[Senate Hearing 109-755]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-755
FIGHTING CRIME: THE CHALLENGES FACING LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE
FEDERAL ROLE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
__________
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
__________
Serial No. J-109-116
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN CORNYN, Texas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Michael O'Neill, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director
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....................................................... 2
Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 1
WITNESSES
DiSabatino, Vincent J., Master Corporal, Wilmington Police
Department, Wilmington, Delaware............................... 11
Horvath, Jeffrey, Chief of Police, Dover Police Department,
Dover, Delaware................................................ 8
Kane, Jim, Executive Director, Delaware Criminal Justice Council,
Wilmington, Delaware........................................... 4
Mosley, James, Director, Wilmington Department of Public Safety,
Wilmington, Delaware; accompanied by Michael Szczerba, Chief of
Police, Wilmington Police Department, Wilmington, Delaware..... 6
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
DiSabatino, Vincent J., Master Corporal, Wilmington Police
Department, Wilmington, Delaware, statement.................... 29
Horvath, Jeffrey, Chief of Police, Dover Police Department,
Dover, Delaware, statement..................................... 32
Nolan, Cheri, Senior Policy Advisor, Criminal and Juvenile
Justice Issues, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, statement...................................... 35
FIGHTING CRIME: THE CHALLENGES FACING LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE
FEDERAL ROLE
----------
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
United States Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., at
the Clarence Fraim Boys and Girls Club, Wilmington, Delaware,
Hon. Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Specter and Biden.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Chairman Specter. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on ``Fighting Crime: The
Challenges Facing Local Law Enforcement and the Federal Role''
will come to order. You know, Senator Biden is a past Chairman
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also a past Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a unique role in American
political history, being elected to the United States Senate at
the age of 29 when the Constitution sets the minimum age at 30.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Specter. But his mother and father were careful
enough to arrange his chronology so that he became 30 before
his swearing-in date. And he and I have worked very closely
together in the time I have been in the Senate, although he is
8 years my senior in tenure in the Senate. And we share many
common goals and many common interests, and one of the critical
ones is law enforcement.
Senator Biden has been a leader in providing the so- called
COPS program to have Federal funding to assist local law
enforcement. Regrettably, there is not enough Federal funding
on that subject, but we continue to work on it within budget
constraints. He has also been the leader, with my
cosponsorship, on protecting women against violence, and we are
now working on the so-called Second Chance legislation to
give--he is the principal sponsor. Again, I am working with
him, as is Senator Brownback and others, to recognize that most
people who are in jail are going to be released, and that it
makes good sense to provide realistic rehabilitation so that
they are not recidivists, coming back to commit more violent
crimes, and also to give them an opportunity for rehabilitation
to be productive citizens.
Senator Biden and I were just talking about the
difficulties of being so close to the big cities. You have
Philadelphia a short distance to the north, and you have
Baltimore not too far to the south, and that exposes Wilmington
to a great many transient drug users and other violent
criminals.
So I am delighted that Senator Biden has taken the
leadership on moving for this hearing, and I am very pleased to
participate with him.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for being
here today. The people of Delaware are thankful for your being
here, and I appreciate it very much.
It is true that we have had very close relationships. Back
in the old days when I was Chairman, we used to hold those
hearings as well in Philadelphia, and there is a real
relationship. We are much, much smaller, but what happens on
Aramingo Avenue ends up on Market Street here. And what happens
on Market Street here ends up in Seaford, Delaware. And what
happens in Seaford ends up a little further down. So this is
all connected.
But I want to thank you very much. You have been a
stalwart. The whole genesis of the so-called crime bill that
people talked about in 1994 was yours. It sounds like a mutual
admiration society, but it is important that people know it was
your Career Criminal Act, deciding to take what was limited
resources and focus on those who commit most of the crime. I
know all the officers here know, if they could take 7 to 10
percent of the people off the street that they could identify,
they would reduce crime by 50 percent. And so that was the
genesis of all that we worked on, and I again thank you for
being here, and especially since you have got a busy day today.
And I wish you a Happy New Year, and I know you have got to be
home to celebrate with your family, too. So I am going to move
this along.
I have a statement I would like to ask unanimous consent it
be placed in the record, if I may, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Specter. Without objection.
Senator Biden. And I will make just a couple comments.
You know, we hit on a system that worked pretty well, and
you were one of the prime movers of what most people call the
COPS bill, but it is the crime bill, which was much more than
adding 100,000-plus cops on the street.
We also put money in for prevention and for prisons, and an
interesting thing happened. As the witnesses, I suspect, will
recall, they took that money and used it very wisely. Crime
went down on average 7.5 percent a year for about 8 years. And
one of the things that has happened is we were so successful--
or I should say law enforcement was so successful using the
additional tools we gave them that it is sort of like--among
both our confreres in the Democratic and Republican Party, it
is sort of like, well, we won the war on crime, it worked. I
mean, they did such a good job people started thinking that
maybe we can do less next year--not less in terms of the effort
of law enforcement, but less in terms of funding.
The result has been, as you by implication have referenced,
over the last several years we have cut several billion
dollars, close to $4 billion in local law enforcement
assistance from the Federal level. I know you have resisted
those cuts, and I know you have added money back, and I know we
are facing real budget constraints. But I would just like to
point out that crime and fighting crime I think is like cutting
grass. You go out and cut your grass this weekend or in the
middle of summer, and it looks pretty good. You let it go a
week; it still looks good. You let it go a month; it looks
ragged. You let it go for 3 months; you have got a jungle
again.
And I do not know how we can ever, quite frankly, unless
the population in the crime-committing years, those folks
mostly young men between the ages of 14 and 30, unless that
population drops significantly, I do not know how you can ever
spend less money on law enforcement than you did the year
before.
But in a sense, our colleagues who are going to be
testifying today have become victims of their success. And the
result is that crime rates--and I have this in a statement. I
will not take the time to go into it now. But we find ourselves
in a position where the Bureau of Statistics, the Uniform Crime
Report of 2005--we do not have it for 2006 yet, obviously. The
violent crime is starting to tick back up. We have a similar
problem where we just have a miniature problem, we were talking
earlier, of what you have in your great city of Philadelphia.
The murder rate is high. Most of I think we are going to find
is drug related.
And so there is a whole lot of work to do, and I think what
we have to try to figure out to do is how do we deal with
attempting to restore--I said 4 billion. I misspoke--$2 billion
in cuts to local law enforcement over the past 6 years. How do
we better allocate the dollars to give law enforcement the
resources they need?
I will conclude by saying my Dad used to have an
expression, and you knew my Dad, and he was a great admirer of
yours, as you know. He really was a great admirer of yours. My
Dad used to say when I was a kid, I would come in and say,
``But, Dad.'' And I would give him an excuse for something I
was not supposed to have done or what I should have done and I
did not do. And I would say, ``But I went and did such-and-
such.'' And he would look at me, and he would say, ``Champ, if
everything is equally important to you, nothing is important to
you. It is all about priorities.'' And I think the single most
significant priority--and I know you know this from your days
as D.A., and no has been more steadfast than you. I do not
think Government has any responsibility higher than making the
streets safe for people to be able to walk them. And you can
have all the civil rights and all the civil liberties and the
greatest education program and health care program, et cetera.
But if you do not have safety on the street, then you are in
real trouble. None of the rest matters nearly as much as it
should.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to again thank you
very, very much, and I would like to thank the Clarence Fraim
Boys and Girls Club for accommodating us today, and thank all
of you for being here. I know when Arlen, when the Senator
walked in, he said, ``You have got a good crowd here.'' And I
said, ``These people are the leaders in the community. They are
very concerned about what is going on and what is not going
on.''
So I welcome you to our State. I thank you for coming, and
I yield the floor.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Senator Biden.
We now turn to our distinguished panel of witnesses. The
big time clock shows a 5-minute customary parameter for
statements. To the extent you can adhere to that, we would
appreciate it, giving us the maximum time for questions and
answers.
Our first witness is Mr. Jim Kane, the Executive Director
of the Delaware Criminal Justice Council. He has quite a resume
in this field, having served on the Governor's Advisory
Commission on Youth, the Governor's Council on Alcohol, Drug
Abuse, and Mental Health, and the Governor's Safe Streets
Committee; previously was President of the National Criminal
Justice Association from 2001 to 2003, so he has quite a lot of
experience here.
Thank you for coming in today, Mr. Kane, and we look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JIM KANE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DELAWARE CRIMINAL
JUSTICE COUNCIL, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
Mr. Kane. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to testify
today. I would like to thank the Boys and Girls Club for
allowing us to use the facility. The Criminal Justice Council
has a long history with the Boys and Girls Club. Their
innovative approaches to working with young people have allowed
them to serve thousands of at-risk children with Federal money
funneled through the Council. They have opened six clubs in
Kent and Sussex Counties. They have always been there to fill
the needs of any request that I have made of them, no matter
how late at night and no matter how bizarre. Senator Joseph
Biden has been instrumental in funding the National Boys and
Girls Clubs to begin small town Boys and Girls Clubs and Native
American reservation clubs.
