[Senate Hearing 111-588]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-588
ENCOURAGING INNOVATIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE CRIME REDUCTION STRATEGIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 3, 2010
__________
Serial No. J-111-76
__________
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JON KYL, Arizona
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN CORNYN, Texas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Matt Miner, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Wisconsin, prepared statement.................................. 150
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 1
prepared statement........................................... 151
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama.... 3
WITNESSES
Berarducci, Patrick J., Chief of Police, Medina Police
Department, Medina, Ohio....................................... 12
Esserman, Colonel Dean M., Chief of Police, Providence Police
Department, Providence, Rhode Island........................... 9
Monroe, Rodney, Chief of Police, Charlottee-Mecklenburg Police
Department, Charlotte, North Carolina.......................... 7
Muhlhausen, David B., Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Data
Analysis, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC.............. 15
Schirling, Michael, Chief of Police, Burlington Police
Department, Burlington, Vermont................................ 4
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Patrick Berarducci to questions submitted by
Senators Feingold and Kohl..................................... 28
Responses of Colonel Dean Esserman to questions submitted by
Senators Feingold and Kohl..................................... 32
Responses of Rodney Monroe to questions submitted by Senators
Feingold and Kohl.............................................. 35
Responses of Michael Schirling to questions submitted by Senator
Kohl........................................................... 39
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Berarducci, Patrick J., Chief of Police, Medina Police
Department, Medina, Ohio, statement............................ 69
Esserman, Colonel Dean M., Chief of Police, Providence Police
Department, Providence, Rhode Island, statement................ 75
Monroe, Rodney, Chief of Police, Charlottee-Mecklenburg Police
Department, Charlotte, North Carolina, statement............... 153
Muhlhausen, David B., Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Data
Analysis, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, statement... 160
Schirling, Michael, Chief of Police, Burlington Police
Department, Burlington, Vermont, statement..................... 172
Streicher, Thomas H., Chief of Police, Cincinnati Police
Department, Cincinnati, Ohio, statement........................ 181
ENCOURAGING INNOVATIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE CRIME REDUCTION STRATEGIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, Pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J.
Leahy, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Leahy, Whitehouse, and Sessions.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
Chairman Leahy. Good afternoon, and I apologize that we had
to change the schedule around because of Congressman Murtha's
memorial service this morning. Congressman Murtha and I had
served together for over 30 years, and our spouses have been
friends most of that time. So like many others, both
Republicans and Democrats, we were there for that memorial
service. And I appreciate Senator Sessions and Senator
Whitehouse accommodating that schedule.
One of the things we have done many times in this
Committee--and seeing so many police officers here reminded me
of this--is we turn to the critical issue of finding the best
strategies to reduce crime. I chaired a hearing on this in the
last Congress.
We want to hear about innovative approaches that are
working in police departments and criminal justice systems
across the country. We want to examine what the Federal
Government can do to encourage the adoption of approaches that
make our communities safe, because every one of us relies on
our police to keep us safe, and every member of our police
departments puts their lives on the line to do just that. We
want to effectively and efficiently reduce crime and keep those
neighborhoods safe.
In the 1990's, with the leadership of then-Senator Joe
Biden and others, we passed legislation to create and fund the
COPS program and other important initiatives that put thousands
of new officers on the street, but it also, just as
importantly, encouraged some innovative policing techniques and
training. Law enforcement leaders in cities and towns
throughout the country, bolstered by this National support,
revolutionized the way policing was done throughout the
country. And we saw the unprecedented drops in violent crimes
during the 1990's.
Unfortunately, that progress stalled in the last decade as
Federal funding for State and local law enforcement dried up
and Federal attention to finding the best approaches to
reducing crime wavered. Rates of crime stayed largely stagnant,
despite skyrocketing incarceration rates, and some communities
saw, and very frighteningly, significant resurgences in violent
crime.
One of the factors that prevented the crime problem from
worsening in the last decade was continuing innovation at the
local level. Enterprising police chiefs, hard-working law
enforcement officers, judges, and community leaders worked
together to find new and more effective crime reduction
strategies. A lot of communities saw this pay off in many, many
ways.
Now, the economic downturn has put an even greater strain
on our communities' efforts to keep crime rates down. In
response to this, Congress and the President acted decisively,
including $4 billion in Federal assistance to State and local
law enforcement in last year's stimulus legislation. I fought
hard for that funding, and the results are being felt. Crime
rates are coming down as police departments are adding or
retaining officers and again implementing new initiatives as we
go into this new decade.
Even with this help, though, many police departments and
criminal justice systems remain short on resources. We know
that money alone does not solve the problem. You have to find
innovative ways to work together to solve it.
So we are going to hear from leaders in the field who have
set good examples for how our communities can make their law
enforcement and crime reduction efforts work well. Chief Mike
Schirling from Burlington, Vermont, has brought significant
innovation to a small city police force. I am well aware of
Burlington. My main office when I was a prosecutor was there in
Burlington. I have seen the changes that have taken place over
the last three decades. Chief Schirling has implemented
comprehensive community policing and partnerships with all
levels of law enforcement and also with schools and community
groups. He is exploring the use of alternative sanctions to set
low-level offenders on the right path before they enter the
criminal justice system. He has targeted programs to address
mental health needs. He has consolidated resources to help
police departments function more efficiently, and he has pretty
much led our State in the use of new technology to share
information more effectively.
