    [House Hearing, 110 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

      COPS IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2007, THE JOHN R. JUSTICE PROSECUTORS AND
         DEFENDERS INCENTIVE ACT OF 2007, AND THE WITNESS SECURITY AND
                             PROTECTION ACT OF 2007

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,
                             AND HOMELAND SECURITY

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                       ON

                       H.R. 1700, H.R. 916, and H.R. 933

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 24, 2007

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 110-72

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

          Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov

                                   ----------
                             U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

    34-926 PDF                     WASHINGTON : 2007

    For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
    Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
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                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
    HOWARD L. BERMAN, California         LAMAR SMITH, Texas
    RICK BOUCHER, Virginia               F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
    JERROLD NADLER, New York                 Wisconsin
    ROBERT C. (BOBBY) SCOTT, Virginia    HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina       ELTON GALLEGLY, California
    ZOE LOFGREN, California              BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
    MAXINE WATERS, California            DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
    MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts      CHRIS CANNON, Utah
    WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts   RIC KELLER, Florida
    ROBERT WEXLER, Florida               DARRELL ISSA, California
    LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California         MIKE PENCE, Indiana
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
    HANK JOHNSON, Georgia                STEVE KING, Iowa
    LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois          TOM FEENEY, Florida
    BRAD SHERMAN, California             TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
    TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
    ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York          JIM JORDAN, Ohio
    ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
    ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
    DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
    KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota

                Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                     Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel
                                     ------

            Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

                  ROBERT C. (BOBBY) SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman

    MAXINE WATERS, California            J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
    WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts   LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
    JERROLD NADLER, New York             F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
    HANK JOHNSON, Georgia                Wisconsin
    ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York          HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
    SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
    MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts      DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
    ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
    TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin

                          Bobby Vassar, Chief Counsel

                        Michael Volkov, Minority Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                 APRIL 24, 2007

                                   THE BILLS

                                                                       Page
    H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of 2007''.................     2
    H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
      Incentive Act of 2007''........................................    14
    H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007''....    22

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Honorable Robert C. (Bobby) Scott, a Representative in
      Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Subcommittee
      on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.....................     1
    The Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
      Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security........................    27
    The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress
      from the State of New York, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime,
      Terrorism, and Homeland Security...............................    38

                                   WITNESSES

    Ms. Laurie Robinson, Director, Master of Science Program,
      Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania
      Oral Testimony.................................................    41
      Prepared Statement.............................................    42
    The Honorable Douglas H. Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey,
      President of the United States Conference of Mayors
      Oral Testimony.................................................    48
      Prepared Statement.............................................    49
    Mr. Edmund H. Mosca, Chief of Police, Old Saybrook Department of
      Police Services, Old Saybrook, Connecticut
      Oral Testimony.................................................    53
      Prepared Statement.............................................    55
    The Honorable Kamala D. Harris, District Attorney, City of San
      Francisco, California
      Oral Testimony.................................................    75
      Prepared Statement.............................................    76
    Mr. Mark Epley, Senior Counsel, Office of the Deputy Attorney
      General, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC
      Oral Testimony.................................................    82
      Prepared Statement.............................................    85
    Mr. John Monaghan, Consultant, New York City Law Department, New
      York
      Oral Testimony.................................................    93
      Prepared Statement.............................................    94

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    Prepared Statement of the Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a
      Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and
      Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security    30

                                    APPENDIX

    Material Submitted for the Hearing Record........................   115

                            OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD
          Material Submitted for the Hearing Record but not Reprinted

    GAO Report, GAO-06-104, entitled Report to the Chairman, Committee on
        the Judiciary, House of Representatives, October 2005, Community
        Policing Grants, COPS Grants Were a Modest Contributor to Declines
        in Crime in the 1990s. This report is available at the Subcommittee
        and can also be accessed at:

        http://www.gao.gov/news.items/d06104.pdf

      COPS IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2007, THE JOHN R. JUSTICE PROSECUTORS AND
         DEFENDERS INCENTIVE ACT OF 2007, AND THE WITNESS SECURITY AND
                             PROTECTION ACT OF 2007

                                  ----------

                            TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007

                  House of Representatives,
                  Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
                                  and Homeland Security
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
    Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Robert
    C. (Bobby) Scott (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Scott, Waters, Weiner, Jackson
    Lee, Baldwin, Forbes, Sensenbrenner, and Coble.
        Staff present: Bobby Vassar, Majority Chief Counsel;
    Gregory Barnes, Majority Counsel; Carolyn Lynch, Minority
    Counsel; and Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member.
        Mr. Scott. The Subcommittee will now come to order.
        And I am pleased to welcome you to today's hearing before
    the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on
    H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of 2007;'' H.R. 916, the
    ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of
    2007;'' and H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and Protection Act
    of 2007.''
        [The bills, H.R. 1700, H.R. 916, and H.R. 933 follow:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Scott. The first of the three bills, H.R. 1700, the
    ``COPS Improvement Act of 2007,'' amends the Omnibus Crime
    Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to expand the current
    authority of the attorney general to make grants for public
    safety and community policing for the COPS program.
        COPS program was originally created in 1994 as part of the
    Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Since its
    inception, the mission of the program has been to advance
    community policing in all jurisdictions across the United
    States.
        The program achieves this objective by awarding grants to
    State, local and tribal law enforcement agencies so they can
    hire and train law enforcement officers to participate in
    community policing, to purchase and deploy new crime-fighting
    technologies and to develop and test new and innovative
    policing strategies.
        Since 1994, the program has awarded more than $11 billion
    to over 13,000 law enforcement agencies across the United
    States, and at the end of fiscal year 2004, the program had
    been credited with funding more than 118,000 community policing
    officers.
        The second of the three bills, the ``John R. Justice
    Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007,'' also seeks
    to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
    1968, but in the case of this measure, the legislation
    specifically directs the attorney general to assume the
    obligation to repay student loans of any individual who agrees
    to remain employed for at least 3 years as either a State or
    local criminal prosecutor or a State, local or Federal public
    defender in a criminal case.
        The inherent difficulties associated with retaining
    qualified public attorneys are not new, and there are multiple
    reasons why an attorney might choose the private sector over
    the public sector. The most frequency discussed reason centers
    around the need for higher-paying jobs in the private sector to
    pay off lingering student loans.
        The National Association of Law Placement reports that the
    median salary for a 5th-year associate in private practice is
    $122,500. In contrast, the median salary for a 5th-year State
    prosecuting attorney is merely $55,000, while a 5th-year public
    defender makes even less at $54,000, and a 5th-year local
    prosecutor makes about the same.
        With significant pay disparities such as this, it is easy
    to understand how public-sector attorneys are easily lured away
    with the hope of obtaining larger salaries that can be found in
    the private sector, particularly when you have student loans
    involved.
        The final measure we are considering today is H.R. 933, the
    ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007.'' It seeks to
    amend title 28 of the U.S. Code to establish within the U.S.
    Marshals Service a short-term witness protection program for
    witnesses that are involved in a State or local trial involving
    homicide, a serious violent felony or a serious drug offense.
        To ensure the best possible use of limited Federal
    resources, the legislation also directs the U.S. Marshals
    Service to give priority to those prosecutors' offices that are
    located in a State with an average of at least 100 murders per
    year during the 5-year period immediately preceding an
    application for protection.
        Witness intimidation reduces the likelihood that citizens
    will engage in the criminal justice system which will deprive
    police and prosecutors of critical evidence. Moreover, it can
    have the unwanted effect of reducing public confidence in the
    criminal justice system and can create the perception that the
    criminal justice system cannot adequately protect its citizens.
        I am looking forward to the testimony of our witnesses on
    these latter parts as well as their thoughts on the previous
    issues with regards to prior-mentioned bills.
        With this said, it is my pleasure to recognize the esteemed
    Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, my colleague from Virginia,
    Representative Randy Forbes.
        Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Chairman Scott.
        I thank all of you for being here with us today. We
    appreciate your time and look forward to your expertise on
    these matters.
        I want to thank the Chairman for holding this legislative
    hearing on H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement Act of 2007; H.R.
    916, the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive
    Act of 2007; and H.R. 933, the Witness Security and Protection
    Act of 2007.
        These bills attempt to address serious crime problems in
    our country: the rise in violent crime, the need for more State
    and local prosecutors and defenders, and witness security
    programs in State and local courts.
        But I hasten to emphasize the word ``attempt'' to address
    these problems. Unfortunately, in their haste to address these
    problems, those drafting these bills have grabbed on to their
    old tried-and-true solutions: throw money at the problem, put
    out press releases, and in the end, waste taxpayers' money. We
    can and should do better.
        The Cops on the Beat program was created in 1994 to award
    grants to State, local and tribal governments for the hiring
    and rehiring of police officers. Since then, COPS has awarded
    more than $11 billion to over 13,000 law enforcement agencies.
        The COPS Office within the Department of Justice reported
    that by the end of fiscal year 2004, it had funded 118,000 new
    positions. That is what it reported.
        A review of the program by the White House Office of
    Management and Budget, however, found that the COPS program had
    put fewer than 90,000 officers on the street. Likewise, a
    University of Pennsylvania study found that the number probably
    would wind up closer to 82,000, or 30 percent fewer cops than
    DOJ's estimate.
        Despite the billions spent on this program, studies on the
    impact of the COPS program have reached conflicting findings
    and conclusions. A 2005 GAO report found that the COPS program
    has had only a modest impact on reducing violent crime.
        The GAO report concluded that although COPS expenditures
    led to increases in sworn police officers above levels that
    would have been expected, ``Without those expenditures, we
    conclude that COPS grants were not the major cause of the
    decline in crime from 1994 through 2001.''
        A May 2006 Heritage Foundation study reached two important
    conclusions: One, spending on the COPS program did not lead to
    an increase in the overall spending by local law enforcement,
    but merely supplanted State and local funds; and two, the COPS
    program has led only to small reductions in crime, the benefits
    of which do not outweigh the costs of the COPS program.
        In 2005, Congress passed a bipartisan DOJ reauthorization
    that included a variety of changes to the COPS program,
    including authorizing over $1 billion a year through the end of
    fiscal year 2009. Here we are, less than 2 years later,
    considering a bill that would increase the COPS reauthorization
    to $1.5 billion through fiscal year 2013.
        It is business as usual. Rather than seeking to use
    innovative policing programs which have been shown to produce
    results, this bill simply throws more money down the drain and
    ignores the fact that as much as $277 million has been misspent
    and despite multiple reports that the COPS program has little
    to no impact on crime.
        The better approach would be to take time to identify what
    works. Cities like Los Angeles and New York are experiencing a
    drop in violent crime. We need to ask why. What are these
    cities doing to achieve this success? What can we learn from
    them about innovative policing programs?
        H.R. 916, the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
    Incentive Act of 2007, establishes a loan forgiveness program
    within the Department of Justice for State and local
    prosecutors and for Federal, State and local public defenders.
    Despite the good intentions of the bill's sponsors to encourage
    young attorneys to join the criminal justice system and prevent
    attrition, I have several concerns about the bill.
        First and foremost, I am alarmed at the enormous cost of
    the bill, which would assume up to $60,000 in student loan debt
    for every prosecutor and public defender in the country without
    any limitation whatsoever. Repaying the debt for even just
    50,000 participants would cost $3 billion.
        In addition, H.R. 916 requires the Department of Justice--
    and not the Department of Education--to administer the program,
    this despite the fact that the Department of Education is the
    agency charged with awarding Federal student loans and
    currently administers several loan forgiveness programs. I can
    see no reason why the Department of Justice should be required
    to establish a system for repaying student loan debt when one
    already exists in the Department of Education.
        Moreover, the bill requires the Department of Justice to
    undertake this program, regardless of whether any money is
    appropriated by Congress. We all know that simply authorizing
    funds for a program does not guarantee that those funds will
    ultimately be appropriated. Should this bill become law, the
    Department of Justice would be required to divert funds from
    its criminal justice functions to administer this program.
        Finally, the bill makes no provision for whether
    participation in existing State and local loan forgiveness or
    repayment programs would disqualify participation in this
    program or at least offset a recipient's award.
        Finally, H.R. 933, the Witness Security and Protection Act
    of 2007, creates a short-term State witness protection section
    within the U.S. Marshals Service to provide the short-term
    witness security services for State and local witnesses in
    homicide, violent crime and drug cases.
        Now, recently, this same Committee held a field hearing in
    New Orleans to address the increasing crime problem plaguing
    that city. We learned that witness intimidation is a reason why
    criminals go unpunished.
        However, we learned that the major reason was because the
    entire judicial system was just so bad that even before the
    hurricane, only 7 percent of those arrested--7 percent--for
    even violent crimes, ever went to jail, and only 12 percent of
    those arrested for murder ever went to jail; that even when the
    prosecutor caught the murder and the murderer on videotape, he
    did not prosecute; and that judges who let criminals on the
    street saw their courts get a percentage of the release bond.
        The reason witnesses were intimidated, according to
    testimony given to us, is because the judges put criminals back
    on the street before the witnesses could get home from the
    courthouse.
        So what is our answer? Just send them a check.
        This bill is sponsored by Mr. Cummings of Maryland, who has
    championed the issue of witness protection and witness
    intimidation, and I commend him for his dedication on this
    important issue. However, I have several concerns about the
    practical effects of this bill.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to put the rest of my statement
    in the record. And I hope we can work together to address the
    concerns with all three bills we are reviewing today.
        I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes follows:]
     Prepared Statement of the Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative
      in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on
                    Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Scott. Thank you. I thank my colleague for his
    statement, and I join you in insisting that programs be cost-
    effective, and we need to have more hearings on that. Many of
    the things that we have done are not cost-effective.
        I notice that you did say that the COPS program did reduce
    crime, unlike many of the slogans that we have codified which
    actually increased the crime rate. So I join you in making sure
    that we can have cost-effective crime reduction policies.
        We have a vote coming very shortly, and the sponsor of the
    COPS legislation is with us, and I would recognize him for a
    short statement.
        Mr. Weiner. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will speak with my
    usual Brooklyn alacrity. I want to thank you for scheduling
    this hearing and thank your staff for their help with this and
    Mark Dunkelman of my staff, who has become perhaps the foremost
    expert on this program.
        You know, when the COPS program was originally created,
    there was a certain amount of controversy surrounding it. There
    were some that said, ``You know what? Philosophically, putting
    on cops on the beat is not what the Federal Government should
    be doing,'' despite the fact in the mid-1990's we were
    experiencing an explosion of crime.
        The COPS program, though, has now, with some exceptions--
    and perhaps some of them are in the room--become seen as the
    classic democrat--with a small D--distribution of smart
    resources. We have had small towns, big cities all get
    additional cops out on the beat because of this program.
        There might be some who argue that it is no longer the job
    of the Federal Government to provide assistance to localities
    in trying to protect themselves, but those people do not
    include former attorney general John Ashcroft, for example, or
    former secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge who said
    famously before this Committee that homeland security starts in
    our hometown, that it is going to be hometown police
    departments that are ultimately going to be the way we stay
    safe not only from crime, but from threats from terrorists as
    well.
        The gentleman on the other side talked about some of the
    criticisms that remain of the program. He said that there is
    disagreement about how many cops were hired. Well, there are
    118,000 additional cops on the street, according to the GAO,
    according to our own stats, according to the COPS Office of the
    Bush administration. There are additional cops on the street
    because of this program.
        Now we have gone through this period where in Congress have
    said repeatedly that we believe the COPS program should be
    continued. In a bipartisan way, we reauthorized the Justice
    Department which included language that said fund the COPS
    program.
        We said that there are some changes that needed to be made,
    for example, to reflect the idea that there are more terrorism
    jobs that localities have, that we might want to do some things
    to incentivize local police departments to hire troops
    returning from the front with these grants and to allow more
    use of technology.
        One of the things that the gentleman points out, there is
    some controversy about exactly how many cops were added. Well,
    one of the things the COPS program has done has said that if
    you can invest in your local police department, you might not
    need more officers, but you might need technology to make it
    possible for them to leave their police car or leave their desk
    and go out and patrol the streets. We count that as an
    additional cop on the street, as I thought most good Government
    people would.
        We are doing in this House, frankly, what has been
    supported in a bipartisan fashion. We have several--I think
    over 25--Republican cosponsors in addition to virtually every
    Democratic Member of this House.
        If my colleagues believe that it is our job to help law
    enforcement do their jobs in localities, the COPS program has
    been a success, and it has not just been a success in big
    cities like New York. It has been a success in tiny counties
    and tiny villages all across this country, and now we are here
    to say let's not let that success end.
        And finally, let me point out one other thing. You know,
    while the Bush administration has continued to provide funding
    for the COPS Office, we have gradually become--over the course
    of years, less and less of the COPS funding is going to
    actually hiring cops.
        In 1995, 81 percent of the money went for cops, and 19
    percent went for non-hiring parts of the program. In 2006, it
    went for zero for hiring--not a single new officer was hired--
    all of the funds were used for non-hiring elements of the COPS
    program. Our bill reverses that.
        It is going to be passing in the other body, we are going
    to pass it here, and citizens of the United States are going to
    be safer because of it.
        And I thank you, Congressman Scott and Mr. Chairman, for
    taking the lead on this.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, and I thank the gentleman for his
    comment.
        As I indicated, we have several votes, and it will be
    probably about half an hour or so before we get back. We will
    be back as soon as we can.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Scott. The Committee will come to order. And we
    apologize for taking so much time, but when the speaker calls,
    then we have to respond.
        We have a distinguished panel of witnesses here to help us
    consider the important issues of the day.
        Our first witness, Laurie Robinson, currently serves as the
    director of the Master of Science program at the University of
    Pennsylvania's Department of Criminology, a position she has
    held since 2004. Prior to that, from 1993 to 1999, she served
    as the assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of
    Justice. In that capacity, she headed the Office of Justice
    Programs, the department's research, statistics and State and
    local criminal justice assistance arm, which includes the
    National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics
    and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
        Our next witness, the honorable Douglas Palmer, was elected
    in 1990 to serve as Trenton's mayor, the first African-American
    to hold that post. In 2003, he was appointed to serve as
    president of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and
    just 3 years later, in 2006, he became president of the
    bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors. Through his tenure, Mayor
    Palmer has focused on improving health care, particularly for
    children, the elderly and poor. Mayor Palmer is a graduate of
    Hampton University, where he received a Bachelor of Science
    degree in business management.
        Our third witness is police chief Ed Mosca. He joined the
    Old Saybrook Police Department in 1960, rose through the ranks,
    being promoted from detective to sergeant to lieutenant and
    ultimately appointed chief of police in 1971. Past president of
    the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association and a past member
    of its board of directors, he attended Springfield College and
    the University of New Haven. He also attended the Connecticut
    Chiefs of Police Academy where he graduated first in his class.
    He also attended the Command Training Institute of Bapson
    College, the FBI National Academy and the FBI-sponsored LEEDS
    course.
        Our next witness, Kamala Harris, is currently the district
    attorney for the City of San Francisco. In December 2003, she
    was elected as the first woman district attorney in San
    Francisco's history and the first African-American woman in
    California's history to hold that office. A successful
    prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco, she served in
    the San Francisco district attorney's office as the managing
    attorney for the career criminal unit from 1998 to 2000. She
    then headed the San Francisco city attorney's division on
    families and children. Throughout her tenure, Attorney Harris
    has touted a smart on crime approach, vigorously prosecuting
    criminal offenders while remaining committed to rehabilitation
    and preserving civil liberties. She holds a bachelor's degree
    from Howard University and obtained her doctorate from the
    University of California's Hastings College of the Law.
        Our fifth witness, Mark Epley, currently serves as senior
    counsel to the deputy attorney general of the United States. In
    this role, he provides advice on budget and legislative matters
    and oversees the grant-making components of the Department of
    Justice. In addition to his other duties, he is charged with
    being the lead within the deputy's office for the attorney
    general's Project Safe Childhood Initiative, a nationwide
    effort to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
        Our final witness, John Monaghan, currently serves as a
    consultant on police policy and procedure. In this capacity, he
    provides assistance on research writing and expert witnesses to
    various organizations, including the New York City law
    department, the Sergeants' Benevolent Association and the
    Lieutenants' Benevolent Association. Prior to assuming his
    current responsibilities as a consultant, he served for more
    than 20 years with the New York City Police Department, rising
    through the ranks of sergeant to captain and ultimately to
    lieutenant. He holds a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice
    from John Jay College and a master's in public administration
    from Harvard University.
        Each of the witnesses' written statements will be made as
    part of the record in its entirety.
        I ask each witness to summarize his or her testimony in 5
    minutes or less, and to help stay within that time, there is a
    timing light at the table. When you have 1 minute left, the
    light will switch from green to yellow, and finally to red when
    5 minutes are up.
        So we will begin with Professor Robinson.

