a long time. I
have been in this deal for 30 years, 31 years elected working
with cops from the first day, and I am telling you, two things
have happened, not because of the Federal Government. Two
things have happened. This ain't your father's Oldsmobile. They
are a hell of a lot more professional because of the training,
not their dedication, but they are hell of a lot more
professional because we spent the money on training. We
protracted college.
I do not know how many graduation classes I have done in my
State. I do not think there has been one in God knows how many
years where there has not been a college graduate going into
the program, and we got a different deal here.
The second thing is the sense of security. I go back to the
fight, Steve, when we were trying to get bulletproof vests.
Bulletproof vests, we were trying to get, and that was, by the
way, only, what, 12, 14 years ago that fight took place. So
cops, I think, feel not only they are better qualified and
trained by you all, but I really, truly believe they feel
better equipped and, therefore, more confident in taking risks
that maybe they would not take before. Who knows? How do you
measure it? I guess maybe there is a way to factor that. I do
not know how.
Doctor?
Mr. Zhao. I think it might be interesting just to find out
what is going on in those small cities, why there is a positive
relationship between the COPS grants and the crime rates, even
though those are small, but there are 3,400 cities in our data
about those cities, less than 10,000 population.
Chairman Biden. I do not know why the Bureau of Justice
Statistics and the National Institute of Justice--it may be
something that we could talk to them--I could contact them to
see if they would consider funding such a study to try to find
that out because it is something we should know.
David?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Mr. Chairman, The Heritage Foundation study
received no funding from the Government to do its work. We
found that hiring grants and the MORE technology grants failed
to reduce crime. If Congress really wants to promote effective
programs, they should abolish these programs and fund only the
innovative grants which have been found to be effective.
Chairman Biden. Thank you very much.
Gentlemen and those in the audience who have been staffing
them and helping them, thank you very, very much for your time.
I warn you, it will not be the only time I will call on you and
ask for your opinions, but I do appreciate your time and
effort. Doctor, I appreciate you making the trek an awful lot
for being here.
Thanks a million. We are now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Solomon Zhao to questions submitted by the Subcommittee
Question 1.
The COPS Office could potentially play a limited role in
controlling gun crimes. I can see the potential contribution from the
Office in two areas. First, the Office could provide more Innovative
Grant funding for controlling gun crimes. Each police agency that
requests this specific funding would need to provide a detailed plan on
how the project would be executed. Second, the Office could help
organize training sessions to disseminate up-to-date knowledge and
research on gun crime issues.
Question 2.
I think that terrorist specialists should be available in every
large police agency served in cities with greater than 150,000
population. There are about 150 police agencies across the country.
Therefore, it would be feasible to train a few hundred specialists. The
COPS Office certainly could play an important role in the training
process. It is important to note that the criminal justice system in
America is very decentralized and operates independently. The COPS
Office has been a good coordinator in disseminating information and
assisting local law enforcement agencies. The Office has strengthened
this infrastructure of its support role over the past six years. I
don't recall any other federal agency having such an extensive network
with local agencies like the COPS Office.
Question 3.
I agree with the statement that, ``A probation officer who is more
involved with the daily life of the probationer's community is likely
to do a much better job of keeping the person on the straight and
narrow especially with the assistance of the eyes and ears of the
community where the probation officer works.'' Intensive Supervision
Programs (ISP) were initiated in the 1980s as a way to supervise and
control probationers in the community. I don't believe that there will
be fewer technical violations or crime incidents among probationers
under ISP because the closer the monitoring, the more likely a
probation officer would find violations. A mother with 10 children is
less likely to detect that something is wrong than a mother with only
one child. However, in the long run, I think ISP is beneficial for the
community and probationers alike.
Question 4.
I am not familiar with the Milwaukee approach but believe that the
COPS Office is capable of playing a positive role in anti-terrorist
efforts.
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Statement of Hon. Dianne Feinstein, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to offer my support for continuing and
reauthorizing the COPS program. Thank you for your leadership on this
important issue.
I strongly supported the creation of the COPS program in 1994 as
part of that year's crime bill. And I support its reauthorization.
As you know, one of my priorities in the Senate has been combating
crime. And I have long believed that one of the best ways to fight
crime is to hire more policemen.
Congress enacted the COPS program as part of the 1994 Crime Bill.
Since that time, the program has funded 114,000 new officers through
over 30,000 grants to over 12,000 law enforcement agencies. California
law enforcement has received funding for over 15,000 additional
officers.
And these new officers have made a tremendous difference in helping
communities battle crime.