At the Criminal Justice Council, we tend to look at the
criminal justice system as a continuum of events involving
clients as they flow through the system. The Criminal Justice
Council began looking at the characteristics of convicted
criminals about 20 years ago. We have reviewed social and
economic demographics of violent criminals. We have looked at
these criminals as juvenile delinquents. We have looked at the
same delinquents as abused children prior to their involvement
in the criminal justice system. Over the years, we have become
rather adroit at arresting, prosecuting, and convicting serious
offenders. One of the things that we know for certain is that
two-time violent felons have an excellent chance, about 80
percent, of being convicted of another violent felony.
Therefore, we have concentrated most of our efforts in the law
enforcement area on serious predators who we know are very
difficult to rehabilitate. We have concentrated on these
individuals with assistance from the United States Department
of Justice. We have usually been able to reduce crime in
whatever geographic grid we work with these offenders. That way
we can maximize our enforcement efforts. We have been less than
successful in rehabilitating this population.
One of our more successful programs has been Operation Safe
Streets. This program combines prevention efforts, law
enforcement, victim assistance, and reentry opportunities for
returning inmates with two previous felony convictions in pre-
defined geographic grids. Prevention services are provided at
community centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, and Police Athletic
League. During nighttime hours, police, adult, and juvenile
probation officers team with each other to supervise and check
on two-time violent felons returning to their community. The
results in defined areas have been startling.
For example, in Wilmington our Safe Streets operations have
dramatically reduced shootings in whatever neighborhoods they
were placed. Secondary and tertiary victims of crime have been
provided with grief and fear support. Literally hundreds of
violent felons have been reincarcerated over the last 5 years.
Thousands of youth were served.
Now, as an example of how serious and dangerous this is,
last night two of the Wilmington Safe Streets officers were
actually in an accident and went to the hospital because they
were chasing people through a neighborhood.
The Delaware State Police has incorporated Safe Streets,
and they call it the Governor's Task Force. These units
function statewide and have been responsible for large amounts
of arrests and drug and gun confiscations.
The Dover Safe Streets Operation has increased the safety
in the city of Dover. Again, as a reminder of the seriousness
of the people that the officers are concentrating on, two
officers were seriously wounded in a shootout in Dover chasing
a Safe Streets client late at night.
New Castle County: We began a limited Safe Streets
Operation in New Castle County just on June 19th. Since June
19th, 200 teenagers were served by PAL and the Boys and Girls
Club; 120 two-time violent felons were removed from the
community; $18,000 was seized in cash or stolen property; and
over 600 grams of illicit drugs were found. We also seized 6
weapons, 47 victims of violence were served through our victim
unit, and 70 probationers who decided to do the right thing
received rehab services.
I think three of the Safe Streets officers are in the back
in the yellow shirts from the county. I do not know where you
guys are. Did they run away? They do not like any credit, but
they are out there risking their lives every night for us.
Our studies have indicated that 80 percent of the shooter/
shootees in the city of Wilmington are African American males
between the ages of 14 and 24. If you look at the criminal
justice system and criminals as a pyramid, the top of that
pyramid are two-time violent felons. The pool of individuals at
the bottom tend to be poor African American male children who
do not have the means to make it in society. The Safe Streets
program addresses both ends of the spectrum. We deal with high-
risk probationers, and we also try to work with and help high-
risk children.
The reduction in Federal crime dollars has already reduced
the community policing capacity. Elimination of the COPS
program has destroyed a tool that we could use in the local
level to prevent crime.
Prevention and Byrne dollar reductions have almost
eliminated our ability to open community centers in the
evening.
Most of our case processing projects that defer minor
offenders from going through the system have been changed.
We have lost thousands in drug treatment money; therefore,
our ability to rehab inmates in the community has lessened.
Safe Street Operations will not be implemented in highly
needed neighborhoods because of the lack of money.
In the past, the crime bill provided the States with a
balanced funding approach to criminal justice so that we could
create innovations for the different components of the system.
The crime bill created many innovations in the area of speedy
trial that otherwise would not have been initiated. The
reduction of Federal dollars has greatly diminished our
balanced approach.
I would like to thank Senator Biden and Senator Specter for
their overwhelming support for State and local criminal
justice, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mr. Kane.
We turn to our second witness, Mr. Jim Mosley. He began his
career as a helicopter door gunner while serving in South
Vietnam and was selected by the Supreme Allied Commander in
Europe to lead his personal security team.
Mr. Mosley is the Public Safety Director for the City of
Wilmington and serves as the anti-terrorism coordinator for the
city; bachelor's degree in business administration from
Delaware State University; master's degree in administration of
justice from Webster.
The floor is yours, Mr. Mosley.
STATEMENT OF JAMES MOSLEY, DIRECTOR, WILMINGTON DEPARTMENT OF
PUBLIC SAFETY, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE; ACCOMPANIED BY MICHAEL
SZCZERBA, CHIEF OF POLICE, WILMINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT,
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
Mr. Mosley. Thank you very much, sir. As Mr. Kane
mentioned, the supporting of the presence of police officers in
those programs that are used within the various cities,
certainly in Wilmington, has greatly impacted our ability in
the past to keep our police officers forward deployed. And by
that I mean we have been able to keep the officers on the
streets.
In the absence of these programs, we have to use--I have
the Chief of Police, Mike Szczerba, here with me, who can
answer specific questions related to employment and deployment
of police. But the absence of these programs causes the Chief
to bring out those folks that we would like to keep forward
deployed in the streets and put them in specialized programs
and/or areas where, thus, taking away from our street presence.
And when we take away from the street presence, the citizens
see that and the police see that as a very frustrating thing.
Recently, we have adopted a program in the city. It is a
study that began at Yale University in Connecticut, and it is
called the Child Development Community Policing Program, which
is an augmentation to the police in that now when the police
respond to an incident where children are involved, be they
victims or witnesses, the police stay and we now send in a
trained clinician to work with the families of the victims and/
or witnesses to these incidents, thus hoping to have an impact
on just how our children--first of all, how they view police,
one; and then the other certainly is what impact it has on them
and their future as productive citizens.
But, again, the police-funded, federally funded programs
has--when we talk about impacting on the presence of police
officers, the Wilmington police officers respond to
approximately 130,000 calls for service a year. For the most
part, they are a 911-driven organization. The men and women of
the police department do an excellent job of responding and
preventing crime as best they can. However, there are many
crimes--there are many calls for service that go unanswered.
There are many calls for service where people have to wait
sometimes hours to get a police officer to respond to the less
serious offenses. Certainly they, like any other police
organization, will prioritize their calls, and those that
threaten public safety are certainly at the top of the list.
But in this absence of Federal assistance, we have had to cut
our forces back considerably.
As far as monies within the city, city money funding for
police competes with the need to secure and improve upon your
infrastructure. There are still potholes. There are still
buildings that need repair. There are still many other things
that the city needs in order to sustain itself and serve its
citizens that now we are up and competing for.
We have had to--some of our schools in the city have hired
private police officers so that they can assure their students
and families that they are safer. We have done the same thing
with various housing communities within the city as well. They
have hired private police officers, some of which are police
officers. We have been fortunate enough to be able to increase
our authorized strength by these numbers; however, these police
officers come to work and go to these respective agencies that
hire them as private officers.
Again, I have got to go back to the inability to timely
respond to our calls for service. That impacts on the--and I am
sure everybody here is familiar with the term ``community
policing.'' I am a very big proponent of community policing. I
think the community and the police working together makes for a
better community, makes for a safer community, and I think it
enhances both of our--what we are trying to do in the streets.
But if we cannot do that, if the police cannot be there in
a timely fashion, if they cannot stay there for the time that
they would like to, and if they cannot have that presence as a
beat cop, if you will, or as a district cop or community
policing officer, then it impacts, again, on the public's
perception of the police. The police are viewed as not caring,
which is certainly not the case. They do care. They do an
excellent job of what they do.
But the other thing is since 9/11, one thing that
nationwide we have talked about is the weapons of mass
destruction, the need to protect the homeland and those types
of things. But I will tell you, gentlemen, as I go through the
neighborhoods and talk about homeland security and weapons of
mass destruction, what I too often get is the homeland for the
majority of our citizens is right outside their door. The
protection for them is ridding their corners or neighborhoods
of the drug-related criminals and criminal activity in the
neighborhood. For them, when you talk about securing in place,
too often for them that means something like staying out of the
windows at night and/or sleeping below the window ledge so that
stray bullets do not come through the houses in the middle of
the night.