       TESTIMONY OF LAURIE ROBINSON, DIRECTOR, MASTER OF SCIENCE
     PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

        Ms. Robinson. After a decade of decline, we know that
    violent crime and homicide is now increasing in many cities
    across the country. The Police Executive Research Forum
    released a report just last month that found dramatic increases
    in violent crime among 56 jurisdictions surveyed, more than a
    12 percent increase in robberies and a 10 percent in homicides.
        And crime is again in the center of public concern, as we
    have seen in mayoral races now ongoing in Dallas and
    Philadelphia. Philly, in fact, has had more homicides so far
    this year than the much larger cities of New York, Los Angeles
    and Chicago.
        As I talk to thoughtful law enforcement and criminal
    justice leaders around the country, they are struggling. They
    are confronting very difficult gun, gang, drug and violence
    problems, but working with fewer officers, reduced budgets and
    added homeland security duties
        Despite the fact that in our system of Government, States
    and localities have the major responsibility, of course, for
    public safety, I know from the 7 years that I spent as
    assistant attorney general in the Justice Department that
    effective Federal leadership in addressing crime is critical.
        And in thinking about the best way that the Federal
    Government can assist, I think it is helpful to recall the
    history of the Federal criminal justice assistance program
    which goes back to the highly acclaimed report of the 1967
    Johnson Crime Commission.
        In my written statement, I discuss the appropriate Federal
    roles that the commission reports laid out, many of which were
    reiterated in the Reagan administration's violent crime report
    in 1981 and which are still timely and pertinent today.
        For purposes of this oral statement, I will make four
    points.
        First, Federal dollars should be used to ensure we learn
    what works, as Mr. Forbes laid out, and to spread that
    knowledge. Federally supported research to understand what is
    effective in controlling and preventing crime, field
    experiments conducted in concert with police and other
    practitioners, are terribly important just as we would conduct
    drug trials in NIH in the field of medicine. The difference is
    that in medicine, there are hundreds of millions of dollars
    being invested, but in crime, only a few million dollars are
    spent.
        And then we need to spread that knowledge very broadly. I
    have urged creation in OJP of something like a what works
    clearinghouse. Nothing like that now exists. I wish I had set
    that up before I left.
        Second issue: Federal leadership can support innovation,
    something local communities often do not have the money to pay
    for on their own. Examples here would be initiatives like the
    COPS Office has launched on school violence or methamphetamine
    or OJP's work over the last decade with drug courts.
        Third issue: One of the most cost-effective ways Federal
    money can be spent, in my experience, is on technical
    assistance and training, and here I would mention the COPS
    Office's Regional Community Policing Institutes. I think they
    are an excellent example.
        Fourth, despite our limited ability to scientifically
    measure the effectiveness of the large block grant programs,
    like Byrne or JAG or the COPS Office program, where spending is
    invested in a limitless number of locally chosen programs, I
    think they have done much good.
        Even those who have opposed using Federal dollars with
    COPS, for example, to pay local police salaries have frequently
    acknowledged that COPS has helped dramatically to spread
    community policing, and it has certainly reinvented the way a
    Federal grant agency relates to its constituents.
        The fact is that State and local criminal justice right now
    is in a twofold crisis: dealing with rising crime on the one
    hand and juggling additional responsibilities in the post-9/11
    world on the other.
        In the spirit of the 40-year criminal justice assistance
    program, in my view, Federal leadership and support is vital to
    help States and localities deal with the challenging problems
    they are now facing of rising crime and homicide, drugs and
    gangs.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson follows:]
                     Prepared Statement of Laurie Robinson
        Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
        My name is Laurie Robinson. I served from 1993 to 2000 as Assistant
    Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in the U.S.
    Department of Justice, overseeing an annual budget of more than $4
    billion to work in partnership with states and localities in addressing
    crime. During my last year at OJP, the agency was administering some
    42,000 grants. I currently direct the Criminology Master of Science
    Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
        I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to talk
    about the recent increase in violent crime nationally--and why it is
    crucial that the federal government provide support to states and
    localities struggling to combat the problem.
          why federal leadership--and support--is important right now
                              in addressing crime
        While crime is largely a state and local responsibility, federal
    leadership and federal support is necessary--especially at a time, like
    today, when violent crime is on the rise--to ensure citizen confidence
    in public safety and the fair administration of justice. No one local
    jurisdiction, no one state can address these problems alone.
        After a decade in which it was on the decline, violent crime is now
    increasing in many cities across the country: The FBI tells us that
    crime in the U.S. increased in the first half of 2006 by 3.7% (compared
    with the previous year)--including a 1.4% increase in murder and 9.7%
    increase in robbery.\1\ A report released by the Police Executive
    Research Forum (PERF) last month found dramatic increases in violent
    crime among 56 jurisdictions surveyed--increases of 12.27% in robberies
    and 10.21% in homicides.\2\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of
    Investigation. See http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelim06/table3.htm
        \2\ Chief Concerns: Violent Crime in America: Alarming Trends,
    Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C., March, 2007, at 2.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        And after years when crime was not a major national issue, it is
    again squarely in the center of public concern. As voters are going to
    the polls this May in Dallas to elect a new mayor, crime is cited as
    the top issue facing the city in recent polls.\3\ And in Philadelphia,
    where I spend much of my time, the central issue in the upcoming
    mayoral race this spring is violence on the city's streets. We have
    suffered more homicides so far this year than the far larger cities of
    New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ ``Poll: Crime tops election issues,'' The Dallas Morning News,
    Mon., March 12, 2007.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        As I talk to thoughtful leaders in law enforcement and criminal
    justice around the country, many are struggling. With lessons learned
    from years of federally supported research, they know a great deal
    about how to deal with crime--that comprehensive approaches involving
    prevention, treatment and community engagement are critical, along with
    enforcement and punishment, to ensure public safety. But they are
    confronting problems of gangs, drugs, and violence (some of it
    committed by very young teenagers) that are difficult to address. They
    are stymied by working with fewer officers, reduced budgets, and the
    burden of added homeland security responsibilities. Anti-terrorism
    duties have, in fact, drawn attention and resources away from day-to-
    day crime fighting, while none of those longtime problems have gone
    away.
        Indeed, some of the high profile ``glamour'' of the terrorism focus
    frustrates local cops. I asked a former student of mine, who is high up
    in the ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department, whether his
    colleagues had used federal Department of Homeland Security funds to
    conduct training on suicide bombers. He looked at me somewhat
    scornfully and said, ``Laurie, we'll get around to that if we ever have
    a suicide bombing in Philadelphia. Right now, we're just busy trying to
    keep up with the shootings we see out here every day.''
        The fact is--as the National Criminal Justice Association has aptly
    put it--that federal funding for homeland security and for state and
    local criminal justice should not be an ``either/or'' proposition.\4\
    Safe streets, safe neighborhoods and safe cities are the predicate for
    a secure homeland, in both a conceptual and a practical sense. One
    can't neglect the former and expect the latter to exist. And--at the
    end of the day--we need to recognize that both rely on the same public
    safety infrastructure.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \4\ ``The Role of the Federal Government in Law Enforcement and the
    Administration of Justice,'' March 2005,See http://www.ncja.org/
    Content/NavigationMenu/GovernmentAffairs/
    FederalGovernmentandJusticeAdministrationWhitePaper/default.htm
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                             reflecting on history
        It is helpful to look at the history of the federal criminal
    justice assistance program when thinking about the appropriate federal
    role in reducing crime--and what is needed and can be most effective
    today.
        Criminal justice in the United States has historically been, and
    still remains today, largely a state and local enterprise. According to
    the Bureau of Justice Statistics, of all the adults who went through
    the justice system in 2002, 94% were convicted in state court--not the
    federal system. Our justice system is also more decentralized than
    almost any other in the world. With 18,000 separate law enforcement
    agencies in the U.S., something as simple as training police in a new
    counterterrorism procedure becomes very complicated. By contrast, in
    the United Kingdom, an order could simply be issued from the Home
    Office and sent to the mere 45 police agencies throughout Great
    Britain.
        The federal role in addressing crime was first defined in a
    document that is still very timely today--40 years later--``The
    Challenge of Crime in a Free Society,'' the report of President Lyndon
    Johnson's Crime Commission in the 1960s. Chaired by former Attorney
    General Nicholas Katzenbach (someone I've had the pleasure to get to
    know over the past two years), the Commission has had a profound
    influence on criminal justice in this country.
        It called for a federal role in

              research

              fostering innovation in criminal justice

              gathering statistics and

              improving criminal justice.

        It also called for establishment of a small federal office to fund
    state and local innovations in criminal justice--the seed that led in
    later years to the creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance
    Administration (LEAA) and to the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S.
    Department of Justice. Many of the core federal functions that I
    describe in this statement had their origins in the Katzenbach
    Commission's report.
        These recommendations did not reflect partisan politics. They were
    re-affirmed in the Reagan Administration's report of the Attorney
    General's Task Force on Violent Crime (1981), which stressed the unique
    role of the federal government in demonstrating and promoting what
    works in crime prevention.\5\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \5\ Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime, Final Report,
    U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (1981).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
               what are the key federal roles in reducing crime?
        There are six core ways in which the federal government can--and
    should--assist state and local government in addressing crime. It is
    important to underscore that five of these six roles do not entail
    large investments of federal dollars.

            1.  Developing knowledge is a central federal role in public
            safety
              Just as research and experimental trials have led to better
            ways to prevent and treat heart disease, the same has been true
            for crime over the past four decades. We now know a great deal
            more about how to deal with crime than we did in the 1960s. Two
            key differences between medicine and crime, however, are that,
            first, there are no business investors (like pharmaceutical
            companies in medicine) funding research relating to public
            safety and, second, the federal dollars devoted to crime
            research are in the low millions--not in the billions (as at
            NIH).
              But the federal government, in fact, has a crucial role to
            play in supporting social science research and evaluation to
            learn ``what works'' in addressing crime. Aside from an
            occasional private foundation, no one else pays for this work
            to get done. Nor is it realistic to think local jurisdictions
            can afford to do this themselves.
              Why is this knowledge so important? The answer is that,
            particularly at a time of tight budgets, we need to be
            investing in evidence-based approaches that can actually help
            reduce crime and we need to stop funding programs that don't
            work, even when they have great popular appeal.
              Research also leads to the next breakthroughs--such as data-
            mining that is identifying the most likely murderers in the
            phalanx of 52,000 probationers in Philadelphia. Or the survey
            that tells us how law enforcement is really using closed
            circuit television in different cities. Or the randomized
            controlled experiment that demonstrates whether an in-prison
            treatment for pedophiles can be effective in reducing future
            offending.
              Research and development for new technologies to serve and
            support criminal justice agencies has also been an important
            role of LEAA and OJP. The Science & Technology Office within
            the National Institute of Justice has made enormous
            contributions to the field--including its network of National
            Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Centers that conducts
            demonstration projects and provides invaluable assistance to
            law enforcement to help it assimilate new technologies.

              2.  The federal government should collect and disseminate
            independent and credible national statistics on crime
              The highly respected National Crime Victimization Survey
            (NCVS) reported by BJS since 1973 has provided what the FBI's
            Uniform Crime Reports has never attempted to produce: a count
            of crime that includes serious offenses, like rape, that may
            never be reported to police. This past year, however, BJS was
            threatened by budget shortages for its crime victims' survey.
            While this year's survey is going forward, the threat to a
            three-decade data series is a reflection of the limited funding
            that has been made available for this central federal function.
              Too often, BJS--despite its irreplaceable role--has been the
            ``poor stepsister'' of the OJP agencies. In fact, at a time of
            rising crime, BJS should be charged by Congress with a
            broadened role in helping in our understanding of
            victimization. BJS should be mandated to measure crime on a
            state-by-state basis, even to the level of large cities, and
            provided with appropriate funds to support this mission. At
            present, the survey cannot provide this level of information.
              The integrity of crime statistics is crucial to ensuring
            their credibility. No one questions Bureau of Labor Statistics
            reports because no one would dare to ``mess'' with its
            products. Yet a political appointee of the current
            Administration did try to rewrite the press release describing
            the findings of a key BJS report on racial profiling several
            years ago. After BJS's Director objected to this political
            interference, he was fired by the White House. For that reason,
            I urge this Subcommittee to consider legislation to give BJS
            explicit authority to issue its statistical reports and
            explanatory press releases independent of any outside
            clearance.

              3.  Federal dollars should support the innovation that
            localities cannot fund on their own
              Supporting pilot projects through discretionary grants has
            been a central feature of the federal criminal justice
            assistance program from its earliest years--as the 1967
            President's Crime Commission recommended. Funding of this kind
            allows jurisdictions to implement programs that have been
            proven effective or to undertake experimentation. Local
            jurisdictions can rarely free up money to undertake these kinds
            of initiatives. Once established and shown to be successful in
            local settings, however, city councils or other budgetary
            officials will frequently buy into their continuation. Drug
            courts are a good example of this phenomenon.
              But probably the best illustration of this is the work of the
            COPS Office--which has literally changed the face of policing
            across the United States since it was established in 1994. What
            is telling is that it is not just the hiring grants that caused
            this revolution to occur. Perhaps more important was the change
            in the culture of policing--and police/community
            relationships--that occurred as a result of a myriad of COPS
            innovation grants, conferences, and other initiatives.
              Other examples of LEAA/OJP-supported innovations include:

                Problem-oriented and hot spots policing

                Problem-solving courts (drug courts, mental health
            courts, domestic violence courts, etc.)

                Victim/witness programs

                Career criminal prosecution units

                Bulletproof vests

                Forensic applications of DNA technology

                Drug testing programs

                Less-than-lethal weapons

              4.  There is no more central federal role than diffusion of
            knowledge
              As I stated before, we already know a great deal about what
            can be done to prevent and control crime. For example, we know
            that, correctly used, drug treatment in the criminal justice
            system can play a powerful role in helping change offender
            behavior and reduce post-incarceration recidivism.\6\ We also
            understand that, beyond a certain level, increasing rates of
            incarceration (while adding a staggering burden to state
            budgets) may not be as effective in reducing crime as other
            strategies (such as increasing numbers of police and reducing
            unemployment).\7\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \6\ See http://www.nida.nih.gov/PODAT--CJ/faqs/faqs1.html#3 and
    http://www.evidencebasedprograms.org/Default.aspx?tabid=150, for
    example.
        \7\ See, for example, Reconsidering Incarceration: New Directions
    for Reducing Crime by Don Stemen, Director of Research, Center on
    Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice, January 2007.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
              But we have done a poor job--especially at the federal
            level--in getting information out. While I take credit for many
            things accomplished in the seven years I headed OJP, this is an
            area where I did not do enough to advance the ball.
              A strong recommendation I have therefore made to the House
            Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science is to
            mandate that OJP fund a ``What Works Clearinghouse'' that
            summarizes--in brief, layperson's language--what is known from
            research about evidence-based approaches to addressing crime.
            Although it's hard to believe, no such resource now exists. A
            clearinghouse of this kind should provide information written
            in succinct, non-scientific language that is easily accessible
            to criminal and juvenile justice practitioners. Information for
            busy legislators and policymakers could be distilled into one-
            page summaries--something their staffs will do for them in any
            event.
              This is an ideal role for the OJP agencies to undertake--in
            fact, it's hard to think of a more central federal role than
            this one. Three important resources here are:

                Evidence-Based Crime Prevention, edited by Lawrence
            W. Sherman, David Farrington, Brandon Welsh, and Doris
            MacKenzie (Routledge, 2002). This is an update of a
            Congressionally-mandated report which OJP commissioned and
            published in 1997 entitled, ``Crime Prevention: What Works,
            What Doesn't, What's Promising.''

                The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a project
            of the Council for Excellence in Government in Washington,
            D.C.\8\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \8\ See http://coexgov.securesites.net/
    index.php?keyword=a432fbc34d71c7 and http://
    www.evidencebasedprograms.org/

                The Campbell Collaboration--an international non-
            profit organization that prepares systematic reviews of effects
            of interventions, among others, in the area of crime and
            justice.\9\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \9\ See http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/index.asp and http://
    www.campbellcollaboration.org/CCJG/index.asp

              5.  Technical assistance and training are two of the most
            effective federal public safety investments
              During the years I spent at the Department of Justice I don't
            think I saw a better expenditure of federal dollars (other than
            on research) than those spent on technical assistance. Helping
            practitioners do their jobs better--on the front lines--is the
            ultimate way that the federal government can assist in
            conveying evidence-based best practices. It's one of the most
            cost efficient ways federal money is spent. And it's not about
            spreading the wisdom of high-priced Washington consultants; the
            best T.A. I saw provided was ``peer-to-peer'': Having drug
            court judges from Portland, for example, host teams from other
            jurisdictions. Judges trust what other judges tell them. So
            we'd provide training for courts to serve as ``mentors'' and
            fund travel so others could visit.
              Another good example of successfully integrated technical
            assistance and training are the Regional Community Policing
            Institutes (RCPIs). I've been a fan of these since their
            creation by the COPS Office in the late 1990s. They provide
            high quality but low cost (or free) training for law
            enforcement agencies on topics ranging from community policing
            and gangs to school safety and meth labs. The RCPIs have
            provided a national presence with access to local
            practitioners, but they are about to be a victim of the
            dramatic cuts at COPS--a perfect example of a wonderful (but
            low profile) investment of federal money that has built
            infrastructure and credibility in the field, but now may be
            dismantled.
              Yet another illustration of the federal government's central
            role has been in encouraging better information sharing. The
            Justice Information Sharing Initiative enables agencies to get
            the information they need to be effective within and across
            jurisdictions.

              6.  Larger federal grant programs--like JAG/Byrne and COPS--
            play a vitally important role
              None of the core federal criminal justice assistance
            functions are expensive. Research, statistics, information
            sharing, technical assistance and training, innovative pilot
            programs--these are minimal investments in the scheme of the
            federal budget. While each could surely use more money, none
            requires substantial appropriations. The same, of course, is
            not true of the large block grant programs, or large
            discretionary grant programs like COPS, which have been a
            mainstay of the LEAA/OJP program since the passage of the 1968
            Safe Streets Act.
              The COPS program, in particular, has been distinctive. Even
            those who have questioned the value of federal subsidies of
            local police salaries have acknowledged that the COPS Office
            has helped dramatically to spread the concept of community
            policing and has reinvented the way a federal grant agency can
            relate to its constituents. Continuation--and strengthening--of
            the COPS program is something I strongly support (and passage,
            therefore, of legislation like H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement
            Act of 2007, makes good sense).
              In general, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
            measure in any scientific way the impact of large programs like
            the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, for which
            spending is invested in an almost limitless number of locally
            chosen programs. Despite that, however, I come down in strong
            support of continued federal funding of COPS and of JAG/Byrne.
            State and local criminal justice right now is in a two-fold
            crisis, dealing with rising crime, on the one hand, and
            juggling additional responsibilities in the post-9/11 world, on
            the other. In the spirit of the 40-year criminal justice
            assistance program, federal leadership and support is vital to
            help states and localities deal with the challenging problems
            they are now facing of rising violent crime and homicide ,
            drugs, and gangs.
              I would offer these suggestions, however, regarding these
            programs and the pending legislation before the Committee:

                Strongly encourage block grant program grantees to
            consider funding programs of proven effectiveness. Creation of
            a ``What Works'' clearinghouse would allow state and local
            practitioners and policymakers to find that information much
            more easily.