Since COPS was created in 1994, crime has gone down every single
year that the program has been in existence. In fact, according to the
FBI Crime Index, the crime rate has dropped 22 percent since the date
the Crime Bill was enacted.
The results have been similar in my home state of California.
According to the California Crime Index, the crime rate has decreased
there every year since 1994, except there was a slight increase from
1999 to 2000 in total crime due to a rise in property crime.
And these results have now been confirmed by the first-ever
academic study of COPS. This study has found that the COPS program has
had a ``significant crime
reducing effect on the vast majority of the population of the
United States.'' I understand that one of the authors of the study,
Professor Jihong Zhao, will testify today.
I was. disappointed that the Administration's first budget request
proposed to zero out the COPS police hiring program and cut COPS'
overall budget by 18 percent. I supported reauthorizing COPS for an
additional five years and expanding and improving the program.
Ultimately, COPS was funded this year for one year at a slightly higher
level than last year.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to offer a statement on
COPS. I look forward to working with you on preserving and
strengthening this valuable program.
Statement of Hon. Charles E. Schumer, a U.S. Senator from the State of
New York
Mr. Chairman, in 1994 the Crime Bill created the COPS on the Beat
Program. As Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, I helped to
shepherd this program through Congress because I believed then--and I
believe now--that Congress should promote the spread of policing
strategies that prevent crime before it occurs, rather than simply
reacting to crime.
Given the new focus on terrorism that the Department of Justice is
rightfully taking as a result of the September 11th attacks, it is more
important than ever that local law enforcement has the resources that
it needs to address crimes in our communities.
And, it is particularly important in these tough financial times--
when state and local budgets are particularly tight--that the federal
government not cut back on our support of local law enforcement at the
same time that federal law enforcement is turning to other pressing
issues. For both of these reasons, and because of the dramatic success
of the program, I believe that we must continue the COPS program and
the federal government's commitment to community policing.
By the end of last year, the COPS program had awarded grants for
the hiring or redeployment to the nation's streets of over 100,00
police officers and sheriff's deputies. It is estimated that by the end
of this year, over 84,000 of these officers will be on the street.
The COPS partnership with state and local law enforcement has been
paying big dividends. According to the 2000 Uniform Crime Reports from
the FBI, the number of serious crimes is far below where it was five
and ten years ago--down 14 percent from 1996 and 22 percent from 1991.
In fact, the 2000 measure was the lowest since 1978.
The number of murders are also significantly lower than they were
five and ten years ago--21 percent from 1996 and 37.2 percent from
1991. And, property crime rates in 2000 were lower as well--13.8
percent lower than 1996 and 21.4 percent lower than 1991.
In my home state of New York, since 1994, violent crime has dropped
40 percent. Murder is down 51 percent, aggravated assault is down
nearly 29 percent and robbery is down 52 percent.
Crime is down from one end of the state to the other. The city of
Albany saw a 20 percent drop in crime and Binghamton saw an 8% drop.
There was a 26% drop in Buffalo, a 38% drop in New York City, a 21%
drop in Rochester, and a 22.5% drop in Syracuse.
A study from the University of Nebraska has shown that the drop in
the crime rate is due in no small part to the COPS program. They found
a direct correlation in cities receiving COPS grants between the
decline in both violent and property crimes and the receipt of COPS
dollars. I am pleased that Professor Solomon Zhao from the University
is here to discuss his study, and I look forward to hearing more about
his findings.
The research findings are supported by the observations of the
experts and everyday citizens with direct experience with the COPS
program. They will tell you that enhanced community policing has played
a significant role. Police officers develop an intimate knowledge of
the communities they patrol, in the process discovering what community
conditions give rise to criminal behavior. In turn, the community sees
familiar faces patrolling their streets and ultimately develops the
trust that breeds joint efforts to solve local problems.
We must continue this successful program that has done so much to
eradicate crime in this nation. I am sure that many of my colleagues
have heard, as I have, from police chiefs, rank-and-file officers,
mayors, city councils, and town boards about how important it is to
continue the COPS program. In fact, I understand that we will hear from
several of these local law enforcement officers today about their
successes under the COPS program.
They are the ones who have used the program to expand their police
forces even in the face of increasingly tight local budgets. They are
the ones who most clearly understand the link between a strong
community policing presence and safe streets. In closing, I would like
to thank Senator Biden for holding this hearing today to highlight this
important crime prevention program. And, I would also like to note that
I am a co-sponsor of S. 924, the bill that Senator Biden introduced to
re-authorize this important program. The COPS program has been--and
should continue to be--a significant part of our successful strategy to
roll back crime
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