Now, a lot of that has got to do with the absence of
having--the inability to have a police presence in the
neighborhood, and that is absolutely important. When you talk
terrorists to these folks that are victims of this, the
terrorist to them is, again, a group too often of drug- dealing
and/or drug-using individuals in their neighborhoods. That is
their terrorism. That to them is the most threatening to them.
A weapon of mass destruction is a gun or a group of guns where
you have these individuals shooting at one another.
I understand what they are saying, and it is very difficult
to get them to--we have a saying here in the State: If you see
it, say it. And as it relates to terrorists, suspicious
activity, we want people to do that. But the question I get
back is: ``You want me to tell you about terrorism. I am
telling you about my street. That is as far as I can see and go
right now, because that is the immediate threat to me. And it
is very, very real.''
I would be glad to answer any questions.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mr. Mosley.
Our next witness is Chief Jeffrey Horvath. A graduate of
the Delaware State Police Academy in 1984, he has risen through
the ranks: patrolman, patrolman first class, corporate,
sergeant, lieutenant. He holds an associate's degree in
criminal justice from Delaware Technical and Community College
and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
We appreciate your service and your being here, Chief
Horvath, and we look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JEFFREY HORVATH, CHIEF OF POLICE, DOVER POLICE
DEPARTMENT, DOVER, DELAWARE
Chief Horvath. Thank you. Chairman Specter, Senator Biden,
thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. I
consider this to be a privilege. As you said, I am the Chief of
Police of the Dover Police Department. I also serve on the
Board of Directors of the Delaware Police Chiefs Council. I am
the Vice Chairman of the Delaware Police Chiefs Foundation, and
I serve as the Delaware Chiefs' Representative to the State
Association of Chiefs of Police, known as SACOP. I only mention
that because I would like to think that I am not here today
just representing the 91 sworn men and women of the Dover
Police Department, but I am also representing the Delaware
Police Chiefs Council and the smaller departments in Kent and
Sussex Counties.
I would like to begin by talking about Dover, however. As I
stated, we have an authorized strength of 91 sworn officers,
which makes Dover the fourth largest police department in the
State of Delaware. Although we face many challenges, I can
state with absolute certainty that illegal drugs and the
related crimes that surround them are our greatest challenge.
My officers have heard me say time and time again that I really
believe that at least 80 percent of all crime is either
directly or indirectly related to the illegal drug sales that
occur on our streets.
There are also three colleges, a university, Dover Downs
International Speedway, and the Dover Air Force Base located in
the city limits, which add to our responsibilities and our
duties and our challenges.
When I was promoted to chief in 2001, we had 81 sworn
police officers. We have been able to increase our authorized
strength by ten officers over the past 5 years. Six of those
ten officers are a direct result of my department securing
Federal grants through the COPS program. It has been, in my
opinion, a tremendous success. Without those funds, we would
not have been as effective as we are today, and since adding
those officers, we have increased our drug unit, and as a
result, we have been able to increase our proactive drug
arrests every year for the past 5 years. And we are on schedule
to increase it greatly this year also.
As a result of COPS funding, we also now have two school
resource officers. I think Capital School District was one of
the last districts to obtain school resource officers, and,
quite frankly, it was long overdue. Without the COPS program,
as the chief I would not have been able to place two police
officers in the schools. The officers have made an immediate
impact and are providing a much safer environment for our
children to learn. These officers have arrested drug dealers in
the school and have removed them from the school. They have
confiscated dangerous weapons, and they have prevented acts of
violence in the hallways and on the playgrounds. We have also
used COPS money to add police officers to our patrol force,
which I think everybody here will agree is the backbone of any
police department.
I have also been fortunate enough to have a City Council
that recently agreed to add four officers to the department to
form what we call a Quality of Life Task Force. These officers
go out and their job is to enforce the often overlooked, less
serious crimes and violations that, quite frankly, most police
officers do not have the time to deal with because of the
increased calls for service. We are trying to use these guys to
increase the quality of life for the people that live in our
neighborhoods. Some of those crimes, just to let you know,
would include loud parties, loud music, public intoxication,
prostitution, and loitering, just to name a few.
I would have loved to have used COPS money to get these
four officers. Luckily, we had money from a red light camera
enforcement program to use. But I am one of the fortunate
chiefs that is able to sit here and tell you that I had a
council that agreed to add police officers to the department. A
lot of chiefs have not been as fortunate and cannot tell you
the same story. In fact, at the last SACOP meeting in March of
this year, several chiefs were actually talking about having to
reduce the number of police officers to meet budget cuts. Many
chiefs were complaining about the lack of Federal funding which
was preventing them from adding valuable and needed officers to
their department. Instead of securing Federal grants to add
officers to our streets, departments are forced to do more with
either the same number of officers or in some cases to do more
with less.
Where has all the Federal funding gone? In the proposed
President's Federal budget, the JAG program originally was
completely eliminated. The proposed budget also greatly reduces
the COPS program from $478.3 million in fiscal year 2006 to
just $102 million in fiscal year 2007. The interesting part
about that number is that $100 million of that $102 million was
actually carry-over from previous budgets. This means the
administration is only proposing $2 million in new funding for
the COPS Office.
Some will argue, however, that additional funding has been
proposed for the Department of Homeland Security. More funding
for homeland security is very important, and I support that to
the end. However, I think it is important that we do not rob
Peter to pay Paul, and that is what it appears that we are
doing. Homeland security is extremely important, but it is no
more important than maintaining the core capabilities of local
law enforcement so that they are able to meet the day-to-day
challenges of protecting our communities from traditional acts
of crime and violence. At a recent meeting of the IACP, they
were explaining this, how they have taken money from COPS and
JAG and moved it over to homeland security, and I thought it
was interesting that one of the chiefs actually stood up and
said that he had 14 homicides in his jurisdiction and Osama bin
Laden was not a suspect in any of them. So it kind of hit home
with me.
Through the Department of Homeland Security, each police
department in Delaware has received protective gear, numerous
items of necessary equipment, and valuable training. However,
none of the Department of Homeland Security funds can be used
to hire more police officers, and we no longer can afford to
add officers to our departments.
Hometown security is homeland security. Local law
enforcement has demonstrated this on numerous occasions. The
arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph by local police
officers are examples of the critical role that local law
enforcement officers play in homeland security. Homeland
security should include ensuring that State and local law
enforcement agencies continue to place officers out in the
communities so they can interact with the citizens and
investigate suspicious behavior.
I have gone over my time, so I will cut this short. I just
want to finish by saying the Dover Police Department has
received over $1.2 million in Federal grants over the past 10
years. One of the chiefs prior to me, Chief Hutchinson, also
added a great number of police officers to our department using
Federal grants. It has been extremely valuable in helping us
protect the streets of Dover, and without those Federal funds,
we would not have been able to do that.
Thank you very much. I would be willing to answer any
questions.
[The prepared sttement of Chief Horvath appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Chief Horvath.
Our final witness is Master Corporal Vincent DiSabatino,
who is the President of the Wilmington Fraternal Order of
Police. Mr. DiSabatino has been on the Wilmington Police
Department since 1984, served in the Patrol Division until he
was promoted to detective, and he currently serves in the
Drugs, Vice, and Organized Crime Division, where he teaches new
recruits at the Police Academy.
We appreciate your being here, Mr. DiSabatino, and the
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF VINCENT J. DISABATINO, MASTER CORPORAL, WILMINGTON
POLICE DEPARTMENT, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE
Mr. DiSabatino. Thank you. Chairman Specter and Senator
Biden, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify
about the challenges that local law enforcement professionals
face on a day-to-day basis.
The local patrol officer faces many challenges, and I am
here to discuss the difficulties encountered by local
officers--from the officer working the beat to the probation
and parole officer who has to deal with the criminal element
once they are released back into society.
It seems that every day we are reminded of the Iraq war and
the unfortunate casualties there. We hear about the killing of
innocent men, women, and children and the never- ending
challenges facing the Iraqi people. We are told we need to send
more troops, money, and supplies to free the people of that
country from fear and terror.
I believe that we have forgotten or placed second the
struggles against crime here at home. Criminals have terrorized
Americans in communities throughout the Nation, making them
afraid to go out into their own neighborhoods and enjoy some of
the same freedoms that we are trying to bring to the people of
Iraq. These neighborhood terrorists control and lock down whole
city blocks, making citizens afraid to go out, preventing
children from playing in their front yards or neighborhood
parks. These gangsters harass and kill innocent people with
their drug trade and illegal weapons. Quite simply, they hold
neighborhoods and cities hostage.