                Consider placing a four-year limit on federal
            funding for projects, in light of the fact that federal money
            should primarily be used for innovation, rather than ongoing
            support.

                Emphasize the strengths of programs--e.g., in COPS,
            to support community policing initiatives for crime prevention
            and crime fighting, not just putting officers on the streets
            (so to allow flexibility to support gang task forces, anti-meth
            lab activities, and other specific initiatives to target
            problem areas).

                Ensure and require coordination between DOJ's
            efforts and those in DHS. I hear from state and local
            practitioners examples of their need to coordinate ``on the
            ground'' when the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security
            have not adequately collaborated from inside the Beltway. That
            kind of collaboration is tough in Washington. But it needs to
            be done better.

                Support repayment of student loans for individuals
            who remain employed as public prosecutors or public defenders.
            The John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of
            2007, H.R. 933, deserves support because of the worthy goal of
            encouraging young lawyers to enter public service in those
            areas. Too frequently, recent law graduates are saddled with
            such heavy loans that they have little choice but to enter
            large law firms in order to repay those debts. My only
            suggestion here is that--at some time in the future--this
            Committee consider extending this program to encompass those
            earning graduate degrees in programs such as the Masters
            Program in Criminology at Penn and entering positions in
            probation, corrections and law enforcement. Shouldn't young
            people in these areas of public service deserve our support as
            much as young lawyers do?
     final crime control recommendation: reducing homicide by focusing on
                        probation and parole populations
        I want to end with a positive suggestion regarding an area where
    federal investment of dollars could make a substantial difference in
    reducing crime. For reasons that are hard to discern, federal grant
    programs over the years have largely ignored probation and parole
    populations. There are 6 million convicted offenders on probation or
    parole in the nation, compared to only 2.2 million offenders or
    defendants behind bars. Offenders in the community clearly present the
    greatest risk to public safety, yet they receive little attention from
    the criminal justice system or from public budget allocations.
        My Penn colleague Lawrence W. Sherman (Director of the Jerry Lee
    Center of Criminology) has pointed out that the majority of the 406
    murders in Philadelphia last year were committed by--or against--
    individuals on probation, parole or pretrial release. He estimates that
    persons under the supervision of Philadelphia's Adult Probation and
    Parole Department (APPD) committed 22% of all homicides in the city in
    2006 and made up 16% of murder victims. ``This would mean that almost 4
    out of ten murders involved an APPD case as victim or offender,''
    Sherman notes.\10\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \10\ Lawrence W. Sherman, ``Reducing Homicide by Enhancing High-
    Risk Probation and Parole: A Peer-Reviewed Grants Program,'' Testimony
    before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and
    Homeland Security, February 15, 2007.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Using statistical data-mining techniques pioneered by another Penn
    colleague, Dr. Richard Berk, we are now working with Philadelphia's
    probation department to identify the handful of offenders most likely
    to kill or be killed. But with caseloads of 185 probationers per
    probation officer, such offenders usually receive minimal oversight. A
    small demonstration project with just five officers whose caseloads do
    not exceed 15 offenders is now testing a new way to prevent homicide.
    On a national scale, this approach could test a wide variety of murder
    prevention strategies--including clinical treatment for Post Traumatic
    Stress Disorder, drug abuse and mental illness--to prevent violence.
        If this kind of approach could be undertaken in carefully designed
    randomized controlled experiments under a federal grant program, using
    collaborations between local probation agencies and universities, there
    is real promise, using scientific knowledge, of reducing homicide in
    many violence-ridden communities around the country--a prime example of
    the kind of innovative federal/state/local partnerships this criminal
    justice assistance program has fostered over four decades.
                                   conclusion
        Because of my longstanding involvement in the program, I have twice
    convened reunions of leaders of the LEAA/OJP agency--in 1996, as
    Assistant Attorney General, and again in 2006, as a private citizen. In
    both instances, I was struck by the support--across every era and from
    individuals of both political parties--for the federal criminal justice
    assistance program. The program has benefited from that passion, which
    has translated, I believe, into strong leadership over 40 years. For
    those of us who have had the chance to serve in that position, it has
    been an honor and a privilege to do so for a program dedicated to
    reducing crime and ensuring justice.
                                   __________
        Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the
    Subcommittee, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

        Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. Your time has expired.
        Next, we will hear from Mayor Douglas Palmer.

    TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS H. PALMER, MAYOR OF TRENTON,
    NEW JERSEY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS

        Mayor Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        It gives me great honor to be on this very distinguished
    panel and talk about an issue as president of the United States
    Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan organization of mayors
    representing over 1,100 cities in this country, something we
    are all united on.
        You have a 10-point plan that talks about Strong Cities,
    Strong Families for a Strong America, and, quite frankly, you
    cannot have a strong America, strong cities or strong families
    unless we have safe cities. As has been mentioned, it is very
    important that we have homeland security, but hometown security
    is equally important.
        About 389 days ago, I happened to be in Los Angeles with
    Mayor Villaraigosa and Attorney General Gonzales and other
    chiefs of police and mayors, and we talked about the issue of
    rising crime. After that hearing was over--it was on a Friday--
    my police director got a call. He said to me, ``Hold on a
    minute, Mayor,'' and he came back and said, ``We had a
    shooting,'' which was the second one in 2 days.
        This time, it was a warm Friday afternoon, a 7-year-old
    girl by the name of Tajahnique Lee, who was doing what most
    young girls and boys would do on a summer day, while riding her
    bike, got caught in a crossfire of rival gangs and was shot in
    the face. This is something that happens far too often in all
    of our cities, suburban areas and across this Nation.
        As mayors, we understand. We have to make the phone calls.
    I had to make a phone call to her mother an hour later while
    she was in the hospital with her daughter and, of course, the
    things that her mother was saying to me, I could not really
    repeat, but I understand.
        As mayors, we are the ones that have to make the phone
    calls, and that is why the work that you are doing is so very,
    very important. As you have said many times, mayors are on the
    front line of these issues. We have to make the calls. We get
    the calls in the middle of the night. We confront the families.
    We go to the funerals.
        As crime has increased, we see a reduction in the COPS
    program, a program that is cost-effective, efficient and that
    works and achieves results. As we talk about a surge in Iraq
    and needing more soldiers, we talk about hometown security, we
    need a surge of police officers in our cities.
        It is unfortunate, and as someone that was educated in
    Trenton and at Hampton University and as an African-American
    man, it is very upsetting to me to have to say that we need to
    have more police, we need to arrest the bad guys out here, but
    quite frankly, we do.
        We need to make sure that we have common-sense gun
    approach. We need to make sure that we can close the gun show
    loophole. We need to make sure that we can deal with the Tiahrt
    amendment and have police officers be able to trace data. We
    also need to go after the cultural violence that permeates the
    airways. We also need the resources that critical for our
    police officers.
        Part of our 10-point plan is also about prevention, and I
    know the district attorney is doing great things as a result of
    re-entry and other kinds of issues that we support.
        But when we talk about the COPS program, I am urging a
    bipartisan way that we give the police officers the resources
    that they need, that we make sure that the funding is flexible
    so that some areas may not need as much police officers as they
    need help with other kinds of programs like technology or other
    kinds of things, but have it in a block grant approach.
        The mayors want to be held accountable and our police
    chiefs and police directors want to be held accountable for the
    results.
        We are at a critical time in this Nation's history where we
    see terrorism abroad, we see terrorism at home in the form of
    gangs and drugs and guns, and I think as a Nation we have to
    say enough is enough, that we need a comprehensive proactive
    approach, but we also need to have the resources that these
    police officers need to have more police on the streets.
        It is ironic that in England just last year when they
    foiled a terrorism plot, it was not the terrorism experts that
    did it. It was the cop on the block because the cops in these
    cities on the blocks know the neighborhood, know the people and
    know when something is wrong.
        This is a form, quite frankly, of helping fight domestic
    terrorism, and I urge the passage of the reauthorization of
    H.R. 1700 as well as, I think, that H.R. 933 is a great idea to
    help States and cities with witness protection.
        I thank you for your time.
        [The prepared statement of Mayor Palmer follows:]
             Prepared Statement of the Honorable Douglas H. Palmer
        Good afternoon. I'm Doug Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey and
    President of The United States Conference of Mayors. I have been Mayor
    of Trenton since July 1990, and became President of The U.S. Conference
    of Mayors in December of 2006.
        I want to thank my good friend Chairman Scott for calling today's
    hearing on issues related to crime in America's cities, as well as
    Ranking Member Forbes, and the entire Subcommittee.
        This hearing is being held in the shadow of the April 16 tragedy at
    Virginia Tech University, where more than 30 people lost their lives,
    and many more are still suffering with injuries.
        I want to express my personal sympathy for the victims, and the
    parents, families, teachers and friends of those killed or injured in
    this terrible attack. And I want to especially express my support to
    both Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Forbes, who both represent the
    Commonwealth of Virginia.
        As this tragedy continues to demonstrate, gun violence and crime
    know no geographic boundaries. Whether at Columbine High School, or the
    Amish schoolhouse, or Virginia Tech University, or in cities across the
    nation every day, crime and violence are increasing.
        How do I know this is a life and death matter?
        In my own city, just over a year ago, seven-year-old Tajhanique Lee
    was out in the neighborhood riding her bike on a Friday evening.
    Unbeknownst to her, she rode right into a gang war, a reckless
    crossfire. And even though she was not the target, this beautiful
    little girl was shot through the mouth, the bullet going through both
    of her cheeks. Miraculously, she lived.
        As our country and our people united to address the reality of
    terrorism after the attacks of 9/11, we must unite now to address the
    reality of gun violence and crime which continues to ravage our cities,
    suburbs and rural areas alike.
        We must act now to prevent acts of violence and provide positive
    alternatives and help to those in need.
        To be very honest, I am angry.
        I am angry that after Columbine, Congress would not act to close
    the gun-show loophole, which allows criminals and others to buy guns
    without a background check.
        I am angry that the assault weapon ban was allowed to expire.
        I am angry that Congress has limited the ability of local law
    enforcement to trace illegal crime guns through the Tiahrt Amendment.
        And I am angry that positive law enforcement partnership programs
    like COPS and the local block grant have been eviscerated.
        We simply have to act now, and the nation's mayors are ready,
    willing, and able to stand with this Subcommittee and everyone in
    Congress who wants our help in moving forward a positive law
    enforcement and prevention agenda.
        Mayors know that our first responsibility must be public safety.
    Only when our cities are safe can we focus on other priorities such as
    public education, job creation, and affordable housing. That's why one
    of the top priorities in our new Mayor's 10-Point Plan on Strong
    Cities, Strong Families for a Strong America is support for anti-crime
    programs.
        In the 1990's, mayors and police chiefs put extensive effort into
    increasing public safety. And as we all know, there were dramatic
    results. Many cities saw crime rates drop to historic lows.
        We recognize that there were a number of factors for this reduction
    in crime--including a strong economy and tougher prosecution and
    sentencing practices, mainly of drug related crimes.
        However, additional police officers on the streets and greater
    support for innovative prevention programs had a major impact on crime.
        And, the partnership developed between the federal government and
    local governments--under programs such as COPS and the Local Law
    Enforcement Block Grant--greatly helped cities deploy more officers and
    change the way policing is done in America.
        I know that in Washington, there is debate as to whether these
    programs made an impact. In my city, and in thousands of cities across
    the nation, there is NO QUESTION that these programs made a significant
    difference.
        In my city of Trenton, we are confronting a small number of heavily
    armed street thugs who are intent on committing violence against one
    another.
        New Jersey, with huge public support, has some of the most
    stringent gun laws in the nation--but criminals circumvent those laws
    simply by crossing the state line--which is our city line--into
    Pennsylvania. There, an assault rifle can be purchased at a gun show
    for about a hundred dollars. Life should not be that cheap.
        I have been to Harrisburg to urge legislation addressing guns and
    gangs and now I am here before you . . . again making the case against
    a gun market that feeds those who are severely mentally ill . . . or
    whose ruthless drug trade often involves the assassination of young
    African American or Latino men.
        Rampant gun violence is more than a national tragedy. It is a
    disgrace.
        Recently in Trenton our police arrested a murder suspect. At the
    time of the killing, he was out on bail. He was awaiting trial on the
    charge of shooting at a Trenton police officer.
        Two years ago, a young man was arrested on gun charges four times
    in six months. Only on the fourth arrest was bail set high enough to
    keep him locked up.
        Clearly, we have to address this ``revolving door,'' which is why I
    am urging the New Jersey General Assembly to create a special ``gun
    court'' to focus on weapons crimes and the small number of repeat
    offenders who are responsible for so much violence.
        Like all mayors, I am responsible to the residents of my city for
    keeping our streets safe. Working for tougher gun laws everywhere in
    America is what I have to do to meet that responsibility.
        In my city, as in many in the Northeast, we are the objective for
    an interstate gun market. Half the guns confiscated by our police come
    from Pennsylvania. They come up from Virginia, Georgia, and Florida.
        Who in their right mind would twist this situation into a threat
    against the rights of hunters? We must confront the real threat--to
    innocent citizens. We must put some reasonable curbs on what is a
    scandalous supply line to chronic offenders who use guns--and to do so
    we need leadership and partnership, not rhetoric.
        While the history of the 1990's was one of partnership and crime
    reductions, what has happened in recent years has been very different.
        Cities lost more than $2 billion annually as the COPS hiring
    program was eliminated, and the local block grant was merged into the
    Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program--and then slashed. And now many
    cities are seeing significant crime increases.
        The latest findings from the Police Executive Research Forum found
    that some cities are experiencing double-digit or even triple-digit
    percentage increases in homicides and other violence.
        PERF's 56 city survey found that over a two year period:

              Total homicides were 10.21 percent higher;

              Robberies increased 12.27 percent;

              Aggravated assaults increased 3.12 percent; and

              Aggravated assaults with a firearm increased by
            almost 10 percent.

        Funding cuts are not the sole cause of the recent crime increases.
    But they DID have a major impact.
        In my city, crime dropped 27 percent last year--but our focused
    enforcement required us to exceed our budget by $6 million.
        Cities face many problems related to crime such as:

              the growth of gangs;

              the increased availability of illegal guns--something
            made harder to address by bad federal policies;

              drug abuse, including new drugs such as meth; and

              the return of more than 600,000 ex-offenders annually
            to our cities.

        There is also a growing culture of youth violence and disrespect on
    our streets--fueled by negative media and entertainment images and
    messages--that is contributing to the increase in crime.
        And all of this is happening at the same time that local
    governments are being asked to do more to help secure our nation from
    terrorist attacks.
        I know that the federal government has increased anti-terrorism
    grants, but the increased support for ``homeland'' security has
    unnecessarily come at the expense of ``hometown'' security.
        We need to once again form a strong partnership between the federal
    and local governments to fight crime. And we also need to focus greater
    attention on successful efforts to prevent crime, and create meaningful
    alternatives for children and young adults.
        Chairman Scott recently participated in a meeting of our Criminal
    and Social Justice Committee. Half-way through a discussion on crime
    prevention, the mayors switched to a discussion of education and after-
    school programs. Clearly, the issues of crime, education and
    opportunity cannot be separated.
        In Summits we have held across the country, the Conference of
    Mayors has been focusing on finding innovative ways to:

              improve early childhood education;

              strengthen school learning;

              reduce school dropout rates;

              promote after-school opportunities; and

              increase college and workforce preparedness.

        Law enforcement officers can be a critical resource in not only
    enforcing laws, but in preventing crimes and creating positive
    environments in schools and communities.
        The Conference of Mayors has adopted policy which calls for the
    reauthorization of the COPS program, and we urge passage of H.R. 1700,
    sponsored by Representatives Weiner, Scott and Keller. As this bill
    moves forward in the House and the Senate, we hope that it will contain
    a number of elements supported by our policy including:

              Funding for the hiring or re-deployment of additional
            officers, with a continued emphasis on community oriented
            policing in and around schools;

              Significant retention funding beyond the initial
            three years of the program for officers where local fiscal
            conditions require continued support;

              Much needed flexibility to pay overtime so long as it
            results in an increase in the number of officers deployed in
            community oriented policing;

              A significant increase in the per-officer funding
            limitation;

              Significant support for crime-fighting technology
            including: improved public safety communications and crime
            mapping; expansion and replacement of facilities necessitated
            by the hiring of additional officers; and crime solving
            technologies including crime lab improvements and DNA backlog
            reductions; and

              Support for the criminal justice system including
            efforts to increase community prosecutions.

        We also commend the new Congress for increasing funding for COPS
    and the JAG program--the first time in years that the programs were not
    cut--and urge that both programs be fully funded in Fiscal Year 2008.
        And while we have not adopted official policy on the matter, I
    think that H.R. 933--which would establish within the United States
    Marshals Service a short-term State witness protection program to
    provide assistance to state and local district attorneys to protect
    their witnesses in cases involving homicide, serious violent felonies,
    and serious drug offenses--could be very helpful.
        All levels of government need to work closer together to find
    innovative ways to:

              Reduce the availability of illegal drugs;

              Increase access to drug treatment;

              Help ex-offenders successfully re-enter society;

              Keep kids out of gangs, and prosecute gang crimes
            with all available resources; and

              Fight the illegal gun trade and adopt common sense
            gun laws.

        I want to end on this last point. April 16, 2007 is a national day
    of tragedy.
        We need a common sense approach to guns in America.
        We must allow the police to do their jobs and trace illegal guns by
    defeating the Tiahrt Amendment.
        We must close the gun show loophole which allows guns to be sold
    without background checks.
        We must prohibit the sale of military-style assault weapons and
    large capacity ammunition clips.
        We must make sure that records are accurate and shared regarding
    those who should be prohibited under current law from purchasing a
    firearm.
        The federal government must actively enforce all the current gun
    laws, and make sure the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
    Explosives (ATF)--which has been a strong partner with local
    governments--is provided all the resources and staff it needs to help
    keep America safe.
        Beyond legislation, a new effort must be made against the use and
    trafficking of illegal weapons. Weapon buyback programs and ballistics
    tracking offer the hope of reducing the toll these weapons take on our
    citizens, our communities, our children. And in our communities, we can
    do more to help teachers, coaches and family members intervene where
    predictors for violent behaviors exist.
        But comprehensive legislation at the federal level can take the
    lead in ensuring uniform protections and bringing safety to our
    communities. The dangers raised by inadequate protections in any given
    state threaten us all.
        Our nation lost more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University,
    and we lose thousands more in cities across America every year to gun
    violence and crime.
        This issue has been labeled gun control and cast in the terms of
    sacred, abstract constitutional arguments.
        But respectfully, I am here to tell you that there is nothing
    abstract about innocent victims being wounded and killed.
        Yes, we have a Second Amendment, but we also have a Declaration of
    Independence and there is something to be said for life, liberty, and
    the pursuit of happiness. Bi-partisan, common sense action must be
    possible, and we call on Congress and the President to act now.
        Thank you.

        Mr. Scott. Chief Mosca?

      TESTIMONY OF EDMUND H. MOSCA, CHIEF OF POLICE, OLD SAYBROOK
        DEPARTMENT OF POLICE SERVICES, OLD SAYBROOK, CONNECTICUT

        Chief Mosca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here
    representing the International Association of Chiefs of Police
    as its legislative chairperson this afternoon, and I appreciate
    this opportunity.
        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
    that it fosters has been very successful in helping law
    enforcement agencies throughout the Nation reduce crime rates
    and maintain safer communities. That is why we are so pleased
    to be here today to express our strong support for H.R. 1700,
    the COPS Improvement Act.
        The COPS Improvement Act will, if enacted, allow us to
    build upon and extend the success of the COPS program when the
    COPS program was fully funded almost a decade ago. Communities
    throughout the Nation witnessed a remarkable decline in the
    crime rate. Years of innovative and effective efforts by
    Federal, State, tribal and local law enforcement agencies
    enabled us to transform our neighborhoods from havens of fear
    to safer, more secure communities.
        I can speak from personal experience about the value and
    the benefits of the COPS program provided to the local police
    departments. In the 1990's, the COPS program made a profound
    impact on the ability of my department to protect the citizens
    that we served.
        I was able to hire additional officers, purchase equipment,
    provide training that would have been otherwise out of reach
    for a smaller department like mine. We were also able to
    establish a highly successful and acclaimed school resource
    officer program which provided a practical level of security
    within our school system.
        As a result of this assistance, my officers were better
    equipped, better trained and better positioned to fulfill their
    mission on a daily basis.
        However, the success of the COPS program is not derived
    solely from the amount of Federal assistance funds that have
    been made available to State, local and tribal law enforcement
    agencies, but also in the manner in which the program has
    operated.
        The key to the success of the COPS program is that it works
    with individuals who best understand the needs of their States,
    communities--State, tribal and local law enforcement
    executives. By adopting this approach, the COPS Office ensures
    that the right funds are provided to correct agencies to
    address appropriate needs.
        Yet despite the best efforts of our Nation's law
    enforcement officers, the disturbing truth is that each year in
    the United States, well over a million of our fellow citizens
    are victims of violent crime. Unfortunately, in the last 2
    years, we have seen a steady increase in the rate of violent
    crime in the United States. According to the FBI Uniform Crime
    Report, violent crime rose at a rate of 2.5 percent during
    2005. To put that into perspective, that is an additional
    31,479 victims.
        This increase in the crime rate appears to be accelerating
    for the first 6 months of 2006. The crime rate rose at a
    percent of 3.7 percent when compared to the same frame in 2005.
    If this rate holds for the final 6 months--and I am sorry to
    say that I believe that it will--it will mean an additional
    47,000 Americans found themselves victims of violent crime.
        Further, for violent crime in general, cities with
    populations of 25,000 to 50,000 are seeing the fastest-growing
    incidents. From 2004 to the first 6 months of 2006, the violent
    crime rate in these communities rose by more than 8 percent. In
    towns with populations of 10,000 to 25,000, the homicide rate
    went up more than 6.5 percent over the same 2-year period.
        I believe it is important to note that when compared to
    fiscal year 2002, the funding level of $3.8 billion, the
    Administration's fiscal year 2008 proposal represents a
    reduction of more than $3.2 billion, or 85 percent, and no
    program has been hit harder than the COPS program.
        It is for these reasons that the IACP is such a strong
    supporter of the COPS Improvement program. By reauthorizing and
    expanding the mission of the COPS program, this legislation
    will ensure that the COPS program continues to serve and assist
    the State, tribal and local law enforcement communities.
        For 5\1/2\ years, law enforcement agencies and officers
    have willingly made the sacrifices necessary to meet the
    challenges of fighting both crime and terrorism. They have done
    so because they understand the critical importance of what they
    are sworn to do and they remain faithful to fulfilling their
    mission of protecting and serving the public.
        However, the expenditure of resources necessary to maintain
    this effort has left many police departments in a financial
    situation so dire that their ability to provide the services
    their citizens expect and deserve has been threatened and, in
    fact, diminished. This must not and cannot continue.
        If our efforts to reduce crime and promote homeland
    security are to have any chance of succeeding, it is absolutely
    vital for Congress and the Administration to make the necessary
    resources available that would America's first line of defense,
    law enforcement, to mount successful and effective anti-crime
    programs, which are also effective anti-terrorism programs.
        That concludes my statement, and I would certainly be
    pleased to answer any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Chief Mosca follows:]
                       Prepared Statement of Edmund Mosca

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                   ATTACHMENT

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you.
        Ms. Harris?

    TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE KAMALA D. HARRIS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
                   CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

        Ms. Harris. Good afternoon, Chairman Scott and Ranking
    Member Forbes and other Members of the Committee. My name is
    Kamala Harris. I am the District Attorney of the City and
    County of San Francisco, and I also serve on the board of
    directors of the National District Attorneys Association.
        I will be speaking about each of the three bills, beginning
    with H.R. 933, Witness Intimidation.
        Nationwide, witness intimidation is among the most urgent
    and important challenges facing prosecutors and police, and the
    issue seriously undermines our efforts to catch and prosecute
    the country's most dangerous and violent criminals. In many
    jurisdictions, in fact, it has become an epidemic.
        District Attorney Dan Conley of Boston, a colleague serving
    on the National DA's Association, reports that 90 percent of
    his office's gun-and gang-related cases involve some form of
    witness intimidation. Baltimore states attorney Pat Jessamy
    also estimates that there has been witness intimidation in 90
    percent of her homicide cases.
        In a recent Massachusetts survey of children and teenagers,
    64 percent said that people will not report gang-related crime
    because they are afraid of retaliation or being killed.
    Recently, this hit home for us in San Francisco.
        We had basically a real tragedy occur when one of our
    witnesses, who I will refer to as a hero, was murdered in the
    streets of San Francisco simply because he had the courage to
    come forward and be willing to testify about this most
    outrageous crime. His name was Terrell Rollins.
        Terrell Rollins was shot, and he was seriously injured by
    the alleged shooter in the homicide case. He agreed to come
    forward and be relocated through our witness relocation
    program, and as a result of his safety during that time in the
    program, he successfully testified before the grand jury, which
    returned an indictment.
        Tragically, however, he returned to the old neighborhood,
    and he was killed, as we could have predicted.
        He was a witness and the only witness in that case, and as
    a result, the court had to dismiss that homicide case against a
    killer who is now walking the streets. And by the way, no
    witnesses have come forward to talk about the killing of
    Terrell Rollins.
        Last year, in San Bernardino, California, two witnesses
    were also killed. Eighteen-year-old Melquiades Jose Rojas
    testified before two gang members and against two gang members
    in a murder case. After he testified, he was found dead, shot
    25 times.
        In another case in San Bernardino, a defendant broke into a
    witness's home and killed the witness and the witness's father
    and wounded the witness's infant son.
        In 2003, in Shenandoah County, Virginia, Mr. Forbes, a 17-
    year-old girl was found stabbed to death on the banks of the
    river. She was 4 months pregnant. She had cooperated in the
    investigation of a Texas gang homicide but left the Federal
    Witness Security Program. Four gang members were charged with
    her murder.
        Each of these cases underscores the urgent need for H.R.
    933. Law enforcement must have the tools we need to bring order
    to communities that are too frequently being overrun and
    overwhelmed by gang violence.
        H.R. 933 is critical also because local and State witness
    relocation programs are severely under funded. In fact,
    California only has $3 million per year for witness protection
    for the entire State. In 2005, Baltimore only had $400,000 to
    relocate 184 families. Federal support is necessary because
    effective witness support is essential to our ability to
    respond to an increasingly rising tide of violence, as the
    chief of police has indicated.
        And certainly, if law enforcement is unable to ensure
    safety for its own witnesses, who can? We cannot ask courageous
    witnesses to come forward, putting their lives on the line, if
    we are not willing to dedicate all and any resources necessary
    to protect them, to keep them safe and then to ensure serious
    consequences for those who are committing murders and gang
    violence in our community.
        As it relates to H.R. 1700, I agree with what the speakers
    have said before me. I believe that it will help to address
    violence and witness intimidation in addition. More violent
    crime, but fewer witnesses, as I have mentioned, are coming
    forward to help police and prosecutors get violent criminals
    off the street. Many murders, in fact, remain unsolved
    throughout this country and not because there are no witnesses,
    but because no witnesses will come forward.
        For example, in San Francisco, out of 181 murders occurring
    in 2005 and 2006, police have only cleared 30 percent. In
    Philadelphia, half the murders since 2002 remain unsolved. In
    Palm Beach County----
        Mr. Scott. Ms. Harris, could you----
        Ms. Harris. I will close it up, and I think I have made my
    point, which is that we have a situation where we absolutely
    have to ensure that we are protecting witnesses. I believe the
    COPS funding will help police officers on a local basis do
    that.
        And finally, I would ask your support of the ability for
    prosecutors and public defenders to receive support in reducing
    their loan debt so that they can continue to do the important
    work they do pursuing criminal justice and justice in our
    courthouses across this country.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]
              Prepared Statement of the Honorable Kamala D. Harris
                                  introduction
        Chairman Scott, Member Waters, Member Forbes, and Members of the
    Committee on the Judiciary:
        My name is Kamala D. Harris, and I am the District Attorney for the
    City and County of San Francisco. I have served in this capacity for
    the last three years and have been a career prosecutor for the last
    seventeen years. Prior to being elected District Attorney, I served as
    a prosecutor in Alameda County, California specializing in the
    prosecution of child sexual assault cases, homicides, and other violent
    crimes. I also served as Chief of the Career Criminal Unit of the San
    Francisco District Attorney's Office and the Chief of the City
    Attorney's Division of Families and Children. I currently serve on the
    board of the National District Attorneys Association.
        I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Chairman Scott for
    inviting me to speak on these urgent issues. I am very grateful for the
    opportunity to address the Committee regarding House Resolution 933,
    the ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007,'' H.R. 1700, the
    COPS Improvement Act of 2007, and H.R 916, the ``John R. Justice
    Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007.''
       h.r. 933: witness intimidation--the scope and impact on criminal
                                  prosecution
        It is fitting that we are considering the pressing matters of
    witness intimidation and witness security during National Crime
    Victims' Rights Week. Nationwide, witness intimidation is among the
    most urgent and important challenges facing prosecutors in the pursuit
    of justice for crime victims.
        Simply put, across the country, witnesses are increasingly refusing
    to come forward to provide information to law enforcement or to testify
    in serious and gang-related criminal cases. Many witnesses simply
    refuse to cooperate with law enforcement and are fearful of being
    labeled a ``snitch'' or becoming victims of violence themselves. Many
    have received threats or have been otherwise intimidated.
        This problem of witness intimidation strikes at the very heart of
    the American criminal justice system. Without witnesses coming forward
    to provide information leading to the arrest and prosecution of violent
    criminals, law enforcement cannot apprehend and prosecute those accused
    of serious and violent crimes. Indeed, the structure of our adversarial
    system presumes that witnesses will be available and willing to
    testify. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
    guarantees the accused the right to confront witnesses against him
    because it assumes that witnesses will come forward. But in an
    increasing number of cases, witnesses are being intimidated, threatened
    or even killed.
        While it has been difficult for researchers to quantify the scope
    of witness intimidation, the vast majority of prosecutors and police
    believe that witness intimidation is a paramount concern. The available
    data strongly support their view. District Attorney Daniel Conley of
    Suffolk County, Massachusetts reports that 90% of his office's gun and
    gang-related cases involve some form of witness intimidation.
    Baltimore's State's Attorney, Patricia Jessamy, estimates that 90% of
    her office's homicide prosecutions involve some form of witness
    intimidation or coercion. Between 2000 and 2005, the Los Angeles Police
    Department reported a yearly average of more than 778 gang-related
    witness intimidation offenses.
        The data suggest a troubling increase in witness intimidation
    compared to a decade ago. According to the National Institute of
    Justice's 1995 study of witness intimidation, only 51 percent of
    prosecutors in large jurisdictions and 43 percent in small
    jurisdictions said that the intimidation of victims and witnesses was a
    major problem.\1\ Prosecutors across the country believe that the issue
    of witness intimidation is the single biggest hurdle facing any
    successful gang prosecution.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Johnson, Claire, Barbara Webster, and Edward Connors,
    ``Prosecuting Gangs: A National Assessment,'' Research in Brief,
    National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice,
    February 1995.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the broadening scope of the
    witness intimidation problem is its impact on the attitudes of teens
    and young adults toward testifying. Their attitudes toward law
    enforcement and testifying are critical, as young people are often the
    eyewitnesses to gang-related crimes in their neighborhoods. The mere
    perception of retaliation profoundly impacts their willingness to
    cooperate with law enforcement. In a recent study, ``Snitches Get
    Stitches: Youth, Gangs, and Witness Intimidation in Massachusetts,''
    sponsored by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and
    the National Center for Victims of Crime, 641 young people between 12
    and 18 years old who attend Boys and Girls Clubs in Massachusetts were
    surveyed. Twenty-five percent of survey participants said that none of
    their neighbors would report a gang-related crime, and 64 percent said
    that people will not report such crimes because they are afraid of
    retaliation or being killed. The number of young people who reported
    these attitudes was far higher than the 12% of participants who had
    actually been threatened for reporting a crime.
        There is a very high level of fear of retaliation, fear which may
    often by driven by recent, high-profile crimes committed against
    witnesses who participated in witness relocation and protection
    programs.
       local law enforcement's need for expanded witness relocation and
                              protection services
        As H.R. 933 recognizes, witness relocation and protection programs
    are law enforcement's primary tool to respond to witness intimidation.
    Unfortunately, most local and state-level witness relocation and
    protection programs are temporary, severely underfunded, and provide
    few services to witnesses. Above all, these relocation programs are
    voluntary, and witnesses can, and often do, leave at any time. Indeed,
    in several recent cases, witnesses have left relocation programs
    against advice, returned to their old neighborhoods, and were killed.
    As detailed below, one such case occurred in San Francisco, others have
    occurred around the state of California, and there are other similar
    examples across the nation.

              San Francisco, CA. Last year, an heroic young
            witness, Terrell Rollins, was killed by three masked gunmen
            after leaving my office's Witness Relocation and Assistance
            Program and returning to his old neighborhood. Mr. Rollins had
            testified before a grand jury in a homicide case in which he
            had also been shot and severely injured. His life was
            threatened for testifying, so he agreed to be relocated from
            his old neighborhood. Tragically, he returned to that
            neighborhood and was gunned down in broad daylight. He was a
            hero, and his death sparked a major outcry from the community.
            I convened a citywide summit of faith, community and law
            enforcement leaders after he was killed to develop a community-
            based plan for supporting victims and witnesses who agree to
            testify in court. The homicide case in which Terrell was to
            testify was dismissed. Meanwhile, no witnesses have come
            forward to help the police solve Terrell's murder.

              San Bernadino, CA. Two witnesses in San Bernadino
            were killed after coming forward to testify in violent criminal
            cases. Eighteen year old Melquiades Jose Rojas testified
            against two alleged gang members in a murder case in San
            Bernadino. Shortly after he testified, he was found shot to
            death on the side of a road. He had been shot twenty-five times
            in the head and chest. He had qualified for witness relocation,
            but he had returned home and had not relocated at the time he
            was killed. In another case, a defendant broke into the home of
            a witness who had testified against him. The defendant also
            killed the witness's father and wounded his infant son.

              Baltimore, MD. A 17-year-old cooperative witness to a
            gang murder was shot in the back of the head by two members of
            the suspect's gang.

              Shenandoah County, VA. In 2003, a 17-year-old girl,
            who was four months pregnant, was found stabbed to death on the
            banks of the Shenandoah River. She had been a witness to a gang
            murder in the state of Texas and had been in the federal
            witness protection program, which she voluntarily left and
            rejoined her gang, the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang,
            commonly known as MS-13. She was apparently killed for past
            cooperation with law enforcement. Four MS-13 members were
            charged in federal court for her murder.