These criminals are not dummies. Every day they become
smarter. They buy the latest technical equipment so that they
can conceal their weapons, their contraband, and their money
from the law. Their only goal is to make more money, and the
lore of making more money brings them new recruits eager to
learn the business and work their way to the top by any means
necessary.
In my view, the law enforcement community is behind the
eight ball. We find our local governments do not have the
resources, money, personnel, or equipment needed to turn the
war on drugs around in our favor. It is critical that our local
government receives the Federal assistance to help police
departments protect their neighborhoods.
The primary issue is manpower. The ability to put more
police on the street is critical. One problem is funding, but
another is that we are short of qualified applicants. We need
to do much more to recruit qualified candidates to a career in
law enforcement.
One problem we see is that departments lose personnel
faster than they can afford to replace them. We also see that
departments try and fill the manpower void by posting overtime,
making the already overworked police officer even more
overworked. This eliminates preventive patrolling and community
policing. The beat cop working on our city's streets has become
a memory.
This is critical. It is essential that people see the same
officer in their neighborhood day in and day out. It is
critical to have an officer that knows the trouble spots and
the troublemakers. Just as important, community policing allows
the community to know the officer, to trust that officer, which
will ultimately help solve cases because with this trust they
will call in information that may help solve a case. This is a
vital link to successfully fighting crime.
I can tell you no officer wants to see bars on windows on
doors, an empty park, or parents forced to run into their home
with the children so that they do not become a shooting victim.
Unfortunately, these are common sights in the Hilltop area, the
Bucket, and the Valley.
The job of being a police officer has gotten tougher over
my career, and I am certain these challenges will escalate over
time. We can only hope that programs that have helped States,
counties, and municipalities throughout the country in the past
can be started up again. I hope you can hear the local
governments asking for more troops and the much needed supplies
to fight the domestic war that has been going on too long on
American soil.
And like everyone else, I will answer questions. That is
why we are here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DiSabatino appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mr. DiSabatino.
Beginning with you, Mr. Kane, we now move to the portion of
our hearing where Senator Biden and I will pose questions. I
note among your many responsibilities you serve on the
Governor's Advisory Commission on Youth. What would you say is
the most effective way of dealing with youth, both on
prevention or putting them on the rehabilitation path if they
have committed offenses?
Mr. Kane. If I actually knew that answer, I would be a
million dollar consultant, but I will try to answer that
because we have not done very well with that.
I think a holistic approach in the prevention area where a
Boys and Girls Club or a school becomes the child's almost
parent, where you would work with the value development,
educational development, and recreational and cultural issues
so that the child has a chance to develop.
We funded a small program at a Nativity School where we
took 15 disadvantaged kids and treated them like they were in a
private school environment. Each kid was behind 2 years in
school. Eight of them have graduated from eighth grade and have
been accepted at private schools and Catholic schools on free
scholarships, and they passed the grade like everybody else.
In the treatment end, on the back end for a delinquent, I
think the earlier with provide rehab services to a child, the
more likely you are to keep them from coming back. And at the
back end, I think it is more about accountability and watching
them.
Chairman Specter. Mr. Mosley, you make a comment that it is
regrettable, but factual, that there is a long wait when
somebody calls for a policeman on the spot. We are talking
about priorities all the time, and it is difficult to balance.
But looking at your comment on the long wait, assess, if you
can, when the Federal Government makes its allocations--and we
are under budget constraints--about putting more money in the
COPS program to help you with police on the street contrasted
with rehabilitation on drugs. What would you suggest?
Mr. Mosley. If I may, sir, I will give that a quick answer.
But if I may, too, I would like to bring the chief of police
forward, who I think can probably address that better. But the
quick answer to that, as far as I am concerned, is the more
officers we have on the street, the more able we are to address
all things and all calls for service. That means timeliness.
That means service to the public. That means a thorough
investigation. That means caring about--and while the officers
care now, there just is not time, unfortunately, when you are
911-driven, to stop and take the time to get all the
particulars and have all the interaction I think that is needed
to help communities be safer.
But if we had more officers, obviously we could be in more
places at one time.
Chairman Specter. Chief Horvath, I would like you to pick
up on the same question. You accurately note that 80 percent of
crime is drug related, and that goes to the rehabilitation
issue, detoxification. You note the decrease in Federal grants,
which is accurate. I would like your insights as to the
balance. And as a subordinate question, we now have close to
$40 billion in homeland security. What could be done by giving
the homeland security people some local law enforcement
responsibilities as well?
Chief Horvath. I will answer the first question first, and
I will give you the police officer's answer, not the social
worker's answer, because I am sure we differ on this a little
bit.
I do not think rehabilitation has the same success rate
that police departments do as far as getting crime off the
street. But I do consider it to be very important. So if you
are going to ask me personally how do you balance
rehabilitation versus enforcement, I think enforcement should
get the brunt of that in my personal opinion. And I know I
speak just as a law enforcement officer when I say that.
To the second question, I think homeland security funding
going down to local law enforcement is great. It would be
wonderful if we could use that money to also add police
officers. Every time the threat level is raised, I have to take
a police officer out of the neighborhood and have him patrol
the fence at Dover Air Force Base at certain times throughout
the day. So now he is not in a high-crime neighborhood. He is
at an extremely low-crime part of Dover. Crime is virtually
nonexistent at Dover Air Force Base. But it is important that
we keep it that way, and when the threat level is raised, I
understand we have to patrol that. It is just a shame I have to
take one officer from one spot to put him to another.
So the quick answer is I think some of that $40 billion
that you speak of being sent down to local law enforcement for
homeland security, as I said in my statement, hometown security
is homeland security. And there is a really good chance that
local law enforcement, whether it is a State police officer or
a Dover officer or a Wilmington officer, is going to come in
contact with the terrorist before someone from the FBI does or
another agency.
Chairman Specter. Mr. DiSabatino, I note from your
biographical resume that you lecture youth groups on the
dangers associated with illegal drug use. Tell us what you find
on those lectures with respect to responses from the young
people and what techniques you find to be the most effective in
reaching them to try to influence their behavior with respect
to potential drug use.
Mr. DiSabatino. The most shocking thing when I speak with
them is they know a lot more than I give them credit.
Unfortunately, when I start talking to them and showing them
some of the things that we have confiscated from drug dealers
that the drug dealers use for trade, they will tell me, ``Oh, I
have seen those down at the park. Oh, yeah, there were a couple
guys that had a cigarette that looked like that,'' and so
forth. And they start explaining things to me that I am not
aware of. And then I go back, and I will maybe go on the
Internet or try to look it up, and they are correct. I think
the sad part is that the knowledge that they have already about
the drug trade, about those that are using drugs and the
friends that they know are using drugs really scares me at
times.
The other thing I--
Chairman Specter. Are you suggesting that it is a
reciprocal lecture, they lecture you a little?
[Laughter.]
Mr. DiSabatino. Every time I go somewhere, Senator, I learn
something from everyone. And the other thing is that I find
that if I just talk to them on their level, not try to, I
guess, talk above them or something, then I get a better
response from them. As I was just saying, when they start
telling me things about certain drugs they know about, about
certain things they see in parks, when I am interested in what
they are telling me, they open up more and I find out more
things about it.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much.
Senator Biden?
Senator Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like to
introduce a couple elected officials that are here, if that is
all right.
Chairman Specter. Without objection.
Senator Biden. Councilwoman Stephanie Bolden, who is the
Chair of the Public Safety Committee for the City Council, is
here. Stephanie, thank you for being here.
Helene Keeley is the State Representative of the 3rd
District; she is here, I am told. Hi, Helene. Thank you for
being here.
And two members of the County Council: An old friend, we
have served a long time together, although he does not look
like he has served a long time, Penrose Hollins of the 4th
County Council District. Penrose, welcome.
And, also, Jea Street of the 10th District, Jea is here.
Thank you, Jea, for being here.
Gentlemen, I would like to ask you a few questions, if I
may, and, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that a
statement by Senator Feingold of Wisconsin be placed in the
record.
Chairman Specter. Without objection, it will be made a part
of the record.
Senator Biden. Gentleman, in the past, meaning 6, 7, 8
years ago, or even now, the FBI has taken on some
responsibility, violent crime task forces, the DEA presence in
the State. We went out of our way to get a DEA presence down in
Dover and an office down there, and the FBI as well.
Tell me, have they been able to devote as many resources in
the last couple years as they have in the past to whatever
degree they have worked with all of you, either at the local
level, statewide level, or in the city of Wilmington? And I
will open that to anyone. Jim, if you would like to respond?
Mr. Kane. We have utilized the Feds on some occasions. They
tend to want high-profile cases with very, very serious people,
and I think they are somewhat preoccupied with the terrorism.