        These cases are tragic, and they contribute to the climate of fear
    and intimidation in communities under siege by gangs and violence.
    These cases also dramatically underscore the urgent need for H.R. 933
    and additional resources for local law enforcement to relocate and
    protect witnesses who courageously come forward.
        Many local witness relocation, assistance and protection programs
    are severely under-funded, to the extent they even exist as formal
    programs. Operating on shoestring budgets, local law enforcement
    agencies often can only provide temporary services for no longer than
    the duration of the underlying criminal prosecution. Even in
    California, our state only budgets $3 million per year for witness
    protection for the entire state. In 2005, 184 families were relocated
    from Baltimore, but the city only has a $400,000 budget for witness
    relocation. In smaller jurisdictions and states, witness relocation or
    protection consists of giving a witness rent money for a hotel or
    helping them move in with relatives or friends.
        Effective witness relocation, support and protection are essential
    to our ability to respond to a rising tide of violence in our country.
    If law enforcement is unable to ensure safety for its own witnesses,
    who can we protect? It is unacceptable for us to ask heroic witnesses
    to come forward, putting their lives and the lives of their families on
    the line, if we are not willing to dedicate the resources necessary to
    keep them safe. The problem of gang violence and intimidation is most
    acute in our nation's most struggling communities. We must make real
    the promise of safety for those neighborhoods. We cannot tolerate in
    America that there are zones of lethality in urban centers across the
    country, zones of lethality a few miles from where we sit today, zones
    that those of us fortunate enough to have the option, never drive
    through, and where we certainly do not linger.
        Law enforcement must have the tools necessary to bring order to
    those communities overrun by gang violence. And let us not suppose that
    the rest of us are immune from the effects of that violence simply
    because we may live in a different zip code. We are all at risk when
    murderers and violent gang members are left free to commit crime in a
    lawless environment. There must be consequences for violent crime.
    Accountability for the perpetrators so often rests on the ability of
    witnesses to participate in our criminal justice process.
        I believe the Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007 will
    provide critical resources to local and state law enforcement agencies
    to shore-up local efforts to relocate and protect our witnesses. It
    would establish within the United States Marshals Service a short-term
    witness protection program to provide assistance to state and local
    prosecutors to protect their witnesses in serious criminal cases. This
    assistance will be especially critical for smaller jurisdictions and in
    states where there are few, if any, existing resources for witness
    relocation and protection.
     additional suggestions for witness relocation and protection services
        In addition, I suggest that the Committee consider funding a more
    comprehensive, victim-centered approach to witness relocation and
    protection. Relocation must be a long-term option for witnesses and
    their families. Many witnesses have left their neighborhoods for the
    first time, and they often return home to danger against the advice of
    law enforcement because their participation is voluntary. To ensure
    that witnesses remain in their new, safer communities, witnesses and
    their families should receive comprehensive advocacy to connect them
    with services and opportunities in their new environment. In my office,
    I assign a Victim Advocate to each witness and family in relocation.
    The Victim Advocate works to connect witnesses and their families with
    counseling, treatment, education, recreation programs, and local
    service providers, so they can productively occupy their time and
    become grounded in their new host community while they are relocated.
    The goal is to meaningfully connect them to their new community so they
    are more likely to resist the pull of the familiar and return to their
    old neighborhood where they face danger. It is imperative to make this
    investment, so that witnesses remain relocated, available to testify at
    trial, and murderers can be brought to justice.
       h.r. 1700: the critical importance of community-oriented policing
            services and improving cooperation with law enforcement
        Addressing intimidation and retaliation is necessary but, on its
    own, not sufficient to ensure broad and sustainable cooperation from
    witnesses. Across the country, in large and small communities,
    witnesses are simply are not coming forward and will not cooperate with
    law enforcement. This is a community-wide problem that requires a
    community-wide approach, particularly federal support for community
    policing efforts.
        The primary evidence of this broad reluctance to cooperate with law
    enforcement is the high number of unsolved murders in urban and
    suburban America. While the impact is most severe in predominantly
    poor, minority neighborhoods in major American cities, smaller and more
    rural areas have been impacted as well. In many unsolved murder cases,
    there were several, if not many, eyewitnesses to the murders, none of
    whom have been willing to come forward.
        For example, in San Francisco, out of 181 murders occurring in 2005
    and 2006, police have only cleared 30%. There have been murders in my
    city committed in broad daylight where we know there were 10 or more
    eyewitnesses, yet no one has come forward and the crimes remain
    unsolved. The killers remain on the loose, surely prepared to kill
    again. In Philadelphia, half of the murders since 2002 remain unsolved.
    According to my good friend and colleague Professor David Kennedy at
    the City College of New York, who is among the nation's leading experts
    on criminal justice issues, recently stated that the solve rates for
    homicides in some urban communities have dipped into single digits, far
    below the national standard of roughly 60%. A similar trend is
    occurring in smaller and medium-sized jurisdictions. In Palm Beach
    County, Florida, all of the county's seven murders this year remain
    unsolved. In Pomona, California, only 44% of the city's homicides had
    been solved at the end of 2006.
        Many witnesses perceive cooperating with law enforcement as
    ``snitching.'' Over the last few years, a ``Stop Snitching'' phenomenon
    has developed in youth culture, reflected in underground DVD's and the
    ubiquitous ``Stop Snitching'' t-shirts people wear in courthouses
    across the country, including parents who have worn the shirts to their
    children's court hearings in our juvenile courthouse in San Francisco.
    In Boston, the presiding judge saw so many of the t-shirts in his
    courtroom that he banned ``Stop Snitching'' attire from the court
    building and property.
        My experience with young people in my jurisdiction also reflects
    the strong influence of the ``Stop Snitching'' attitude and refusal to
    report crime. In the aftermath of the murder of Terrell Rollins that I
    described earlier, I organized a citywide summit on witness
    intimidation with faith, community, youth and law enforcement leaders.
    We held a focus group with four young adults between 16-28 years old,
    who said that fear of ostracism from their community was a primary
    reason for refusing to ``snitch'' on others.
        This suggests that entire communities are experiencing a reluctance
    to come forward. Witnesses fear being cast out of their communities and
    labeled ``snitches'' in addition to literal retaliation. This requires
    a broad, community-based response from police and prosecutors in close
    partnership with a broad cross-section of partners--in other words, an
    aggressive commitment to community policing.
        Community policing is the cornerstone of efforts to build the bond
    of trust between police and prosecutors and the communities we serve. I
    strongly support restoration of the cuts imposed on the COPS program
    and urge the Committee to support the program.
        Community policing promises a durable, meaningful partnership
    between police and citizens to prevent crime, solve problems and
    conditions that encourage crime, and work together to hold perpetrators
    accountable for committing crimes. Most models of community policing
    focus on the delivery of police services that includes aspects of
    traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving,
    community engagement, and partnerships.
        Community policing is the most important component of the very best
    response to crime, preventing it in the first place. Significant spikes
    in violent crime in many urban centers threaten to reverse many years
    of tremendous improvement in crime rates. Restored funding for the COPS
    program will increase the number of police officers on the street at a
    time when we face a critical juncture in crime control for our country.
    This funding is, again, vital to our duty to protect from crime and
    violence every citizen, every neighborhood, no matter how poor or
    marginalized. But we cannot be shortsighted enough to think that the
    recent increases in violent crime will remain isolated in pockets of
    poverty. Crime is on the rise and our response must be swift and
    substantial so that violence is quickly brought under control before it
    spreads and becomes more acute.
    h.r. 916: the law school student loan debt problem for prosecutors and
                                public defenders
        It is imperative that prosecutors' offices are able to recruit the
    best and brightest attorneys and retain the most qualified and
    experienced prosecutors in their offices. The ``John R. Justice
    Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' will provide a modest
    incentive to attract prosecutors and public defenders to public service
    and help them maintain that commitment throughout their careers.
        This is an issue on which the National District Attorneys
    Association believes urgent Congressional action is needed. I should
    note that I am also advocating on behalf of both prosecutors and public
    defenders. We are united in this effort to ensure that our offices are
    fully staffed with trained and experienced attorneys because we have an
    equally strong interest in maintaining confidence in the criminal
    justice system.
        Prosecutors continue to be paid low salaries compared to those in
    the private sector. In 2006, Equal Justice Works reported in Financing
    the Future, Responses to the Rising Debt of Law Students that starting
    salaries for state and local prosecuting attorneys averaged
    approximately $44,000.\2\ Prosecutors' offices simply cannot compete
    with private firms to attract the best and brightest lawyers. With
    major law firms offering starting salaries of over $125,000 per year,
    the modest salaries young prosecutors earn pale in comparison. And it
    is not a lack of commitment to public service that draws many law
    school graduates away from public service, but their student loans.
    Burdened with loan debt from undergraduate and graduate studies, the
    Equal Justice Works study concluded that the ``average amount borrowed
    in law school by the class of 2005 was $78,763 at a private school and
    $51,056 at a public school. Many lawyers in my office owe over $100,000
    in law school debt alone.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \2\ Heather Wells Jarvis, Financing the Future, Responses to the
    Rising Debt of Law Students, 2nd Edition, Equal Justice Works, 2006,
    citing National Association for Law Placement (NALP) 2006 Public Sector
    and Public Interest Attorney Salary Report.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        This unfortunate combination inevitably causes high turn-over rates
    that result in less experienced prosecutors in courtrooms across this
    country handling more and more serious criminal cases. Neither the
    safety of victims and the public, nor due process protections for the
    accused, should be short-changed while a new prosecutor or public
    defender ``learns the ropes.''
         survey of the nation's prosecutors regarding student loan debt
        In 2005, the National District Attorneys Association's Office of
    Research and Evaluation and the National Association of Prosecutor
    Coordinators conducted a national survey of prosecutors on law school
    student loan debt and the associated issues. Researchers received 2,119
    responses from prosecutors all over the country, most of whom graduated
    from law school between the years 1998 and 2003 and had worked as
    prosecutors for an average of four years.
        Analysis of the survey results revealed that more than 50 percent
    of the responding chief prosecutors and supervisors had between one and
    five prosecutors leave their offices in 2005. This may seem like an
    insignificant number, however, it becomes quite significant when you
    learn that 64 percent of prosecutors' offices that responded to the
    survey were comprised of ten or fewer assistant prosecutors. The end
    result is that attrition was 50 percent or higher in the responding
    small offices.
        In addition, 53 percent of the chief prosecutors reported in the
    survey that law school student loan debt was a very significant factor
    in their ability to retain staff and 62 percent of the chief
    prosecutors reported that student loan debt is a very significant
    factor in their ability to recruit staff. Chief prosecutors reported on
    average that low salaries and student loan payments were the causes for
    nearly a third of the prosecutors who left their offices. Two-thirds of
    the responding prosecutors advised that law school student loan debt is
    an important consideration in deciding to become a career prosecutor.
    More than 55 percent of the respondents reported that they would
    continue prosecuting for 20 to 30 years if law schools loans were
    forgiven.
        Public defenders are subject to the same difficulties in retaining
    attorneys. With starting salaries of about $35,000, new defenders
    cannot afford to repay their student loans. As a result, over a three
    and a half year period, the Saint Louis, Missouri Public Defender's
    Office saw 36 attorneys exit their office that employs only 28
    defenders.
        These unfortunate retention figures signify that inexperienced
    attorneys are handling cases beyond their capabilities and training.
    There are numerous criminal cases that are particularly difficult
    because of the dynamics involved. To name just a few--child abuse,
    elder neglect, domestic violence, identity theft and public corruption.
    The stakes are simply too high to allow any attorney other than
    experienced prosecutors to handle these matters.
        A memo from an Assistant District Attorney (``ADA'') to a
    supervisor in Pennsylvania illustrates this very problem, stating:

            ``Nearly half of the ADAs in the Major Trials Unit and in the
            Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit were hired in 1995 or
            after. In the Felony Waiver Unit, our most experienced ADA has
            been in the unit for approximately 4 months, and we have 8
            lawyers who have been in the office 15 months or less. For the
            first time since I have been chief of the Felony Waiver Unit,
            there is not one lawyer currently assigned here who is ready to
            try a Major case (one will be ready in another month or so).
            There is no question that the departure of a significant number
            of lawyers with 3-5 years experience would have an adverse
            impact on this office, especially since most of the ADA's in
            this unit are 6 months or more away from being capable of
            trying the complex and serious cases in the more advanced
            units.''

        Beyond recruitment and retention difficulties caused by the high
    cost of attending law school and the low salaries paid to local
    prosecutors, chief prosecutors and supervisors cited other effects in
    their offices such as increased caseloads per prosecutor, increased
    costs for training, decreased morale, and increased risk of
    prosecutorial error.
        The questions then become ``How can society, in good conscience,
    ask prosecutors and public defenders to sacrifice so much for so little
    pay?'' How long should they be required to postpone purchasing a home,
    getting married, starting a family, or buying a car? In some instances
    prosecutors are sacrificing even more.
        Some may be unable to purchase safe housing. Some may be driving
    unsafe cars because they cannot afford repairs or replacements. Some
    may even be unable to pay for necessary medical and dental care.
    Falling behind in their loan payments due to inadequate salaries leads
    to accrued interest, making the task of paying the debt off even more
    daunting. Trying to pay off student loan debt may also leave many
    unable to pay for utilities, food, and clothing. In the end, there is
    simply no solution to the impending financial disaster except a move to
    the private sector.
        Following are just some of the comments from New York prosecutors
    made during a student loan survey conducted by the Office of the Queens
    County District Attorney's Office, Information Services (March
    2001),\3\ illustrating their dire financial situations:
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \3\ A Survey of Assistant District Attorney Student Loan
    Indebtedness in 16 New York State Counties, The Office of the Queens
    County District Attorney, Information Services, March 2001.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
              ``My wife and I live paycheck to paycheck . . .''

              ``I can only afford to pay $400 a month ? this
            payment does not cover the interest. Therefore my balance keeps
            going up!''

              ``I currently have all of my loans in forbearance
            because of an inability to pay due to inadequate earnings.
            Forbearance will cause my total indebtedness to increase as
            interest accrues.''

              ``I have had to obtain a waitressing job on the
            weekends to supplement my income.''

              ``. . . I am forced to choose between paying rent or
            paying off my loans. I cannot afford to live in an area where I
            feel safe and pay off my loans at the same time.''

              ``I had to obtain part-time employment in an effort
            to make sufficient money to remain an ADA.''

              ``Please make sure this bill is passed. I?m currently
            living in poverty.''

              ``Nearly half of my take home pay goes towards my
            loans.''0

              ``. . . I am treading water until I can make more
            money.''
              a proven and sound loan repayment assistance program
        The ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' is
    modeled after a similar program currently used effectively by many
    federal agencies as a recruitment and retention tool. The program would
    allow the repayment of up to $10,000 of student loan debt per year for
    state and local prosecutors and public defenders with a limit of
    $60,000 imposed. Because the program requires that a recipient commit
    to employment for at least three years, the problems with attrition and
    inexperience will certainly be alleviated. As a career prosecutor and
    on behalf of the nation's prosecutors, I strongly believe that the
    ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' is a wise
    and urgently needed investment in the integrity of the criminal justice
    system.
                                   conclusion
        I deeply appreciate this opportunity to discuss these important
    issues with the Committee. I thank you for your time and attention, and
    I welcome any questions from the Committee.

    TESTIMONY OF MARK EPLEY, MARK EPLEY, SENIOR COUNSEL, OFFICE OF
       THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
                        JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC

        Mr. Epley. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
    Forbes, distinguished members of the panel. My name is Mark
    Epley. I work for the deputy attorney general of the United
    States Department of Justice, and I am glad for the opportunity
    to speak to you today about violent crime in America and what
    the department is doing to assist our State and local partners
    with the prevention and control of crime.
        Due in large part to the hard work of State and local law
    enforcement, in 2005, the crime rate remained near historic
    lows, according to National Crime Victimization Survey and the
    FBI's Uniform Crime Report. After rising to an alarming peak in
    the early to mid-1990's, violent crime in America has fallen
    precipitously ever since.
        Although in 2005, we do observe an increase in violent
    crime as to murder, robbery, to some extent aggravated
    assault--rape actually went down--it is important to note that
    the rate of crime measured in 2005 is the second-lowest ever
    recorded or reported by the UCR. The lowest recorded was in
    2004.
        When we look at the crime data, there is no obvious
    nationwide trend. Rather, what we observe is an increase in
    certain crimes in certain communities. In general, for example,
    while the United States experienced a 2.4 percent increase in
    the rate of homicide, in New England, that increase was 5.3
    percent. In the South, it was 0.8 percent. In the West, it was
    1.7 percent.
        In addition to regional variation, we also see that cities
    have experienced crime based on their size. Those cities that
    were a million persons or more barely registered a change at
    all. As Mr. Forbes mentioned, Los Angeles and New York saw a
    decrease. Small cites, those 10,000 to 25,000, saw a decrease.
    But those cities 100,000 to 250,000 saw a measurable increase
    in violent crime.
        What is also not obvious when we look at the data is what
    the cause or causes of the regional or the localized increases
    on crime that are observed. To better understand the situation,
    the Department of Justice visited a number of communities
    across the country, those both experiencing an increase in
    crime and those that have seen a decrease, and from these
    meetings, the department sought to learn from local leaders
    what works and what their law enforcement challenges are.
        One consistent theme we heard is the importance of Federal-
    local partnership. A specific example that arose was Project
    Safe Neighborhoods. Through Project Safe Neighborhoods, local
    law enforcement and prosecutors are able to refer gun crimes to
    the Federal system for prosecution, and through this
    partnership, we have doubled the number of gun crime
    prosecutions over the last 6 years when compared to the
    preceding 6 years.
        Another form of partnership in action is law enforcement
    task force activity. Some examples of those led by Federal law
    enforcement include the FBI's Safe Streets Task Forces, the
    ATF's Violent Crime Impact Teams and the U.S. Marshals'
    Regional Fugitive Apprehension Task Forces.
        Whether partnerships through prosecution or operations, we
    want to continue to find ways to shore up our relationship with
    State and local law enforcement. But we appreciate that
    sometimes cooperation on their part takes resources.
        The President's fiscal year 2008 budget request reflects
    that concern. It seeks $200 million for the Violent Crime
    Reduction Partnership Initiative. This initiative will make
    money available to State and local law enforcement task forces
    to address violent crime in those communities that are having a
    challenging time, and they are able to fashion a law
    enforcement solution that is well suited to the problem that
    they see.
        In addition, the department has begun to consolidate
    certain grant programs in order to ensure effectiveness. The
    Byrne Public Safety and Protection Program in the President's
    fiscal year 2008 budget will consolidate the department's most
    successful State and local law enforcement assistance programs
    into a single, flexible, competitive grant program. This new
    approach will help State, local, tribal governments develop
    programs appropriate to the particular needs of their
    jurisdictions.
        And training will continue to be an important part of
    helping our State and local partners grow capacity in the face
    of emerging crime trends.
        The Department of Justice is committed to helping our State
    and local partners prevent and control crime, but we must
    understand that crime is not evenly distributed across the
    United States. Rather, some regions, some counties, cities and
    towns experience more crime than others. One-size-fits-all
    solutions are not well suited to the crime challenges as we
    observe them in the field.
        By better understanding emerging crime trends and the
    nature of crime in the United States, we can more effectively
    partner and more effectively target resources to where they are
    most needed and we are committed to doing that.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Epley follows:]
                   Prepared Statement of Mark Epley

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Mr. Monaghan?

                TESTIMONY OF JOHN MONAGHAN, CONSULTANT,
                 NEW YORK CITY LAW DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK

        Mr. Monaghan. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes,
    Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here
    today to testify.
        As has been mentioned, the FBI crime reports show a 3.7
    percent increase in violent crime. In contrast, the city of New
    York has a 3.1 percent decline in violent crime. In fact,
    overall crime is down in New York for that time frame 7
    percent.
        When you realize that the NYPD is the same size roughly as
    the United States Coast Guard and we police a city of over 8
    million people, yet have kept crime down under the national
    average, we need to look at the management innovations as well
    as technological ones that have helped us do that.
        But, first, before we examine those innovations, I would
    like to put to rest the notion that there is some overarching
    socioeconomic shift in society that has caused this sustained
    decrease in crime. It is policing. It is better policing.
        You know, we would be hard-pressed 30 years ago to find a
    college or an institution that offered criminal justice
    degrees. Today, you could hardly find one that does not. The
    entire profession itself has really taken steps forward in
    recent years. You know, just the criminal justice program at
    Harvard's Kennedy School is only 25 years old.
        In order to sustain this particular innovation in policing,
    we must continue to respect the profession by duly crediting it
    with the overall reduction in crime nationwide.
        So why is New York ahead of the curve? CompStat, in a word.
    But there is a lot more to it.
        Back in 1988 was the first time a police department in New
    York City had educational mandates for promotion. We needed 64
    credits to become a sergeant, 96 to become a lieutenant, and a
    bachelor's degree to become an executive officer and the rank
    of captain.
        This laid the groundwork and filled the middle ranks with
    educated people. For the mid-1990's, there was actually a
    management revolution within the NYPD. Never before, mid-level
    managers promoted to the top of the agency. We had one-star
    chiefs become four-star chiefs overnight. It energized a more
    educated department, and, you know, CompStat was really just
    the first manifestation of that revolution.
        From that time forward now, CompStat and all the
    innovations at NYPD have been managed. We have one-star chiefs
    now with less than 20 years on the job. I mean, that is unheard
    of in policing. The entire, not just the demographics of the
    NYPD have changed dramatically, but the attitude of the entire
    agency. It has become a mantra in government in New York lately
    that we are going to do more with less, and they really have
    been in New York. We have less cops now than we had in the
    past.
        So let's talk about CompStat. It really is the greatest
    innovation in policing in our generation. It has run a course,
    it has been very successful, but it does have limitations, and
    New York does recognize that.
        Recently, they started the Real Time Crime Center in order
    to combat crime while it is occurring.
        I will say less about CompStat before the red light goes
    off, okay.
        Before the crime center, cops in the field would get
    information from witnesses and victims. They would have to go
    back to the station-house, run the information through whatever
    database they felt was pertinent to the investigation. This
    could take days or weeks. It now happens in moments.
        In policing, the term rapid deployment had always meant
    lights and sirens. But now with the crime center, we rapidly
    deploy information to the field. It is staffed with about two
    dozen investigators, and it processes in puts from the field
    and runs them through billions of records.
        Just a few months after the center opened, Bronx detectives
    responded to the abduction of a 4-year-old child that was
    perpetrated by a babysitter who had been fired. Using only the
    information available, which was a State identification number,
    the Real Time Crime Center produced seven names with seven
    different addresses, three dates of birth and six Social
    Security numbers, for that one ID number.
        Can you imagine how long it would take for human detectives
    to plow through that information? The Real Time Crime Center
    did it in moments. The common denominator was found, the child
    was recovered and the perpetrator arrested in a timely fashion.
        The Real Time Crime Center was an $11 million investment.
    It was funded mostly by the mayor's executive budget, with $1.8
    million coming from Federal funds and $1.3 million coming from
    the New York Police Foundation. Most of America's 10 largest
    cities have supporting, non-profit foundations that provide
    funding not found in their city budgets.
        But again, with the second largest police department in the
    country being one-tenth the size of the NYPD, it is unfair to
    compare resources really. The New York Police Foundation has
    funded over 400 programs to the tune of $70 million since its
    inception in 1971.
        Another innovation in policing that did not cost local
    government any funding at all had to do with some high-profile
    homicides that we had in New York related to some of our
    trendier nightclubs in past months. You may have heard of them.
    Since then, the New York City Council has enacted a law that
    mandates video surveillance in such cabarets as a licensing
    requirement, and, of course, the police have access to those
    videos if we need them for investigative purposes.
        I am over. Okay. You know what? It is the people. It is the
    people that man these machines. Otherwise, it is just an
    electronic tiger.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Monaghan follows:]
                      Prepared Statement of John Monaghan
        Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes, Members of the Subcommittee,
    thank you for inviting me here to testify today.
        As I'm sure we're all aware the FBI crime reports for the first
    half of 2006 show a nationwide increase in violent crime of 3.7
    percent. In contrast, the City of New York has recorded a 3.1 percent
    decline in violent crime for that same period. In fact New York City's
    overall crime rate, which includes property crimes along with violent
    crimes, has declined 7.2% in that period.
        When you realize that the New York City Police Department is
    roughly the same size as the United States Coast Guard and they police
    a city of over eight million and have kept crime down under the
    national average making New York the safest big city in America, you
    have to look at their innovations in management and technology.
        But first, before we examine those innovations, I'd like to put to
    rest the notion that some overarching socioeconomic shift is
    responsible for this sustained decrease in crime. It's better policing.
    In his new book, ``The Great American Crime Decline,'' Franklin Zimring
    at UC Berkeley's School of Law attests to the fact that better policing
    is the real explanation for New York City's success. In fact if there's
    any demographic-like shift in our society that may account, in part,
    for the overall brighter picture in crime trends nationwide, it's the
    evolution of the profession of policing itself. Thirty or more years
    ago, there were not many colleges or universities that offered classes
    or degrees in Police Science or Criminal Justice. Today, we'd be hard
    pressed to find an educational institution that doesn't offer such
    programs. Even the Criminal Justice Program at Harvard's Kennedy School
    is only 25 years old.
        So, why is New York ahead of the curve? We all know that New York
    City was the birthplace of CompStat but that was just the beginning.
    CompStat was merely the first recognizable product of an internal
    management revolution that took place in the NYPD in the mid-nineties.
    Never before in the history of that department had mid-level managers
    been elevated directly to top management positions. Educational
    mandates were put in place for promotion to Sergeant, Lieutenant and
    Captain. In fact, the man who designed the CompStat system, the late
    Jack Maple, was only a Lieutenant when he was promoted directly to
    Deputy Commissioner to implement the CompStat system citywide. In the
    wake of those changes the attitude and demographics of the entire
    police department changed. The CompStat era was ushered in by a
    younger, more educated generation. This all points to the first
    management innovation that underlies the NYPD's unprecedented success;
    a better-educated and highly motivated workforce.
        In order to perpetuate this particular innovation, we must continue
    to respect the profession by duly crediting it with the overall
    reduction in crime nationwide.
        CompStat is the greatest innovation in policing in our generation.
    One issue you don't normally hear associated with CompStat however is
    funding. It's a relatively inexpensive idea. The CompStat process has
    evolved however and has found its limitations. It does achieve
    accountability of command level managers, directs deployment of
    resources with pinpoint accuracy and has become a clearinghouse for
    effective tactics. However, crime statistics by their nature tell of
    crimes that occurred in the past. In an effort to prevent crime before
    it occurs or address it while it's occurring, the New York City Police
    Department has created the Real Time Crime Center. This data warehouse
    combines cutting-edge technology with good old-fashioned police work.
        Before the Crime Center opened, officers in the field used to
    record facts, bring them back to the station house and manually run
    them through whichever databases their experience told them were
    pertinent. This haphazard process that took days or even weeks, is now
    streamlined and can happen in moments.
        In policing, the term rapid deployment has always meant lights and
    sirens. The Real Time Crime Center now rapidly deploys information at
    blinding speed. Staffed with about two dozen investigators the center
    processes inputs from the field and runs them through billions of
    records. Not only does it access information from 120 million New York
    City criminal complaints, arrests, and 911 calls, it immediately
    accesses five million parole and probation files from the State and
    more than 30 million national crime records. The reconciliation engine
    that runs the data is an emerging, sophisticated technology that
    understands the meaning and relationship of terms used in policing and
    so is not limited to the commands input by the user. The system
    delivers information in context.
        A few months after the center opened, Bronx detectives responded to
    the abduction of a four-year-old child perpetrated by a former
    babysitter who had been fired. Using the only information available, a
    New York State Identification number, the RTCC produced seven names
    with seven different addresses, three dates of birth and six social
    security numbers. Each one of these pieces of information produced
    additional names, addresses and some phone numbers. The RTCC quickly
    found the common denominator and the child was recovered in a timely
    fashion and the perpetrator arrested.
        That same month detectives responding to a gunpoint robbery
    received only a generic clothing description along with the description
    of a tattoo on the gunman's neck. Using only the description of the
    tattoo, investigators in the RTCC identified a man with a similar
    tattoo who had been arrested numerous times in two different
    jurisdictions within New York State. The detectives received a
    photograph of the suspected gunman who was then positively identified
    by the victim through a photo array. This man's criminal records showed
    several addresses in two different boroughs within New York City. Good
    old-fashioned detective work combined with this new technology put that
    gunman in jail within a week.
        The Real Time Crime Center was an $11 million dollar investment
    funded mostly by the Mayor's Executive Budget with $1.8 million coming
    from federal funds and $1.3 million coming from the New York Police
    Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization. Most of America's
    ten largest cities have supporting, non-profit foundations that enhance
    their effectiveness by providing resources not covered in their city
    budgets. But again, with the second largest police department in the
    country being about one-tenth the size of the NYPD, it's difficult to
    compare resources. The New York Police Foundation, founded in 1971 has
    funded over 400 programs to the tune of $70 million dollars.
        Another innovation in policing New York City not funded by the
    government has to do with a recent rash of high-profile homicides
    related to some of the city's trendier nightclubs. The New York City
    Council just enacted a new law requiring nightclubs operating under
    certain conditions to install video surveillance equipment as a
    licensing requirement.
        The list of technological advances being applied to policing in New
    York City goes on and on. From license plate scanning cameras deployed
    in radio cars to allowing 911 callers to transmit photos taken with
    their cell phones, policing in New York is keeping pace with technology
    and streamlining its management style with every new innovation.
        All this technology however is just an electronic tiger without a
    dedicated workforce behind it. It has become a mantra of late in New
    York City that the government is being called upon `to do more with
    less.'
        The dedicated men and women in law enforcement in New York City
    have answered that call. I thank you again for the opportunity to
    testify here today and I would be happy to answer any questions.