We have a weed-and-seed program with Federal Government
involvement. But I think in the past there were more resources
available to help us.
Senator Biden. Anyone else like to comment on that?
Yes, Vince.
Mr. Thomas. I know approximately 2 years ago in the city of
Wilmington we had the DEA in, and we worked a wire, and it was
very successful. I do not believe we realized the amount of
drugs that this individual was selling on the street and the
extent of his business and his connections that he had. He was
also highlighted in the Delaware Today magazine because he was
such a large player in the drug trade.
We ended up seizing large amounts of heroin at the time and
also a large amount of vehicles that the subject was using,
along with some of the technical equipment that they were also
using.
Senator Biden. What I am hearing as I go around the country
and what we have heard in the Committee is that DEA has had to,
as you know, scrap their violent crime task forces, they have
had to scrap a number of other efforts that they have been able
to in the past work with local law enforcement because they are
strapped. I personally think they are about a thousand agents
short over what they need because they have necessarily had to
move to terrorism.
I was just trying to get a sense of what impact that has
had on your ability to--to the extent they augmented--their
manpower augmented your efforts in the past and whether or not
you feel it now, whether there is any impact at all. That was
the reason for the question.
One of the things that I was most proud of in the crime
bill--and Senator Specter supported it as well--was the School
Resource Officer program. I found it to be extremely--based on
here in the State of Delaware, talking to State police in
particular, a very, very useful tool.
How many, if you know, Jim, have we had to cut back on now
that we have eliminated the funding for those? Have the school
districts picked it up?
Mr. Kane. I do not have that number, but many of the school
districts have picked it up. We have even funded some with
Byrne in Newark High School and Glasgow. So I think the State
recognizes it is important, but we could certainly use more of
that. It does make the hallways safer.
Senator Biden. One of the reasons I ask it is, when we
first put that program in, some people were skeptical. And one
of the few things I am finding States are picking up that
seemed in many places extraneous as the Federal funding is cut
is the overwhelming popularity of the school resource officers.
And my understanding is a number of school districts, even
though they are strapped, have gone out and tried to--and you
have used the Byrne grant money. What has been the impact, Jim,
of the cuts in the Byrne grant, from your perspective as you
look at it statewide, on local law enforcement?
Mr. Kane. Well, when the Byrne money was eliminated and the
Justice Assistance grant went back in, we lost about $1.5
million along the way. So our drug treatment pods in the prison
are drastically going to be cut back, and then the RSAC cuts
along with it, and each--
Senator Biden. Explain what RSAC is?
Mr. Kane. RSAC is a residential substance abuse treatment
program that the State of Delaware used to fund KEY/CREST pods,
and each percentage of money goes for a total pod. You have to
fund the whole thing. You cannot fund part of it. And then we
used the other portion to fund drug treatment in the juvenile
prison. That will be eliminated. There will still be some drug
treatment, obviously, but the RSAC is--we are looking at, I
think, according to Stan, about 80 to 100 inmates will not get
drug treatment because it drastically reduces the concept they
have, which is 6 months to release and then 6 more months
after.
We have lost our ability to expand the Safe Streets
operations. I am using reverted money to try to keep every
neighborhood happy, and it works, so I do not have the funds to
do that. A lot of our diversion programs are starting to end
because I do not have the money for the AG or the PD or the
providers that divert cases.
And as the Federal Government works, it takes a while for
the cuts to kick in because you are always working a little bit
in reverse.
Senator Biden. So what you are looking at is not a very
happy prospect then, as you look down the road.
Mr. Kane. No. It is more with less and more constituents at
the table asking for money, and it is difficult to keep
everybody happy.
Senator Biden. And the Operation Safe Streets--I leaned
over when you were referencing it--as I said at the outset, you
are talking two-time felons that you are looking at, and as I
said to Senator Specter, and I said, ``He has been harping on
this for 30 years.'' He said, ``No, 40.''
But the truth of the matter is that it is a big payoff. It
is a big payoff. And you are telling me that program is being
cut back, Operation Safe Streets? Or are you cutting other
programs to continue to fund that?
Mr. Kane. Well, I have probably a lot of board members in
the room, so I cannot really answer that. But the truth is--
[Laughter.]
Mr. Kane. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. We
cannot fund them in total like we used to. For example, in
Wilmington when we ran Safe Streets, we were able to keep every
community center open until midnight, which took a lot of kids
off the street. And I do not have that money anymore, and I can
only operate it in specific grids for finite amounts of time.
Senator Biden. Could you see any difference when you had
them open until midnight and now not being able to have them
open until midnight? Maybe Chief Szczerba should be the one to
answer that. Is there any concomitant impact on crime in the
street or vandalism or violent crime? Keeping them open, did it
work?
Chief Szczerba. Yes, I think it greatly affects the quality
of life in those communities, you know, because we have to
strike a balanced pose here in law enforcement, you know, what
we can do, what traditionally we are to do, enforce the law,
but also hold in the community as the assets that we can add to
it. And that is where, you know, we are losing. And if we are
going to lose in one area, it is going to be in that area
because we have to maintain public safety here in the city of
Wilmington. So it is going to be on the law enforcement side
where we are going to try to maintain those funds and continue
to do so.
You know, you mentioned about the school resource officers.
We actually stepped forward here in the city of Wilmington. We
have about 37 schools, and we only have one really truly public
high school here, and we have a school resource officer which
we just added recently there, and a couple of our alternative
schools. But we could utilize that because that is our most
valuable resource in the community, is the youth, and that is
where we are falling behind, you know, to have an influence on
that youth with a community center with extended hours or have
a school resource officer in a school to reach that youth
before they get into a problem.
Senator Biden. Chief, elaborate for us, if you will, on
what Director Mosley was talking about when he said the impact
has been that in the city of Wilmington--he referred to it as
forward-deployed police, community policing. Why aren't you
able to keep--let me back up.
When we wrote this crime bill, community policing was not
an original idea with me, but the condition upon any community
getting additional police under the crime bill was that they
had to go to community policing. And when I met with law
enforcement for the years--and Senator Specter knew this
already--before we got that bill passed, law enforcement
officers, beat cops--who were not beat cops--were not crazy
about the idea of community policing because they did not have
the resources. They knew if they had to get out of their car,
patrol car, walk the neighborhoods or go to the neighborhood
meetings and the rest, what would happen is they would be on
their own, they would be very thinly spread, and they would not
be able to respond very quickly.
And that was the whole notion of using the COPS bill as a
multiplier, putting 100,000 cops in the street when there were
560,000 local cops nationwide, brought the number up to--now it
is a little more than 100,000, over 660,000 local cops. But it
had an incredible multiplier effect. It required all those
550,000, or whatever the exact number was, to go and be beat
cops. You had to put community policing in. I would argue that
is one of the real significant reasons why crime dropped--
because people were in neighborhoods.
Now, I want to make sure I understand what Director Mosley
is saying. Your ability to do that is constrained by what?
Numbers or having to dedicate law enforcement--Wilmington cops
to Federal task forces? I mean, what is the reason why?
Chief Szczerba. It is a combination. I would have to check
selection D, All of the above.
Senator Biden. Right.
Chief Szczerba. It is the demand that the officers have on
the street, so it is lacking in numbers and also the ever-
increasing demand, and the increasing demand--which was already
mentioned at this table, the increasing demand is driven by
America's appetite for illegal drugs, and that is how our crime
is driven.
We have to strike a balance in law enforcement, whether it
be the city of Wilmington, the city of Dover, or the city of
Seaford, and striking that balance is being able to maintain a
properly staffed force to respond to the calls for service,
which was already terms as 911-driven. And, yes, we are. But
also to be able to--
Senator Biden. Let me make sure I understand--I understand,
but I want to make sure the press understands this. If you
have, figuratively speaking, all your uniform officers out on
the street acting as what most people would think as beat cops
in their area, jurisdiction, and neighborhood, and you have
them all out, that diminishes your ability to surge forces
somewhere when you have to respond to something that goes
beyond the requirement of a single cop in that neighborhood. Is
that kind of what you are talking about?
Chief Szczerba. Yes. It is about striking that balance
because you will still be 911-driven, but, however, you must
maintain a presence in those neighborhoods. And the presence in
those neighborhoods are the community policing officers. Here
locally in Wilmington, we have a community policing unit, and
they will be able to respond to the community needs for long-
term problem solving, working a true hand-in-hand partnership.
It has to be a philosophy that has to be throughout the
entire police department. However, we know that would not be
realistic because as you can hear the sirens in the background
here today, we are responding. They are not community policing
officers. They are officers in our Patrol Division. So it is
striking the balance. I am, you know, a proponent of--I refer
to it as ``quality policing'' because if you are saying
``community policing,'' folks are going to think that you will
have in every neighborhood a walking officer, you will have a
police station there set up. That is not the case. It is about
quality policing and striking that balance.
Senator Biden. If, in fact, you had--and I am going to ask
you this question as well, Chief. If, in fact, you had a
relatively limited budget--if we could double your budget, the
State, the city, the Federal Government were able to double
your budget, what would you do first that you are not doing now
if you had significantly more resources? If the director came
to me and said, ``We got good news. We got another 4 million, 5
million bucks you can spend this year, Chief, and you can have
it for the next 6 years out,'' what is the first thing you are
going to do? And as well in Dover, Chief. Maybe it is the best
way for me, at least, to understand what your greatest needs
are, what your priorities would be that are not being covered
the way you would want to cover them now.
Chief Szczerba. It is not getting any more complicated. It
was already mentioned here this morning. Putting more cops on
the street, more uniformed officers on the street. It sounds
simplistic, but they are--
Senator Biden. It does.
Chief Szczerba. I mentioned we have a Uniformed Services
Division, we have a Community Policing Unit. Somewhere in
between there we need to be able to respond. We have some
communities that are fairly stable, and then we have some
communities that are in strife, and to have a unit particularly
to respond to those communities in force so you would have
something between your Uniformed Service Division and your
community policing officers to come in and saturate that area.
We made an attempt at that here in the city of Wilmington
last year, and that was through the assistance of outside
agencies, utilizing the services of Delaware State Police and
New Castle County Police. And how we were able to do that is we
still had the same amount of Wilmington officers in that area
in northeast Wilmington. However, we were then augmented by the
Delaware State Police. The policing activities were driven by
Wilmington police officers. They made the lock-ups, handled the
paper there. However, when we initiated that activity, we did
not lose presence in that neighborhood because we had the
assistance of those outside departments, and that mere physical
presence, uniformed officers on the street, made the
difference. And so the--
Senator Biden. Was it effective?
Chief Szczerba. I believe it was, and statistic-wise, we
have seen some areas where it did not seem so. But if you
talked to the folks in the neighborhood, that is where the
difference was made. And that is what we heard. We had a
positive response not only back to the police department but
the members of our council. And I think it was very effective.
And that is what I mean by if we could put people in uniforms,
with having the funding, put people in uniforms that look like
the one I am wearing here this morning and serve our community.
Chief Horvath. I would answer the question very similar. If
you are going to magically double my budget, as you spoke of
hypothetical, I am going to increase every unit I have. I have
a full service police department with community policing,
criminal investigations, a drug unit, a juvenile unit, a
special enforcement unit, a K-9 unit. And I can honestly say I
do not have any unit that has too many police officers in it. I
have already stolen from the regular detectives to add to
patrol because, as I said, they are the backbone of the
department. You have to increase the size of that unit. Not
only is crime up, but calls for service are up.
So the simple answer is I would increase every unit I have.
Senator Biden. Well, a last question on homeland security.
I am fond of saying--and my colleagues are probably tired of
hearing me saying is--that if anyone is going to catch a
terrorist putting sarin gas into the Hotel Dupont or down in
Dover at Dover Downs, at the large hotel or the casino down
there, it is not likely to be a brave Special Forces soldier in
night vision goggles who is there. It is going to be--and I
mean this sincerely. Really, when you think about it, it is
pretty basic. It is going to be one of your law enforcement
officers coming off a dinner break, going back checking the
Dumpster behind the hotel. It is going to be someone in
Wilmington walking down the street in a neighborhood that looks
up and says, you know, those three apartments have been
abandoned for the last 2 years. All of a sudden there is a lot
of activity in there, and there are people we do not know.
Maybe it is drugs. Maybe it is something else.
So I am always perplexed by how we so disconnect local law
enforcement from homeland security, which leads me to this
question: When there is an orange alert and you have to put
more forces down at the port, Chief, you have to put more
forces at Dover Air Force Base, or the State police have to put
more forces on the bridges over the canal, et cetera, do you
get reimbursed for that by the Federal Government?
Chief Szczerba. Yes.
Chief Horvath. Yes, when it reaches a certain level, we do.
Senator Biden. What level does it have to reach?
Chief Szczerba. At the highest level, but it still draws on
our resources. Even though we may get reimbursed, we have to
put those officers out so we have a balance between overtime
and utilizing officers pulled from other divisions. Just like
Chief Horvath referred to he would like to increase the entire
police department, well, that is when we fall behind. We will
continue to serve in that manner, but, you know, September 10,
2001, we faced weapons of self-destruction in our communities
here in the city of Wilmington. We still face that today as we
sit here. And now we have the additional responsibility with
our response to terrorism threats and weapons of mass
destruction.
You know, we look at a local level. We are global- thinking
people, but we look at a local level. And at the local level
what is most to us is the weapons of self- destruction.
Senator Biden. Vince, you represent an awful lot of beat
cops, both in your capacity as a detective, but also your
capacity as the president of the Lodge. What kind of
conversations do your guys have when they are in the locker
room changing, when they are getting off the beat? Seriously,
what are people talking about as it relates to law enforcement
and their problems? If we had, you know, all the cops back
there in uniform who are, you know, out there every day, and
you are just sitting around having a Coke, having a beer, you
know, you go to the local restaurant afterwards, what do you
guys talk about as it relates to the problems you face?
Mr. DiSabatino. Well, one of the main conversations that
always comes up is, ``Man, we ran our butt off.'' And it has
been said here before that we are driven by complaints. I mean,
that is what basically happens in your tour. You would love to
be preventive where you can hit certain problem areas where you
know the drug dealers are, where you know that the people are,
you know, playing the loud music or, you know, other things
like that. You would love to hit those places, but you cannot
because once you clear a complaint, you are headed to another
one. And then if somebody has a self-initiated complaint, they
start a foot chase or a car chase, you are leaving that
complaint and going to assist them. Then you have to go back to
that, and that puts you behind even more because, depending on
the seriousness of the crime, you may need three, four units.
Well, that is three or four units that are not answering the
complaints that are called in.
And the phone does not stop. Some people call police for--
sometimes it is things that are not police matters. But a
majority of the time, it is because it is complaints about, you
know, disorderly subjects on the corner, the drug dealing, the
shots fired, the assaults, the stabbings and so forth. And it
just ends up that in the course of a 9-hour tour, you have
handled maybe 30, 40, 50 complaints sometimes. And when you get
together, I mean, cops love telling stories, but the first
thing that usually starts it off is when you talk about how
overworked you were the night before or that day. You know,
``Man, I wish they would get some more people so that it could
ease up a little bit.''
Senator Biden. Beyond additional badges, as you know, the
homeland security money prohibits the hiring of law enforcement
officers. You get training. You get some equipment that is
needed. I have a proposal. Actually, it is probably unfair to
ask you to comment on it, but one of the things that worked in
the crime bill when we wrote that bill was a colleague of ours
was--I used to kid and call him--he is a good friend. I used to
call him ``Barbed Wire Gramm,'' Phil Gramm of Texas, a former
Senator.
When I was trying to get the crime bill passed, there were
only seven Republicans who supported it at the time, one to my
right. And we were having great difficulty, and Senator Gramm
came up to me and said, ``I will make you a deal.'' He said,
``I will vote for the crime bill if you agree you would write
into the bill that it be funded by cuts in the size of the
Federal Government.'' And I said, ``What do you mean by that?''
He said, ``Well, the number of employees that work for the
Federal Government, that if they are cut, the money saved in
cutting the number of employees, civilian, will go into the
crime bill.'' This is why he kids now and says I let him throw
me in the briar patch.
But I said, ``I will make a deal with you, if, in fact, we
set up a trust fund.'' He said, ``What do you mean?'' I said,
``Well, we will not spend any more money in the crime bill
unless we cut the number of Federal employees, but every one of
their paychecks goes into''--not like the Social Security
lockbox, an actual trust fund, like the Highway Trust Fund,
like gas taxes. And he said, ``Okay.''
During the last administration, we cut something like
290,000 employees around the Federal payroll, and all that
money went into the trust fund. That is why we never had any
fights about funding you all for the better part of 6 years.
Well, the trust fund is gone now, and so I am proposing a
new trust fund, and that is that we call it the Homeland
Security Trust Fund and that the Homeland Security Trust Fund
do everything from reinstating the COPS grants by $1.115
billion to rebuilding the tunnels and subways and inspecting
cargo. It is a whole list of things, about 35 items. It takes
the 9/11 Commission report, and it puts the major items they
call for being funded. And it calls for essentially reinstating
the $2 billion that has been cut.