        Mr. Scott. Thank you, and I thank you for your testimony.
        Ms. Harris, I cut you off before you got to say much about
    the loan program.
        Ms. Harris. Basically, what we are looking at as State and
    local prosecutors is that we handle approximately 95 percent of
    all criminal cases in the country, and we are having a
    difficult time, frankly, recruiting and retaining eligible and
    qualified and really, frankly, the best and the brightest
    attorneys.
        It is simply because we cannot pay them enough, and we
    cannot pay them enough so that they can sustain a quality of
    life where they can actually afford to rent an apartment and
    maybe get married and have children and buy a house one day.
        We are losing lawyers, and I believe that the John R.
    Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act will help us
    attract and retain these great lawyers and will help public
    defenders around the country do the same. The National DA's
    Association, who I represent on this bill, believes that it is
    urgent, in fact, that it is passed.
        Mr. Scott. How much debt do the lawyers show up with?
        Ms. Harris. On average, we are showing that they have
    between $50,000 and $80,000 of debt.
        Mr. Scott. Do you know what the monthly payments are on
    those stats?
        Ms. Harris. I do not have that information offhand, no.
        Mr. Scott. But if they have that kind of debt to start off
    with, then the lowest salaries become problematic.
        Ms. Harris. That is correct. And the average salary that we
    are showing is $44,000 a year for prosecutors in this country
    versus, for example, in private firms in Los Angeles, they are
    starting their attorneys at $160,000 a year.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Now, on the witness intimidation, we have laws against
    witness intimidation. Why are they insufficient?
        Ms. Harris. Well, we have laws against murder, and those
    are not sufficient. The reality is that we have people who have
    learned that they can actually benefit from threatening
    witnesses.
        There are the circumstances in the cases that all of these
    communities will know about when witnesses have been killed,
    and they will tell that story over and over again as not only
    justification, but as the reason why they will be reluctant or
    uncooperative with law enforcement in terms of testifying in a
    murder case.
        Mr. Scott. And if the criminal laws are insufficient, then
    we need to protect. How much does it cost to protect a witness
    from this kind of intimidation?
        Ms. Harris. What we do in San Francisco, which is what I
    believe is being done around the country, is that we relocate
    witnesses. So, once law enforcement, once the police officer
    and the homicide detective become aware of the existence of a
    witness, we talk with them. We find out and do an assessment in
    terms of their threat situation and their safety, and it is a
    voluntary program, and they will agree that it is best that
    they leave the dangerous place and be relocated to a safe place
    far away from their original home.
        Often, we relocate witnesses with their families. Many of
    our witnesses have young children, and we do not want to have
    the situation where they are removed from those children for
    what could be 12 months or 18 months pending the prosecution of
    the case.
        Mr. Scott. Now has the witness protection been successful?
        Ms. Harris. It is successful when the witness cooperates,
    and that means when the witness who is there voluntarily stays
    in a safe place, which is why this legislation is significant,
    because it will give us the ability to put more resources into
    making that witness feel comfortable in the new place, become
    situated in the new place, and monitored and supported so that
    they will not go back to the dangerous place.
        Many of the witnesses in these cases have never been
    outside of the 10-square-block radius of the place where the
    crime occurred and the place where they grew up, and to then
    relocate them to a safe suburb, in many cases, is scarier for
    them than being in a high violence community. So what we have
    to do is we have to recognize that they have to be
    transitioned.
        Chairman, you could imagine if I said to you that, ``You
    have now witnessed a crime, and I am going to relocate you
    tomorrow and take you to the middle of''--we do not have Kansas
    represented here--``Kansas, and you cannot call your old
    friends, and you are going to have to sit there for 12 months,
    18 months while we prosecute that case''--it is more than just
    relocating them. We need to support them.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Mr. Epley, you have indicated that you have doubled the
    number of gun prosecutions. Is that double the number of
    Federal prosecutions or double the number overall?
        Mr. Epley. Double the number of Federal gun prosecutions.
        Mr. Scott. Okay. You indicated there was no national trend,
    but that trends are going different places. Have you noticed
    any trends within those trends? What were they doing in the
    areas where this crime was going down? What were they not doing
    where the crime was going up? Did you do any studies along
    those lines?
        Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, the department visited, in
    addition to talk to social scientists and others,
    criminologists and so on, 18 cities across the country, as I
    mentioned, some of which were observing increases in violent
    crime and others that were seeing decreases, and the experience
    was almost as varied as the number of cities visited.
        In some communities, we saw an increase in aggravated
    assaults, but a decrease in homicide, so a number of difficult-
    to-explain combinations of violent crime statistics coming
    back. Part of the explanation that statisticians that we
    consulted with and that worked with the department suggested is
    that it is difficult to measure changes over a single-year
    period.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        I noticed 1 year they noticed a precipitous decline in
    murders in the Richmond, Virginia, area, and they, after close
    study, determined that it was because the medical college of
    Virginia had a new trauma unit--the same number of shootings,
    just fewer people were dying.
        Mr. Forbes?
        Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Let me again just thank all of you for taking time to be
    here. I appreciate your expertise. I wish I could sit down with
    each of you for a period of time and pick your brains.
    Unfortunately, in the setting we get, it is impossible. There
    are six of you here; I have 5 minutes. So I have to be curt and
    short, you know, as much as I can.
        Mr. Scott. We will have another round.
        Mr. Forbes. Okay. The Chairman said we might be able to
    have another round.
        Ms. Robinson, two questions about this violence increase
    that you talked about. One, have you charted out the crime-
    prone age population for the last 15 years and have you looked
    at that as to how that correlates with any of the increases in
    crime that you were seeing?
        Ms. Robinson. Certainly, my colleagues at Penn have looked
    at that.
        Mr. Forbes. Have you looked at that?
        Ms. Robinson. I am not personally a statistician, but my
    colleagues who are have looked at that, and it would definitely
    be the 18-to 25-year-old range.
        Mr. Forbes. Well, again, forgive me for being short. I
    would normally like to say please take all the time you want.
        Ms. Robinson. Of course.
        Mr. Forbes. But one of the things that we have tracked over
    the years is we tried to watch when that crime age population
    bounces up and down. Sometimes those trends go right with it.
        My question that I would like to get at--and get back with
    us if you can or talk to some of your friends about it--is
    whether or not there has been any tick up in the crime-prone
    age population in the last few years or whether it has been
    decreased. Because sometimes that gives us a snapshot of crime.
        The other thing is testimony that we have had before this
    Subcommittee before has almost been across the board saying
    that the increase in violent crime has been related to gang
    activity, an increase in gang activity.
        The mayor talked about gang activity, and all of Ms.
    Harris's testimony, which I have read--all of your analogies
    and examples were gang activity.
        Would you agree with that, that one of the big increases
    that we have has been in relationship to gang activity across
    the country?
        Ms. Robinson. I would agree with Mark Epley that it
    actually varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In
    some jurisdictions, yes, it is related to gangs, but, in many
    jurisdictions, it is not.
        For example, in Philadelphia, which I am very familiar
    with, it is not related to gangs. It is related to very young
    teenagers or mid-teenagers, and it is frequently youth involved
    in revenge-type violence.
        Mr. Forbes. And let me talk about revenge-type violence.
        I want to get to Ms. Harris before my time runs out.
        Chief, are you here today in your capacity as individually
    or on behalf of chiefs across the country?
        Mr. Monaghan. I am here today for IACP, representing the
    chiefs across the country.
        Mr. Forbes. Have you looked, then, at the areas where you
    have seen this uptick in violent crime, and can you tell me the
    situations on any of those areas where there has been this
    uptick in crime, has there been a decrease in the number of
    police officers on the streets?
        I am talking about just money coming from Federal
    Government. Has there been a decrease in police officers?
        Chief Mosca. I cannot make that correlation exactly, but I
    would like to say that crime necessarily is not from gangs.
    Most of the departments in this country are smaller
    departments, departments of under 25 people. And while we talk
    about effective law enforcement programs from some of the
    larger cities, and my colleague talked about CrimeStat, some of
    his New York colleagues have gone across the country, used
    CrimeStat, and they have really displaced crime to a number of
    the smaller, less well-equipped communities to deal with. So we
    have seen an increase in violent and major crime, while some of
    those urban areas may have seen a decrease.
        Mr. Forbes. I think his testimony is that it has been smart
    policing and effective policing that has been very effective in
    New York, not necessarily always in the quantity, but in how
    they do it.
        Ms. Harris, my time is almost out. I want to, first of all,
    brag about you. As I look at your bio, since you have been in,
    there has been a 26 percent increase in felony trial conviction
    rates, 40 percent increase in the number of violent offenders
    sent to prison, all of which I compliment you on--also, double
    the trial conviction rate for felonies.
        The reason I say that is because in your testimony, you
    also say, ``The witness relocation protection programs are law
    enforcement's primary tool to respond to witness intimidate.''
    As I mentioned at the outset, when we were in New Orleans, we
    heard a whole different story, not that witness relocation was
    not important.
        But I would ask you, first of all, to think about and give
    me when I get back a few minutes from now, how many people, if
    we could give you a blank check, would you relocate in a given
    year if you had that opportunity?
        And then I come back to what they told us in New Orleans.
    They said the thing that was problematic for them were two
    situations. One is that because they had such a low conviction
    rate and because the judges were not doing anything to these
    criminals, they were going back out on the street.
        We had a minister that came in from one of the local
    churches, Mr. Rafael, and he said, ``How can I get my community
    to come in and testify, how can I get my police officers to
    come in and arrest these people and testify, when they know
    that those criminals are going to be back on the street before
    they get home from the courthouse?''
        But the second thing he talked about was something that I
    think really is important in our country, and I do not know how
    we get our hands around it, but he said one of the big things
    in witnesses was a culture. He said he did not know how to
    break through it, but he said he was trying. He said if he were
    shot in his neighborhood by a White policeman, he said
    witnesses would come out of the woodwork. He said, but if he
    was shot by somebody in the community to him, he said they
    could not get witnesses to come out.
        And a lot of the people in that neighborhood do not want to
    relocate somewhere else, you know, but they are not coming
    forward and testifying because they do not see anything
    happening to the people they are testifying against.
        And so, if I get a chance in just a minute when I come
    back--oh, do you mind? Okay.
        The question I would ask for you is this: Have you had any
    impact based on the conviction rate that you have increased, in
    terms of people being more willing then to come in and testify
    because you have been very successful in putting people behind
    bars?
        Ms. Harris. It is a great question, and I think it begs the
    point that we have to look at these issues not through a plate-
    glass window but through a prism, because there are many
    aspects that really need to be addressed all at once.
        I think the COPS legislation, for example, addresses some
    of the point that you are raising, which is underlying the
    intimidation and reluctance issue, in addition to fear, is also
    this trust of law enforcement by many of these communities, and
    so we have to, as law enforcement, also do a better job,
    frankly, in being present in those communities in a way that
    they trust us and that they will report crime believing they
    will be treated with dignity and respect and due process.
        I think it is also a matter of showing the community that
    there are consequences when they do come forward, which means
    conviction, and that is a function also of having the local
    press and the communications chains get that information to
    communities that consequences are occurring.
        It is also the issue of rallying the natural partners of
    law enforcement in the community. For example, in San
    Francisco, when that witness was killed, I rallied our faith-
    based community, brought them together in an interfaith
    community, and basically said, ``Listen, I need your help. In
    the church or the synagogue or wherever it is you pray, I need
    you to talk with your congregation about the fact that we need
    to support these folks who come forward and participate with
    law enforcement,'' and we have to do it from the community as
    well as from law enforcement.
        So I think there are many ways that we can address this,
    but they will have to be coordinated and worked through a
    collaborative perspective, understanding that it is not just
    one area that is the problem.
        Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Mr. Weiner?
        Mr. Weiner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for
    permitting the gentleman from Virginia to go a little bit
    longer. I would not have any objection if we wanted to do a
    couple more rounds because these are important witnesses who
    have waited for a while.
        Mr. Epley, I am curious about something you did continually
    through your testimony. You kept referring to 2005. Are you
    aware that 2006 FBI data is available?
        Mr. Epley. Congressman, the preliminary UCR data for 2006
    that covers the period January to June is available, yes.
        Mr. Weiner. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
    Does that show violent crime up?
        Mr. Epley. Well, as you know, the preliminary data measures
    the absolute number of violent crimes reported by those
    agencies reporting.
        Mr. Weiner. I understand. The data you referred to in 2005
    was that same data set, was it not, just for a different year?
        Mr. Epley. No, the 2005 that I referred to refers to all
    police departments that report.
        Mr. Weiner. Well, actually, let me just say the FBI data,
    the agency that you are here representing, shows that violent
    crime was up in 2006, and I do not want the impression to be
    left that there was some ambiguity because you referred to data
    from 2005.
        There is an organization, as you know, I am sure you are
    familiar with, that did a study of the change in crime, violent
    crime, in America for the period 2005 and 2006. I am going to
    tell you what they found in the 56 reporting jurisdictions. You
    are familiar with the organization, I am sure. It is the Police
    Executive Research Forum, a very respected, bipartisan, non-
    partisan organization.
        Mr. Epley. Yes, I am.
        Mr. Weiner. This is what they reported as going on between
    2005 and 2006. Twenty-eight out of 56 departments experienced
    an increase in homicide. Forty-two out of 56 departments, 75
    percent, saw an increase in robbery. Aggravated assault with a
    firearm is up in 45 percent of the different precincts. In the
    number of police departments with an increase in violent crime
    overall, homicide was up in 71 percent in the years 2004 and
    2006.
        Mr. Mayor, does that reflect your experience that crime is
    creeping back up?
        Mayor Palmer. Absolutely, and it is something that all of
    us are involved with.
        It is not a cookie-cutter approach. Different cities have
    different things that are going on. Like the professor said, in
    Philadelphia, I do not even know how high the homicide rate
    would be if they had actual gangs there because we found that
    you have more homicides when you have gangs involved, and so
    that is something that is very troubling.
        As well, something was mentioned about the aging. There is
    no cookie-cutter approach to age either. We have done surveys,
    and it depends on where a person is when they are incarcerated.
    In Newark, for example, when they surveyed individuals who were
    getting shot, who were getting murdered, they found that these
    individuals were older.
        They were older because when they did more research, these
    individuals had just gotten out of jail after being in jail 5
    of 6 years. They were older. They have come back to the
    neighborhoods where they once ruled and see younger people in
    their spot, and then you have those kinds of things.
        Mr. Weiner. Well, let me just say, you know, one of the
    ways that we have had arguments about the efficacy of the COPS
    program--and this goes back to testimony in this Committee in
    2004--was people throw up the dust and say, ``There are so many
    variables, we cannot possibly help with this problem.''
        So a couple of organizations have actually looked at this
    exact question, which is what contributes to the reduction in
    crime that we have seen, and the GAO was one of them. The GAO
    came back with a report that said that the COPS program
    contributed to about 7 percent of the 32 percent decline in
    violent crime from 1993 to 2000.
        The University of Nebraska did a study that went into even
    more detail, and here is what they found. They found in cities
    with populations greater than 10,000, an increase of $1 of
    hiring grants, what we are talking about on the COPS program--
    the hiring grants, Mr. Epley, that your administration has
    eliminated, made zero--per resident contributes to a
    corresponding decline of 11 violent crimes and 28 property
    crimes per 100,000 residents.
        What they essentially did is they went back and, as an
    academic institution, they took out variables and tried to
    figure out where you put money for hiring, whether it
    contributes to a reduction in crime. One of the things that is
    good about the COPS program is that the COPS program has been
    about as democratic--with a small D--program as you can
    imagine, if you look at the distribution of police around
    Democratic areas, Republican places.
        Oklahoma got 10,054 cops under the COPS program. Let me
    show you what they got last year under the Bush
    administration's hiring proposal. This is an easier one to
    read. You do not need to look that hard for Oklahoma. It is
    right here, O as in Oklahoma.
        I would ask: Are there any members of the panel, any of
    you--and you can answer with a show of hands--that believe the
    residents of Oklahoma are safer because they have 1,000 fewer
    cops from the Federal Government on the payroll? Does anyone
    think that they are safer because of that?
        Mr. Epley, do you want to take a stab at that? Do you think
    they are safer?
        Mr. Epley. Congressman, the department has not thrown up
    its hands in the face of the disparate effect that we are
    observing of crime across the country.
        Mr. Weiner. Disparate effect? Is that your way of
    describing a violent crime rate that has risen about 4 percent
    in 2006? Is that the disparate effect you are talking about?
        Mr. Epley. Congressman, the 2006 data is not a crime rate.
    The 2005 data that I referred to is a crime rate. What it does
    is it adjusts for population.
        Mr. Weiner. Mr. Epley, let me ask you another question. One
    of the things that you referred to was how you have taken block
    grant programs, and I think you said to make them more
    efficient, you have combined them into one.
        When you take the aggregate amount of those grant programs,
    what was the amount and the combined efficient grant amount
    that was in the last budget proposal that you suggested?
        Tell me what the amount was when you aggregate all the
    different ones and you make it more efficient and put it into
    one grant program. Can you tell me what the overall numbers
    were when you went from one method to another?
        Mr. Epley. I think that last year, the President's budget
    request for State and local law enforcement and criminal
    justice assistance was approximately $1.2 billion, and this
    year, fiscal year 2008, the number is about the same.
        Mr. Weiner. What I am asking you is not just the JAG
    program. I am saying when you combine Byrne, the Byrne
    discretionary, the Byrne formula, the criminal justice block
    grant--you say you have combined them into one block grant
    program--isn't it true that you reduced the overall amount by
    about 20 percent?
        Mr. Epley. The Byrne Public Safety and Protection program
    that I mentioned requested by the President's 2008 budget--what
    it actually does--combines some of the most successful programs
    the department's administered, for example, Weed and Seed.
        Mr. Weiner. Understood. I am saying it combines them, and I
    am asking you a mathematical question now.
        Mr. Epley. Right.
        Mr. Weiner. When you combined the various programs into one
    program, isn't it true that you reduced the overall pot of
    funding going to the agencies that these folks represent?
        Mr. Epley. I think in the aggregate, like I mentioned, the
    President's request in 2007 is just about the same as it is in
    2008.
        Mr. Weiner. Can I ask you one final question? And perhaps I
    will have a second round.
        You are here on behalf of the Administration. This bill has
    been out there kicking around for some years now. It was part
    of the reauthorization of your agency that was passed, I think,
    2 years ago in a bipartisan support.
        What is the Administration's position on the
    reauthorization of the COPS program and a reinvigoration of the
    COPS hiring component? Are you all for it or against it?
        Mr. Epley. Congressman, the department does not have formal
    views on this bill.
        Mr. Weiner. I see.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        The gentleman from North Carolina, former Chairman of the
    Subcommittee, Mr. Coble.
        Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my
    delay in arrival, Mr. Chairman. I had two other meetings I had
    to attend.
        I appreciate you all being here.
        Mr. Epley, is there a direct correlation between decreased
    funding of Federal law enforcement programs and the increase in
    violent crime in the first 6 months of last year?
        Mr. Epley. Congressman, when you look back over not just
    the last 6 months, but even the last 10 years, it is difficult
    to see a powerful correlation between Federal spending on
    police protection and the crime rate.
        When we look back over time, we see that in the years 1999
    and 2003, the Federal contribution to police protection
    amounted to about 4.5 percent of all money spent on police
    protection in America. Right now, that number is approximately
    2.5 percent, 2.3 percent. Over the same time, the same period
    of time, we saw the violent crime rate steadily going down.
        All I mean to suggest is that when you look at both the
    spending numbers, the Federal contribution to police protection
    and the crime rate, you do not see a powerful correlation. At
    the same time, Congressman, what we see is that State and local
    police protection spending has gone up over time every year for
    which we have collected that data, the most recent year being
    2004.
        Mr. Coble. Well, I am going to have to move along, if you
    could wrap up, because I have two other questions I want to put
    out.
        Mr. Epley. My only point being that State and localities
    have spent money on police protection to keep pace with the
    crime challenges they have faced in large measure.
        Mr. Coble. I thank you, sir.
        Mr. Mayor, let me ask you this question to extend that line
    of thought. If you know, are cities appropriating fewer dollars
    for law enforcement in expectation of Federal monies
    forthcoming?
        Mayor Palmer. No, sir. We cannot afford to do that. Our
    citizens need safety. We have to spend whatever we have to
    spend, stretching our budgets, taking monies from other places
    because we are not going to sacrifice the safety of our
    residents. So we have to spend what we have to spend.
        Mr. Coble. Okay. Thank you, sir.
        Professor, I agree with you that we need to be investing in
    evidence-based approaches that can actually help reduce crime
    and stop funding programs that simply do not work, even when
    they may have great popular appeal. Let me put a two-pronged
    question to you, Professor.
        How can the Federal Government help identify the programs
    that do, in fact, work, A; and B, does the COPS program
    currently assess the effectiveness of a program prior to
    issuing a grant, if you know?
        Ms. Robinson. Those are good questions.
        On the first, Congressman, Congress needs to be investing
    more money in evaluation of programs. Right now, the National
    Institute of Justice, which is the research arm of the Justice
    Department, has had a stagnant-level budget for 10 years. It
    spends about $12 million a year on research and evaluation.
    That is a drop in the bucket, as you know, in the Federal
    budget.
        That number needs to be increased, and my recommendation
    would be that it be a percentage off the top of OJP and COPS
    budgets, 1 percent, for example, which is something you could
    do in an authorization bill, to assess, evaluate the program.
        And in answer to your second question, back when the COPS
    program was established, when the COPS crime bill was passed in
    1994, the appropriators allowed the Justice Department to take
    a percentage informally off the top of the program to transfer
    to NIJ for that purpose.
        Once that informal arrangement passed, I do not think that
    the COPS program has had the ability to take money to do that
    kind of evaluation. I would strongly recommend amending your
    legislation to allow for that kind of evaluation.
        Mr. Coble. I thank you, Professor.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, Mr.
    Chairman, before the red light appeared. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Coble. You are the only one.
        We are scheduled to have a markup immediately after this
    hearing, so, as people are gathering, we will have another
    round.
        I was going to ask Ms. Robinson what research there has
    been so far on the COPS program. You said there had not been
    enough, but has there been any research to show that it works?
        Ms. Robinson. The congressman over here had cited some of
    that. There has been some other research that has looked at the
    overall program, but there certainly have been a number of
    studies that have looked at specific innovations, for example
    problem-oriented policing.
        This morning, we had a symposium, in fact, that looked at a
    number of studies that have evaluated and found very promising
    and effective some of those programs. But it is very difficult
    to evaluate a large multi-program initiative of that kind, but,
    yes, there have been others.
        Mr. Scott. Mayor Palmer, you indicated that you get results
    from the COPS program. Can you talk about some of the results
    that you have seen?
        Mayor Palmer. Absolutely. Referring to the congressman's
    question, mayors are spending what they have to spend, but,
    quite frankly, it is taking away from other efforts that we are
    doing, and it certainly is hurting us.
        With additional police officers, even with the great
    technology and education that we are doing and with CompStat,
    we still see that when you have more police officers that are
    used in a targeted way, it helps reduce crime. It puts more
    eyes in your community, and it helps us also deal with domestic
    terrorism as well.
        Mr. Scott. Chief Mosca, when you hire police with the COPS
    money, there was an expectation that they would stay on board
    after they have been hired. What happens after they have been
    hired with Federal money? Do they kind of drift away after the
    money dries up?
        Chief Mosca. In our experience, our programs were extremely
    successful, and they actually sold themselves to the community,
    and they were continued. As you may know, Congressman, there
    was a percentage decrease in the amount of money yearly, and
    the municipality provided for those funds and we kept the
    police officers. We have extremely effective programs within
    our school system simply because of the COPS program.
        Our community would not have been in a position to fund an
    experimental program, if you would, for several years to see if
    it was going to work because that amount of money would have
    been extremely important because in a small community, just
    like the mayor's, they are dealing with highways and recreation
    and education and all the other things that a municipality has
    to deal with.
        So, while money may have been going up for law enforcement,
    it was money just to keep pace with what we needed because of
    salary increases and so forth. But our COPS program was fully
    kept by our community.
        If I may, one of the suggestions I might have, should this
    be reauthorized and personnel actually come out of it, is that
    Congress look at a mechanism to assist the community in keeping
    a police officer for more than the 3 years.
        In other words, you have funded it for 3 years. I would say
    you might look at 5 or 6 years with decreasing amounts of money
    because municipalities, faced with all their other problems,
    are reluctant to get into a new program knowing they are going
    to have to buy it in 3 years.
        So I think you could assist us, if you are able to do that,
    and that would be a great help to us.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you.
        Mr. Forbes?
        Mr. Forbes. Chief, and I do not ask you this to catch you
    in it, but I ask you seriously: Have you read the legislation
    on this bill that is before us today, just looked over it?
        Chief Mosca. I have not read it personally.
        Mr. Forbes. That is okay. Let me just tell you something.
    If there was a provision in there that said the money could be
    used for technology instead of hiring more police officers,
    would you be opposed to that?
        Chief Mosca. I would obviously take the technology. But I
    am saying, given a choice between technology and personnel, I
    would take the personnel. I would hope to be able to get both.
        Mr. Forbes. Okay. Well, everybody does even when we come in
    here.
        But, Mr. Monaghan, that is not what New York did. I mean,
    as I understand reading your testimony, they said it is not
    sheer numbers, it is not just education, but we need to be
    smarter about what we do and how we do it.
        How did you determine, how did you select the programs that
    you need? How did you come up with the things that have
    apparently worked? And the proof is in the pudding in New York
    compared to other cities. How did you come up with that mix?
        Mr. Monaghan. Well, one issue you do not normally hear
    associated with CompStat is funding. It is a relatively
    inexpensive idea. You used the word ``culture'' earlier. It is
    just an overall management idea.
        Where it came from was a basement office underneath the New
    York City subway system. Many years ago, there was a man named
    Jack Maple. It goes in line with the educational and the
    advancement changes in NYPD. Jack Maple was a lieutenant in a
    little office underneath the subway in the transit police.
        Years before, when Commissioner Bratton first came to New
    York, he came as the commissioner of the transit police
    department first, made a lot of changes there, left and then
    came back as the police commissioner for New York City.
        One thing he was very astute at, Mr. Bratton, was personnel
    assessment, and he had heard about this lieutenant down in this
    office, and he went down and saw him, and his office was
    covered with maps of the entire system, little pins, and this
    is where CompStat started. This man had the entire city mapped
    out and was concentrating on robberies crime by crime.
        When Commissioner Bratton came back the second time to be
    the commissioner for the entire city, he took that lieutenant
    and made him a deputy commissioner in order to implement
    CompStat citywide. So it all came from within.
        And, you know, I cannot speak for the people of Oklahoma,
    but we have less cops in New York now than we have had in
    recent years, and I was just told today if we had COPS funding
    the hiring of cops at least 5 years out--our head count is
    lower now than it had been----
        Mr. Forbes. Well, the reason I ask that question is because
    I do not think the chief could tell us today the magical number
    of cops you need to have in any particular locality in the
    country.
        And one of the things that I looked at in your testimony is
    you emphasized the importance of the database that you had and
    how important that database was. Can you tell us just very
    quickly about the database?
        Mr. Monaghan. Oh, yes. You know, I said to you could you
    imagine how long it would take two detectives to run down those
    leads, six dates of birth, six Social Security numbers off of
    one ID number. That would have taken a team of people a couple
    of weeks to run down.
        Mr. Forbes. So it would be better to have the database and
    maybe even fewer officers because we have had some chiefs that
    have come in here and said exactly the opposite of what the
    chief said. They said, ``We do not need to hire more police
    officers. What we need is more technology so that we can have a
    smarter operation and more effective policing than what we have
    today.'' Would you disagree with the request that they had made
    at that particular time?
        Mr. Monaghan. No, like you said--I was just talking to the
    department's legislative representative here today--we have
    less cops, we have more technology, and we are more efficient.
    We have a lower crime rate.
        Mr. Forbes. And you have a lower crime rate.
        Mr. Monaghan. Yes.
        Mr. Forbes. And yet, if that were the case, I could hold up
    a chart here today that would say, ``You have zero more cops,
    or you had less cops, actually''--I could put that chart up--
    ``but your crime rate is still falling because you have been
    smart at how you have used the policing of the police officers
    that you have.'' Fair statement?
        Mr. Monaghan. Right.
        Mr. Forbes. Good.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Scott. The gentleman from New York?
        Mr. Weiner. Thank you.
        There has been evidence today that the gentleman from
    Virginia has not read the bill. Technology is permitted under
    the COPS program only if it can be demonstrated to the COPS
    Office that buying that technology allows you to take a police
    officer----
        Mr. Forbes. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?
        Will the gentleman yield?
        Mr. Weiner. Certainly.
        Mr. Forbes. Can you tell me what statement that I made that
    suggested that I did not read the bill because you are prone
    sometimes to kind of make those statements and accusations
    against members?
        Mr. Weiner. Certainly, you suggested----
        Mr. Forbes. No, I asked a question as to whether or not----
        Mr. Weiner. The gentleman asked a question on my time, and
    now I am answering it.
        Mr. Scott. The record will reflect that my colleague from
    Virginia has read the bill, and we can proceed.
        Mr. Weiner. Certainly.
        The fact of the matter is, lest the record be left with the
    impression that technology or manpower is a choice, that is not
    the case. What the COPS program does is allow police
    departments to invest in technology that they can show to the
    COPS Office allows them to put an additional police officer out
    on the beat.
        That is part of the flexibility that is built into the bill
    at the request of my colleagues at the other side who said,
    ``We wanted more flexibility.'' And it was a fair beef, it was
    a fair concern, that there is more to policing than just
    manpower.
        For example, if you can put a Sprint terminal in a police
    officer's car that allows them to do less time at their desk
    and more time out patrolling the street, we give them credit
    for hiring another police officer and we fund that under the
    COPS program. It is one of the most successful elements of the
    program. It is a very flexible bill. It is one of the things we
    did to improve the bill.
        And finally, I think the gentleman from North Carolina in
    the context of the question--and the gentleman from Virginia
    did something similar--implied that--and, frankly, the
    gentleman from the Administration did this, too--it is so
    mysterious. How did these crimes fall?
        Well, it is not mysterious to GAO, it is not mysterious to
    the University of Nebraska, it is not mysterious to the Urban
    Institute, it is not mysterious to Yale University, and it is
    not mysterious to the report done by the Police Executive
    Research Forum, nor is it mysterious to the dozens of
    organizations, including many in Virginia, who say the COPS
    program has worked. This has been studied and studied and
    studied and studied and studied.
        This notion that if you just toss up all the variables that
    go into the rise or reduction in crime, you can somehow then
    argue against us doing anything comes back to a fundamental
    binary misconception that some of my colleagues have. The real
    choice is: Does the Federal Government help with local law
    enforcement? That is the question.
        If you believe the answer is yes, like so many Americans
    believe, like so many police chiefs believe, then you support a
    program like the COPS program. In fact, the Administration, who
    testifies here today, and my colleagues who ran this
    institution and this country for so many years, they had a
    different argument. They said, ``What we are going to do is
    keep zeroing out programs, renaming them and reducing the
    aggregate amount.'' The final analysis is that COPS, in 1995,
    put $1,056,980,000 into hiring; in 2006, zero.
        Now if there is anyone in this room who believes that when
    you take out the Federal role of over $1 billion in hiring
    police officers and make it zero, you are safer, then I have to
    tell you we are even more detached from reality here in
    Washington than I thought. It is entirely intuitive to believe
    that you could hire a police officer but do not train him or do
    not have a court or do not have a prosecutor, it is not going
    to have as good an impact. But, undoubtedly, the number of
    police officers rising is a good thing. Every report that I
    just quoted says it.
        And I am a little bit concerned the final question might
    have been misunderstood. The CompStat program was very
    beneficial, but the fact of the matter is that people of the
    city of New York decided to tax themselves in the mid-1990's to
    hire additional police officers.
        There is a direct correlation between that and the crime
    coming down, and it is the ultimate in irony that the same
    people who beat their chest on the floor saying, ``We need more
    cops in Iraq to get this problem under control,'' now argue
    that you need fewer cops on the beat in Virginia, in Maryland,
    in New York, in Oregon, in California to do the same thing.
        The COPS program has been a success. That is why police
    departments throughout this country in tiny Republican towns,
    big urban areas, have said, ``Please, Congress, do not
    reauthorize this. Reverse the cuts the Bush administration has
    done, and get us back in the business,'' and to hear my
    colleagues state it, I can only assume they believe that law
    enforcement at the end of the day, anti-terrorism at the end of
    the day, everyone is on their own.
        Well, some of us believe that is not right. Some of us
    believe that Congress made an important step in 1994 when we
    said we are going to get off the sidelines and we are going to
    get into the game, and if any of you want a sense of deja vu,
    just take a look at the transcript of the floor debate in 1994
    when this was considered.
        The names are a little bit changed. It is the exact same
    stuff: ``You cannot believe what you read,'' ``The problem with
    crime is that we are not doing enough in the homes,'' et
    cetera, et cetera, and then the COPS program passed, crime went
    down, and that is where we are today trying to reauthorize that
    program.
        I yield back my time.
        Mr. Scott. I thank the gentleman.
        Does the gentlelady from Texas have questions? The
    gentlelady from Texas.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Many times, one would say ditto, but there are too many
    important witnesses here for me to ignore your expertise. First
    of all, let me thank you for your presence here today.
        And let me thank the Chairman.
        There are multiple hearings and markups that are going on,
    but I took rollerskates to try and make it here today because I
    believe there are some important elements that need to be
    raised.
        First of all, let me immediately put a dash or a hammer on
    any issue of cost on any of these programs. For the record, let
    me acknowledge, though I do not advocate for it, there's $275
    million being spent in Iraq today per day. That comes out to
    about $11 million, Mayor, an hour. I do not know if you had $11
    million, how much you could do for your fine city.
        I come from Houston, Texas, where I had the opportunity to
    work with the father of community-oriented policing, then Chief
    Lee P. Brown, and I am gratified to have been one of his strong
    supporters for him to become Mayor Lee P. Brown. What an
    interesting time period that we lived in.
        We could document the measurement of crime going down, one,
    giving police officers a degree of flexibility, but, two,
    getting them to know the guys and gals on the block, the bad
    guys and the good guys. So you did not go into a neighborhood
    completely blind, you already knew where the bad guys were.
        For example, I was in my congressional district visiting an
    elderly person; a bunch of folk across the street, loud
    talking, phones going, profanity going, ``I will kill you.''
    All of a sudden, they get in a car and speed off. I was looking
    to see them on the late night news. Community-oriented policing
    means that somebody knew what would be around or knew who those
    guys were.
        It is a disgrace what we have done to community-oriented
    policing and the COPS program in particular, and so let me
    focus my questions on the necessity of bringing back where we
    were before.
        My city is seeing an enormous increase in crime, and it is
    not the blame of the Katrina survivors. I make it a habit of
    stopping my law enforcement. I am a former member of the
    Houston city council, so I am used to talking to the men and
    women in blue or orange or whatever colors they are wearing,
    and I am not talking about orange incarcerated jail uniforms.
    We have a variety of colors in the State of Texas. But I asked
    them. There is a frustration. There is not enough. They do not
    have enough to be on the street. They are not on the beat.
        So, Mayor, let me ask this question. The bell is ringing.
    So let me ask you this question.
        And I want to welcome Reverend Daniels and Mike, and I will
    be with them in just a moment.
        Let me ask you the question on just, if you could just stay
    on this, Cops on the Beat. This latitude, this using of this
    money so that cities can get to the core of their crime problem
    by using more officers in a variety of ways, is that helpful
    and constructive in what we are dealing with today?
        Mayor Palmer. Absolutely. And mayors across the country
    want flexibility. We want to be able to say how we can use the
    money most effectively, whether it is in technology, whether it
    is putting more police officers on the streets, but it is
    definitely needed.
        And everything that your colleague from New York just said
    and others, it is just ditto to that as well. We need more
    resources, more police, and if we can make sure that we are
    trying to put soldiers and police in Iraq, I do not know why we
    cannot have it right here at home in the good old USA.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. And the diminishing dollars did not help
    you. The cuts were not helpful.
        Mayor Palmer. They were hurtful, and you have to take from
    other areas because you are going to have to do what you have
    to do to make your city safe. It cuts across the board, and you
    begin to take away from other vital services that also
    increased--poverty, which increases, drugs, crime--and it is a
    vicious cycle.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. And there is something about knowledge, if
    you know where the guys are, if you know where they are, if the
    cops have the relationship.
        Chief, would you quickly answer? Because I do want to get
    to the district attorney. I welcome her, and I am not ignoring
    others, but my time is moving quickly.
        You are from a small city, and the one thing I liked about
    Cops on the Beat--I was here starting in 1995. The past
    Administration had this idea--is small cities are included as
    well. Is it a vital part of your staffing issues?
        Chief Mosca. Thank God you asked that question,
    Congresswoman. Not to be lost in what the urban problems are
    and the successes of CrimeStat, in reference to the
    congressman's question, smarter policing does occur in small
    communities, and we have a CompStat. We know our communities.
    We have a department of 20-some-odd police officers. We know
    what our crime rate is. We know what the crime is. We meet on
    it. We react to it daily. It is no different than CrimeStat,
    but they are dealing with 8 million people; we are dealing with
    12,000.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. You can make a difference.
        Chief Mosca. And so it absolutely makes a difference. It
    allows us an opportunity to try a program that has been
    researched. We put it into play, and we can watch it be
    successful. If, God forbid, it is a failure, we end it.
        But those programs have all been successful. They have been
    well thought out and the majority of law enforcement agencies
    in this country, over 85 percent of them, are small
    communities, small departments.
        So you cannot get lost in your dialogue in discussing just
    urban major cities. You have to think about the vast majority
    of law enforcement throughout the country, which is community
    policemen, community policing oriented. It always has been. We
    just did not know it.
        Mr. Scott. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        The gentlelady from California?
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
        Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        I decided to serve on this Subcommittee because I truly
    want to understand what can be done to reduce the crime in our
    cities and in our towns. We are not talking about gangs today,
    but the gang problem is an absolute serious problem all across
    this country, and the crimes are being committed mostly by
    these young people in our communities. So I am really
    interested in solutions, and I know that lock-them-up-and-
    throw-the-key-away does not work, but I do not know what does
    work.
        So I am very pleased that we have our district attorney
    from California here today, District Attorney Kamala Harris,
    talking about community policing and community prosecution. I
    want to understand a little bit more about how it works.
        I know that you have been discussing this phenomenon of
    witnesses not coming forth and being called snitching and how
    prominent that has gotten according to some of your testimony
    here. They are wearing tee-shirts----
        Ms. Harris. That is correct.
        Ms. Waters [continuing]. Into courtrooms, and even mothers
    of some of the children who may have committed crimes are
    wearing tee-shirts to stop the snitching. That is really,
    really, really scary and off the hook.
        But I am glad that you are here. It is good to see you. And
    I am appreciative for the leadership that you are providing.
        Help me to understand a little bit about community
    prosecution and policing.
        Ms. Harris. Thank you, Congresswoman, and for your
    leadership in California.
        This issue is addressed in the COPS bill, which is that
    there should be support for the idea that prosecutors have the
    ability through engagement with the community and outreach to
    do the work of not only, again, encouraging witnesses to come
    forward, but having a presence in those communities to perhaps
    prevent crime from happening in the first place.
        So some of the work we are doing in San Francisco--and I
    know is being done throughout California--involves creating,
    for example, a DA liaison program. So I have lawyers in my
    office who actually have volunteered to be representatives to
    each of our police district stations and go out in the
    community and be known to be the representative for that area
    and to take information and attend community meetings. So that
    is some of the work we have done.
        Another effort that we have made is to work with community-
    based organizations around, for example, domestic violence or
    child abuse, and encourage them. when there are cases happening
    in the courthouses, to attend and to be able to present and
    vocal and, in that way, feel connected to what is happening in
    our courts.
        We have also worked with community leadership around
    immediate response to crime when it happens. Often, when
    violent crime happens, everyone in the neighborhood is there or
    will turn out, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done
    not only in terms of investigation of the crime, but also in
    terms of de-escalation. Certainly, police officers make that
    attempt and do a good job, but if we are doing it with also
    partnership from prosecutors and community-based leaders, we
    find that we are being more effective.
        So that is some of the work that we have been doing that I
    believe is making a difference in terms of, again, being
    present in these communities. I often go out myself on Saturday
    mornings into various communities and hold what we call
    information fairs, and I invite the chief of police and others.
    We give in the community center information about the work that
    we can do not only protecting witnesses, but also giving
    services in terms of counseling and support and helping them in
    terms of other areas of their lives that are impacted by the
    crime that happens in their community.
        Ms. Waters. I was in the Tallahassee area just yesterday,
    and I was in two little cities--one is Quincy, and the other
    one is Havana--and I had someone trying to explain to me a
    program that they have. It is like intervention where a young
    person commits a crime, and I guess maybe it is a non-violent
    crime, I do not know, but they like give them a ticket of some
    kind, and then they have to report on an ongoing basis.
        It is not probation. The first time I guess this person
    interacts with the criminal justice system. They have something
    that they do to have them report back, and I think they have
    requirements that they have to meet, and this is designed to
    deter them from the criminal justice system, not give them a
    record. They do not get a record for that crime that they
    committed. So it is probably a non-violent crime.
        Have you heard of a program like that?
        Ms. Harris. We have something similar which we call
    community courts, and it is based on basically a village model,
    the belief that crime that occurs in communities that is non-
    violent crime that happens to be crime that is a nuisance to
    that community can be handled often by the elders in that
    community, the people who are the leaders in that community.
        So we will refer cases to these community courts that are
    set up as basically a tribunal of leadership from the various
    neighborhoods, and they review the case, and then they mete out
    the sentence that is appropriate and consistent with the mores
    of that community.
        So, for example, we have a number of cases that involve
    small storeowners selling alcohol to minors, which, of course,
    creates a big problem for those communities, and so the
    sentence, if you will, may involve and include not only a fine,
    but also that that offender be involved in activities that
    involve the youth in that neighborhood.
        So that is some of the work that is happening, community
    courts.
        Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. It sounds good.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you.
        And I would like to thank all of our witnesses for your
    testimony.
        Members who have additional questions may submit them in
    writing. We will forward them to you and hopefully get answers
    as promptly as you can to be made part of the record.
        Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for
    1 week for the submission of additional materials.
        We have a markup scheduled right now. We will adjourn to go
    vote and ask Members to come back promptly after the vote. It
    is on the hate crimes legislation that is scheduled for markup
    tomorrow, so we would like to mark it up in Subcommittee right
    after the last vote.
        So, without objection, the Committee now stands adjourned,
    and we will reconvene immediately after the last vote.
        [Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
                                A P P E N D I X