And so I just wanted to--and I will tell you how I pay for
it, which will not make everybody happy. I have this silly
notion, Mr. Chairman, that I think rich folks are just as
patriotic as poor folks and just as patriotic as middle- class
folks. And I think if we just went out there and said the new
tax cut for everybody making over $1 million a year gets cut
for 1 year, that is $53 billion, 1 year; or take $10 billion
out of that $53 billion going up to--it will actually get up to
over $100 billion for that one cadre of people over the next 5
years. Take $10 billion a year, that would fund every single
solitary COPS program and every single solitary homeland
security program that has gotten a D or an F by the Homeland
Security Department.
So I want to warn you all, that is what I am going to be
coming back at. We are going to probably have to get some
changes in order for that to get done, and if anybody has a
different source of money to do that, I am open to it.
But I might add, Mr. Chairman, I raised this issue with
what was advertised to me to be the 50 wealthiest real estate
developers in America. I was asked to speak to a group of 50
developers by the National Real Estate Council, or whatever,
down at the Canadian Embassy where they have that big
amphitheater there. They can rent, I guess. And I went down and
I told them what I wanted to do with their tax cut. And I
asked, Does anybody disagree? Fifty. That is what was
advertised. They told me that is what it was. And one person
raised their hand and he said, ``No, Senator, I would object to
you taking a year of my tax cut above $1 million, because I
think you would just waste it.'' And I said, ``Well, how about
if I put it in a trust fund?'' And I said, ``Anybody in here
disagree?'' And I got an ovation from 50, allegedly, wealthiest
real estate developers in the Nation.
So I think there is a consensus here that there is a need
to deal with homeland security, and you all are part of
homeland security. So, guys, I am going to--it probably will
take me another 8 years to get it done, but one of these days
we are going to begin to change the priorities, I hope.
I have a lot of other questions, and I know we have kept
you a while here. But, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I
would like to be able to submit some questions in writing. We
will make a lot of work for you all, and I guess maybe--
Chairman Specter. That would be fine.
Senator Biden. And also, Mr. Chairman, I am not going to
ask that it be placed in the record, but there is a report my
staff has issued out of our Subcommittee--well, I have issued
on the Judiciary Committee, and it is called ``Abandoning the
Front Line: The Federal Government's Responsibility to Help
Fight Crime in Our Communities,'' dated September--
Chairman Specter. Senator Biden, I am going to have to
excuse myself to take a call. Are you close to concluding?
Senator Biden. Yes, about just another few minutes.
Chairman Specter. Okay.
Senator Biden. Why don't you go ahead, unless you have more
questions as well.
Chairman Specter. Well, I am not sure how long the call
will take. I will come back if Senator Biden is still
commenting.
I want to thank Senator Biden for suggesting this hearing.
I want to thank you men for coming forward. When Senator Biden
says, ``I have been at it for 35 years,'' I was elected
district attorney 40 years ago--1965, actually, and served
before that as an assistant D.A. And my view is that we ought
to take the career criminals, three or more violent offenses--
and Senator Biden referred to a bill that I wrote, the armed
career criminal bill--and throw away the key. They account for
70 percent of violent crime.
But when we deal with first offenders, second offenders,
and especially juvenile offenders--and I join Senator Biden in
thanking the Boys and Girls Club--I think we have to focus on
realistic rehabilitation, we have to focus on job training,
literacy training. And I believe that the problem of violent
crime can be cut by 50 percent following what Senator Biden has
said and some of the formulas I have worked on.
We are hard at work on the military commission right now,
and we are trying to find a way through on the Hamdan decision,
which we have coming up. And if it were not for something that
pressing, I would stay. And I will come back.
Thank you.
Senator Biden. [Presiding.] Thank you.
Gentlemen, are there any additional comments any of you
would like to make? I know there is so much to talk about here
in terms of need. I wanted to ask you, Vince, you said--or I
forget. Actually, I do not know who said it. Retention of law
enforcement officers and the difficulty of retaining and
qualifications of new recruits, somebody mentioned that
subject. Would anybody like to elaborate on that?
Mr. DiSabatino. Senator, for the Grand Lodge of the
Fraternal Order of Police, I am on their membership,
recruitment, and retention, and a problem that departments, I
believe, throughout the State here and throughout the country
are finding is that there are not a lot of people that want to
be police officers anymore. I know that when I applied back--
and it seems many, many years ago--in 1983, 1984, when I was
hired we had maybe 1,500, 1,600 applicants for maybe 20, 25
positions. I believe our last class, if we are taking in 25, I
believe we had 300 applicants. And I believe State police,
county, and some of the other departments are maybe in the same
boat where they do not have the large amount of people
applying.
The other thing you have is the process to become a police
officer is designed to cut away at that number, to weed out
those that do not meet the standards. So you may start out with
300 applicants. You may only get 200 that truly show up for the
testing. And the next thing you know they have to go through a
background check, polygraph, drug testing, physicals, and so
forth, so now you are looking at 200 people that applied, you
may be down to 50, and you are looking to take maybe 20, 25
people.
The other problem you have is that in the city of
Wilmington, we are not paid as well as some of the other
agencies. We have guys that are leaving after they have put in
maybe 3 years, 5 years. We even have guys that are leaving once
they have 15 years. So the city of Wilmington, it seems like--
and I can speak for the city of Wilmington because, you know, I
am on the department and I have seen it. We always seem to be
losing, you know, the good guys. And the guys that stay on, you
know, and do not quit in their first year or two, become good
police officers learning through experience. Well, now they are
taking their trade and the knowledge they have learned to other
police departments, whether it be in the State or whether it be
other States or to the Federal agencies that they have applied
for and have gone to.
Senator Biden. Gentlemen, as chiefs, could you talk to me
about quality and retention? Because my experience--I mean, I
have spent an awful lot of time with you guys, as you know,
over the years and I have probably attended or spoken at more
academy graduations than most. I have done scores of them over
30-some years. One thing that impressed me has been the quality
of the graduates. Almost every one is a college graduate.
Almost every one--they seem fairly mature. But I think the
retention piece is a real piece. Does it vary from department
to department? Or is it pretty universal, the retention
question?
Chief Horvath. He hit right on the head as far as the
applicants. We do get less applicants, and it seems like you
get less qualified applicants, so it is harder to pick. But
from being the chief in Dover, I do not have a retention
problem, and I cannot sit here and tell you why I do not. But
the last officer that left for another police department came
back 3 months later, and I gladly hired him back.
So I can--that way, I am not complaining at all. I am
getting qualified officers. It is tougher to find--you are
weeding through the applicants more and more and you get less
applicants. It seems like less people want to be police
officers for some reason. But--
Senator Biden. I do not know. As my mother would say, no
purgatory for all of you. I think it is one heck of a job. I
mean, thank God you have guys and women like you all who want
to do the job. But, I mean, I do not know many people who--you
know, you have got to really be dedicated today to want to be a
cop, it seems to me.
But is there any other point you would like to make? Jim,
is there any particular--if I gave you one choice where I could
reinstate funding now at the Federal level, where would it be?
What do you need most? You only get one, let's say. You can
fully fund any program that has been cut. Which one do you
want?
Mr. Kane. Well, I would like the Justice Assistance grant
program increase because the subsets of that allow us to fund
across the board, a balanced approach. So if we increase the
law enforcement capacity, we can look at the ripple effect, and
I can work with the AG, the public defender, and courts and
corrections to deal with the flow down the pike. Because what
we learned about 8 years ago was that if we drastically
increase the law enforcement piece, we back up all case
processing, back up the prison cells, and without adequate
treatment, we are sort of where we were before. So I like that.
It gives the States flexibility to work across the board.
Senator Biden. And how much has that been cut?
Mr. Kane. About $1.6 million.
Senator Biden. You know, we just passed the Adam Walsh
Child Protection Act, which I was very proud to work on. But,
you know, some of the stuff we are passing here gives you a
little bit more money, but, you know, there is--the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that there
are approximately 600,000 sex offenders nationwide, and 20
percent--600,000 that have been through the system, and 20
percent of those, 12,000 of them are unaccounted for. You know,
now we have passed a law requiring that they have to register
before they leave prison now, as opposed to after they leave
and they report, et cetera.
Can any of you talk about the impact on your workload of
dealing with child offenders--you know, released child
offenders and how hard it is to track or not track?
Mr. Kane. We have set up a task force. It is a huge issue.
When sex offenders get out of prison, it is the job of the
police to inform everyone in the neighborhood, the websites,
the fact that if they go to another State. Some people think
that we are responsible in Delaware if a sex offender flees and
goes to Pennsylvania and commits an act.