                                  ----------

                   Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

       Prepared Statement of the Honorable Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, a
     Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman,
            Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
        The Subcommittee will now come to order. I am pleased to welcome
    you today to this hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism
    and Homeland Security on H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of
    2007;'' H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
    Incentive Act of 2007;'' and H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and
    Protection Act of 2007.''
        The first of the three bills, HR 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act
    of 2007,'' amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
    1968 to expand the current authority of the Attorney General to make
    grants for public safety and community policing, or the ``COPS''
    program.
        The COPS program was originally created in 1994, as part of the
    Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Since its inception, the
    mission of the program has been to advance community policing in all
    jurisdictions across the U.S. The program achieves this objective by
    awarding grants to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, so
    they can hire and train law enforcement officers to participate in
    community policing; purchase and deploy new crime-fighting
    technologies; and develop and test new and innovative policing
    strategies.
        Since 1994, the program has awarded more than $11.4 billion to over
    13,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S.; and at the end of
    fiscal year 2004, the program had been credited with funding more than
    118,000 community policing officers.
        The second of the three bills, H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice
    Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007,'' also seeks to amend
    the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. But, in the
    case of this measure, the legislation specifically directs the Attorney
    General to assume the obligation to repay student loans of any
    individual who agrees to remain employed, for at least three years, as
    either: (1) a state or local criminal prosecutor; or (2) a state,
    local, or federal public defender in a criminal case.
        The inherent difficulties associated with retaining qualified
    public attorneys is not new. And, there are multiple reasons why an
    attorney might choose the private sector over the public sector. The
    most frequently discussed reason centers around the need for higher
    paying jobs in the private sector to pay off any lingering student loan
    debt.
        The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reports that the
    median salary for a fifth year associate in private practice is $122,
    500. In contrast, according to the NALP, the median salary for a fifth
    year state prosecuting attorney is merely $55,177; while a fifth year
    public defender makes even less at $54,672; and a fifth year local
    prosecuting yet and still makes even less at just $54,500. With
    significant pay disparities such as this, it's easy to understand how
    public sector attorneys are easily lured away with the hope of
    obtaining a larger salary that can often be found in the private
    sector.
        The final measure that we are considering today, H.R. 933, the
    ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007,'' seeks to amend title
    28 of the United States Code to establish within the U.S. Marshals
    Service a short term witness protection program for witnesses that are
    involved in a state or local trial involving a homicide, serious
    violent felony, or serious drug offense. To ensure the best possible
    use of limited federal resources, the legislation also directs the U.S.
    Marshals Service to give priority to those prosecutor's offices that
    are located in a state with an average of at least 100 murders per year
    during the five year period immediately preceding and application for
    protection.
        Witness intimidation reduces the likelihood that citizens will
    engage in the criminal justice system, which could deprive police and
    prosecutors of critical evidence. Moreover, it can also have the
    unwanted effect of reducing public confidence in the criminal justice
    system, and can create the perception that the criminal justice system
    can not adequately protect its citizens.
        I looking forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses on
    these latter points, as well as their thoughts on the previous issues
    mentioned with regard to the prior two bills.
        With that said, it is now my pleasure to recognize the esteemed
    Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, my friend and colleague, the
    Honorable, Randy J. Forbes, who represents Virginia's 4th Congressional
    District.
        Without objection, all Members may include opening statements in
    the record at this point.

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          Prepared Statement of Gavin Newsom, Mayor, San Francisco, CA
        Chairman Scott, I want to commend the Subcommittee for holding this
    hearing today to focus on the recent increase in incidents of violent
    crime and the need to determine how best, on the Federal level, to help
    state and local law enforcement officials combat the rise in violent
    crime. One critical legislative solution is bringing the COPS program
    back as en effective tool to combat violent crime. I am very encouraged
    by the introduction of H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement Act of 2007, and
    urge the Subcommittee to take immediate action on this important
    measure.
        The US Conference of Mayors reports that 2005 showed the largest
    single year percent increase in violent crime in 15 years. This trend
    continued in 2006 according to a Police Executive Research Forum
    survey. A number of factors contribute to this increase in crime,
    including a growing culture of violence among youth, gangs, a
    proliferation of illegal guns, drug activity, and social problems
    related to school truancy and lack of jobs.
        COPS provides grants to tribal, state, and local law enforcement
    agencies to hire and train community policing professionals, acquire
    and deploy cutting-edge crime-fighting technologies, and develop and
    test innovative policing strategies. COPS has invested $11.3 billion to
    add community policing officers to the nation's streets and schools,
    enhance crime fighting technology, support crime prevention
    initiatives, and provide training and technical assistance to advance
    community policing. Since its creation in 1994, COPS has funded over
    118,000 community policing officers and deputies nationwide. Since
    1995, COPS has funded 267 police officers in San Francisco.
        As mayor I work hard every day to keep our community safe and have
    been frustrated that the current Administration has slashed federal
    funding for major Department of Justice law enforcement programs in
    recent years. Of special concern is the COPS program, which was once
    funded at almost $1.5 billion, and has now been eliminated in the
    President's current budget.
        Along with crime prevention, job training, and youth programs, our
    cities need more police officers to walk the beat and keep our
    residents safe. At a time when homeland security dominates federal
    spending priorities, I urge Congress to re-prioritize the need for
    hometown security and restore full funding to and enhance the COPS
    program.

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         Prepared Statement of Martin S. Pinales, President, National
                Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
        Yesterday brought news of a significant milestone in the criminal
    justice system: the 200th person exonerated through DNA evidence since
    1989. According to the Innocence Project, these 200 exonerees served
    2,475 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. While the
    importance of DNA analysis for purposes of exonerating the innocent and
    identifying the actual perpetrators cannot be denied, its usefulness as
    a forensic tool is limited to a small percentage of cases and crimes.
    As this Committee has recognized, ``DNA alone will not eliminate
    wrongful convictions. . . . [B]iological evidence that can establish
    guilt or innocence is available in fewer than 20 percent of violent
    crimes.'' House Rpt. 108-711.
        Nonetheless, studying these wrongful convictions and their causes
    has helped to elucidate the problems in the criminal justice system
    that can lead to errors. By taking advantage of this learning moment,
    we can institute reforms that prevent future errors, thus enhancing
    public safety.
        Law student debt helps explain one piece of a serious problem in
    our criminal justice system: the often-inadequate representation of
    people who are accused of a crime but cannot afford an attorney. Most
    public defenders are burdened with huge caseloads and a lack of basic
    resources. Couple these systemic problems with constant staff turnover
    caused by low salaries and high educational debt, and even the most
    dedicated public defender organizations will find it hard to provide
    quality representation. Such inequities guarantee that injustice will
    be done and innocent persons will be wrongly convicted, leaving the
    actual perpetrators at large.
        The John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act (H.R.
    916) represents a bipartisan effort to address this problem by
    providing education debt relief to lawyers who serve as public
    defenders and prosecutors for at least three years. The Act will help
    solve the problem of errors by making it easier for prosecutor's
    offices and public defender organizations to recruit and retain the
    best and brightest attorneys.
        With today's young lawyers often carrying $100,000 or more in
    education debt upon graduation from law school, many simply cannot
    afford to enter and continue employment as public defenders.
        Consider the following figures:

            Public defender salary (average):
                                                          $43,000
            Monthly take-home pay (after tax):
                                                           $2,606
            Cumulative education debt (private, average):
                                                          $78,763
            Monthly loan payments:
                                                            $906 \1\
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ Assuming a 10-year repayment term and an interest rate of 6.8%.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Amount left for living expenses:
                                                           $1,700

        It is easy to see that housing, food, transportation and other
    basic necessities will swallow up the remaining take-home pay--making
    home ownership, parenthood, and retirement saving beyond the reach of
    the average public defender. As a result, lawyers carrying even the
    average education debt load are effectively priced out of public
    service, and prosecutors' and public defenders' offices have serious
    difficulty attracting the best-qualified candidates and retaining
    experienced attorneys. Indeed, many offices have vacancies that they
    cannot fill.
        Student loan debt is consistently cited as the overwhelming reason
    why attorneys decline or leave positions as prosecutors and public
    defenders. According to a survey conducted by the National Association
    for Law Placement, law school debt prevented two-thirds of law student
    respondents from considering a public service career. The barrier
    disproportionately affects minority attorneys, who often enter law
    school with fewer resources and leave with greater debt.
        The low salary makes it incredibly difficult for offices to retain
    attorneys. Even attorneys willing to make the sacrifices necessary to
    enter public service cannot continue to do so forever. As a result,
    many attorneys leave these offices after only a few years. Recruiting
    experienced attorneys to take their places is almost impossible because
    of the salary. As a result, the justice system is left operating with a
    dearth of experienced attorneys, and less experienced, less qualified
    attorneys are forced to handle complicated cases, with the accused and
    the community suffering the consequences.
        Frequent staff turnover also creates inefficiency in the justice
    system. Cases are frequently delayed because of turnover, and offices
    must constantly expend precious resources recruiting and training new
    staff. For this reason, the Department of Justice Office of Justice
    Programs has concluded that loan forgiveness is ``an important means of
    reducing staff turnover and avoiding related recruitment/training costs
    and disruptions to the office and case processing.'' Improving Criminal
    Justice System through Expanded Strategies and Innovative
    Collaborations: Report of the National Symposium on Indigent Defense,
    NCJ 181344, February 1999.
        ``Nowhere in public service is it more important to encourage the
    recruitment of competent lawyers and the retention of experienced ones
    than in the disciplines of prosecution and public defense, where
    people's lives and liberty hang in the balance.'' Senate Rpt. 107-315.
    A reliable, fair, and efficient justice system requires competent
    attorneys representing the interests of government, protecting the
    rights of individuals, and ensuring that mistakes are not made. Skilled
    lawyers in the courtroom are the best safeguard against wrongful
    convictions of innocent people, an unconscionable miscarriage of
    justice in a system that is held out as a model for the world.
        Competent, experienced defense lawyers and prosecutors are
    essential to America's time-honored adversarial system of justice. A
    revolving-door system, where new lawyers leave just as they begin to
    hit their stride, wastes tax dollars and denies us the talents and
    dedication of those attracted to a lifetime of public service. The John
    R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act would help ensure
    public safety and fundamental fairness, as well as increasing
    efficiencies, by making it possible for the most qualified lawyers to
    choose and continue these noble and essential legal careers.
                                   __________
        NACDL is the preeminent organization in the United States advancing
    the mission of the nation's criminal defense lawyers to ensure justice
    and due process for persons accused of crime or other misconduct. A
    professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's 12,500 direct
    members--and 80 state, local and international affiliate organizations
    with another 35,000 members--include private criminal defense lawyers,
    public defenders, active-duty U.S. military defense counsel, law
    professors and judges committed to preserving fairness within America's
    criminal justice system.

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