We are looking hard at it. The Walsh Act, it puts a lot
more burden on us to do the right thing. We had a problem in
that if an inmate declared him- or herself homeless, there was
no address given. So when they left the prison, we did not even
know where they were going. So I think we have closed that
loophole. But law enforcement is working hard to keep the
public safe, and at the same time, we are working hard to try
and keep up with the Federal requirements.
Senator Biden. What I personally need from you, since I
have been so engaged in this, as you guys know, for 20 years in
the first Biden crime bill that focused on this, I would
really--I would ask you--and I guess I would look to you, Jim.
I would really appreciate over the next 6 months if you all
could give me an assessment of what resources are required to
be diverted or what resources you would need in order to fully
implement what I think is a pretty powerful act, because what I
am trying to do, to be very blunt about it, around the country
is build the database that would justify my going back to the
Congress and saying, look, we need to provide this additional
funding, if it is needed--maybe it is not--additional funding
to allow local law enforcement around the country to implement
this.
Which leads me to another question. Technical assistance
grants were a pretty big deal in the Biden crime bill. This new
crime bill that I have had that is not going anywhere, this
term, anyway, which added another 50,000 cops, would provide
money to allow you flexibility--flexibility to pay overtime,
flexibility to use the money for technical assistance,
flexibility as it relates to not necessarily having to hire a
new shield if you chose not to do that, or to keep on a Biden
cop that is already on that the city of State or county is not
prepared to now make up the difference and keep that cop.
If we are able to get the Biden crime bill, the COPS bill
reinstated--because essentially you are right, they have
basically zeroed it out--what changes, if you could--and you
may not--you may want to submit this for the record. What
changes in the use of those funds would help you in terms of
actually dealing with putting manpower in the street short of a
new shield? Are there any changes you would like in the
operation of the COPS portion of the crime bill that would give
you more flexibility? And if you do not have an answer off the
top of your head, if you think about it, for the record let me
know if there is any enhancement beyond the dollars to fund it
that would be useful to you.
Chief Horvath. One quick answer to that is to use that
funding, if you are not going to put a shield on the
department, is to use it for overtime for reallocating
resources. Maybe you don't need an officer, but there are
certain times of the year where you do need additional police
presence, and if you could use that money for overtime, that
would be great.
Senator Biden. Again, because of my interest in this, I
could keep you guys here forever. But, Jim, did you have a
comment?
Mr. Kane. One of the criticisms from the other side on this
was that it was not crime-driven; in other words, you could
take a small police department in Montana with three officers
and virtually no crime, and if they had a good grant writer,
they could write a grant and get 35 officers, that there is no
way their tax base could pick up, and then there were giant
crime sprees in that town. And when the police went away, the
crime went away. So maybe a need- driven, where it is a
community policing program but the town has to prove some need
for it.
That was just the criticisms from the current
administration on why a COPS program was--
Senator Biden. But there is absolutely zero basis for that.
Mr. Kane. Right.
Senator Biden. Not one shred of evidence to sustain what
you have just asserted. Not one shred of evidence to sustain
that. The irony is that when they announced the end of the COPS
program, the Attorney General said, and I quote, ``It has
worked marvelously.''
``It has worked marvelously, and I am announcing that I am
ending it.'' I mean, I found that the most fascinating
statement I have heard in my 33 years as a United States
Senator.
One of the reasons why I would argue, gentlemen, that it
worked is that the cops helped me write the bill, and the way
it worked was that it was left up to the local officials to
decide. Local officials are not going to take on two- thirds of
the requirement of a copy if, in fact, they do not need it
because it comes out of their tax base. That is why I
eliminated the LEAA legislation, which just gave flat grants to
do what you wanted.
The city, the town, the county, the State has to buy in,
and that is why it worked. They bought in. And if they did not
buy in--so I know of no--and, by the way, one of the things I
would argue--and I would like your input. You know, a lot of
small towns got one and two cops under the Biden crime bill,
and one of the things I have observed, notwithstanding the
debate in Dover about radar traps, one of the things I have
observed is that, you know, they have real problems in these
small towns with drugs. I have to take you--and, I mean, you
all are local, but go to Dagsboro, to Selbyville, to Houston,
with drugs and with violent crime, and as you guys get affected
up here in Wilmington, it is like squeezing a balloon. Every
time you guys would clamp down and we would get help from DEA
coming in with the task forces with you, it just was like
squeezing a balloon. I remember holding a hearing a couple
years ago and making a point after I left the hearing in
Seaford to take a reporter and drive literally three blocks
from where the hearing was, and we got to a corner and two
junkies approached us to sell us drugs. This is not the Bucket.
This is not Hilltop.
So if you have any amended statement any of you would like
to make and anything that we have not picked up today, I would
appreciate it, and we will put it in for the record.
Other of my colleagues are doing field hearings around the
country because, folks, I do not know how we talk about dealing
with our National security if our local security is not
tenable. And, folks, it is not just here. Violent crime is up,
you know, up 5.7 percent, I think the number is, in New
Hampshire; it is up in South Carolina; it is up in Mississippi;
it is up in Texas; it is up in Florida. So it is not a local
phenomenon, and I find it hard to believe that people do not
see the correlation between the cut of a couple billion dollars
in local law enforcement money from the Federal Government and
the rise in crime.
But does anyone have a closing comment you would like to
make? I welcome it from any of you.
Mr. DiSabatino. Senator, one thing that both of the chiefs
mentioned--well, two things. One they did not mention was if
you were to tell them that they had an extra $4 to $6 million
that they could spend, you would have to first pick them up off
the floor. They did not mention that part. But the thing was
that they said that they would use the money for school
officers and community policing mostly. And I think that is one
of the things that the crime bill did, was it made the police
officer more human to the young adults, to the elderly that
there was someone there for them.
Unfortunately, some of these children are raised by the
streets. Their idea of a policeman is the cop that had to beat
up their brother, had to beat up their father, arrested their
mother for drugs, came into their house and took people out.
When they are in the school, they see them, you know, out of
uniform. They see them in a different light, and they see that
they are approachable and that they are just human beings. And
I think that is one of the important things when we had the
extra money and the extra police that we could do, was we could
put them in the community so that they saw them all the time.
We could put them in the schools so that they saw them all the
time, and they saw that they were not these people that just
constantly were there to hurt people or to lock them up, that
you could go to them and talk to them about other problems. I
think that is one of the big things the bill helped, was to
show that side of the police officers.
Senator Biden. The reason I wrote the bill in the first
place in 1988--and it did not get passed until 1994--was the
overwhelming data from criminologists that there is an absolute
direct correlation between the willingness of someone in the
community--a child or a senior and anyone in between--to
cooperate with a local law enforcement officer based on two
things: one, they trust them; but, two, that they would be
there. It is one thing to turn in the drug dealer on your
corner knowing that 3 weeks later or 3 months or a year later,
when he is out, he comes back and knows where you live. And
there may be no cop there this time. The only thing that I have
observed in all my years of doing this and the thousands of
hours of hearings I have held on law enforcement issues, the
only thing we know for sure about criminals, as they get older,
they commit fewer crimes because it is harder to run and jump
the chain-link fence when they are being chased, to overstate
it. The second thing is there is a four-corner intersection and
three cops on three corners and not on the other and crime is
going to be committed at that intersection, it will be
committed on the corner where there is not a cop. That is about
all we know for absolute certainty.
That was the entire thrust and rationale of my crime bill.
And I would argue it worked because you guys made it work. And
so I don't know how we do this unless we get you more
resources, but I thank you for your--and I mean this sincerely.
I thank you for your commitment to duty. I thank you for your
commitment to the people. And in a sense, it is almost
surprising to me more law enforcement officers are not leaving.
It is one tough job. And if you look over the horizon with the
funding streams diminishing, not increasing, it does not
surprise me. I am not saying that is the reason why people are
not staying, but from my perspective there is a correlation
between knowing you got someone standing next to you that is
going to help you, knowing you can do something, you can
actually walk away after you finish the day and say I did not
just put out fires, I actually changed something, I actually
made an impact, I actually began to change this neighborhood.
And I do not think you can do that without the resources.
But, again, I want to thank Senator Specter, who is in the
process of working out--the reason he had to take the phone
call, he told me before he started, is we are trying to figure
out how to deal with what you have read a great deal about, the
treatment of detainees as well as the Hamdan case, the Supreme
Court decision, and that falls within the jurisdiction of this
Committee. And he has been a major player in trying to
negotiate that, and there has not been much he and I have
disagreed on over the last however many years we have worked
together. So I am happy--if I cannot be Chairman, I am happy he
is.
[Laughter.]
Senator Biden. Because it is a very difficult job he has
right now.
Without any further testimony, I thank you all. I thank
particularly the elected officials for being here because you
have got to figure out the funding that is being diminished
federally, where you make it up, if you make it up. It is not
easy. And the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow.]
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