Chief Rodney Monroe has made great progress in Richmond and
now Charlotte with initiatives like using technology to
pinpoint law enforcement efforts and integrating law
enforcement with economic development and job training.
Colonel Dean Esserman has made Providence into a national
leader in community-based policing.
Chief Patrick Berarducci has also brought innovation to a
small city police force.
Now, these are good examples from across the country.
Cities like Los Angeles and Chicago are seeing results with
gang outreach and mediation initiatives. Thinkers on crime
reduction strategy like Jeremy Travis and David Kennedy with
the National Network for Safe Communities have helped
communities effectively tackle what have been intractable crime
problems. The HOPE program in Hawaii has shown that probation
supervision with swift and certain consequences--let me
emphasize that from my own experience--swift and certain
consequences can greatly reduce recidivism.
Today's witnesses come from communities that look very much
like all of America. They have proven these approaches can
work.
I believe that the Federal Government can help. We have
seen in Burlington in my own State and many other cities that
an initial Federal investment can make possible initiatives
that might not have otherwise been possible. These programs are
inexpensive and cost-effective. I have to think that, over
time, they pay for themselves. Certainly for those who had
worried about crime before and now do not worry about it, they
feel it pays off.
Senator Sessions.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF ALABAMA
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a good
panel of people who have actually worked in the field over a
number of years and who I think can share some very valuable
insights with us.
I would say one thing I have learned throughout my career
in law enforcement is that we must begin to see law enforcement
as a unified whole, an enterprise in which there are a number
of component parts that work together to make our people safer
and reduce the threat of crime, to ensure that people who
deserve punishment are punished in an effective and appropriate
way.
I believe you are correct, Mr. Chairman, that swiftness and
certainty is critical to law enforcement in terms of
punishment. I also believe that sometimes that is more
important than precisely how long they might serve. I would
rather have people serve a little less time, frankly, if the
case were processed promptly and efficiently, and I think you
would achieve something close to the same deterrent effect. But
I have difficulty in that crime arises from the multiplicity of
jurisdictions that are involved in it.
First, we have to recognize, as this panel indicates, that
the State and local law enforcement officers represent
overwhelmingly--Federal people are not close in the amount of
resources and personnel committed to it. Probably 90 percent of
law enforcement is State and local. And what is it composed of?
I see chiefs of police here. You have got the chiefs of police
and police departments that are hired and funded by the city.
Most areas or virtually every area have sheriffs. They are
elected by the county and get their funding through, I guess,
mostly, in Alabama, the county commission or what other fees
and all that they charge.
Then you have got the district attorneys. In Alabama,
district attorneys are primarily paid by the State of Alabama
even though they prosecute cases in the counties.
And then we must not forget things like the forensic
science departments which support you in so many ways and in
many cases a bottleneck in that police officers go out and make
a good case but nobody can give them the chemist's report to
say the powder is cocaine or the fingerprint report or the
ballistic report that could help bring the case to indictment,
all of which delay the system.
Then we must not forget the judges. How much money do we
spend on judges? How much money do we spend on probation
officers, usually funded by the State? And they do background
work on helping to determine what the right sentence should be
as well as supervising people on release, and they answer, in
Alabama, to the State.
So I guess what I would say is nobody is in charge of the
system. It is just nobody is in charge of it, and we need to
figure ways to work more cooperatively and effectively as a
team. And when we do resources, we need to analyze what area in
this system is in most need of resources and what institutions
in the system could benefit the most from that and what
precisely should additional resources go for. It may not be
more policemen. It might be. It may not be, the shortage that
you need.
I have seen in Alabama incredible shortages in the DA's
office so that cases are made by huge numbers, and they are not
properly being disposed of because there are not sufficient
prosecutors. And then you have got some areas where you do not
have jail space for people that need to be in jail.
I would note as an undeniable fact that not a lot of people
are murderers, robbers, and rapists. And to the extent to which
those are identified early and detained and jailed, you will
make the streets safer. It is a mathematical fact. And I am not
too worried about increased jail population if crime is going
down. I think that is an argument for incarceration, frankly.
But we do not need to have anybody in jail any longer than it
makes sense for them to be there, and good research can help us
to determine that.
So I look forward to hearing from this panel. I think it is
a good group, and we need to make sure that we are spending our
money wisely, and we look forward to hearing your ideas for
that.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
One of the reasons why Senator Sessions, Senator
Whitehouse, and I work very closely together on a lot of these
things, we have each had a chance to serve in various levels of
law enforcement.
I mentioned Michael Schirling is here. He has been the
chief of the Burlington Police Department since January 2008.
Previously he ran the department's Administrative Services
Bureau, including emergency management and homeland security,
the Detective Services Bureau, Training and Recruitment, and he
started off as a uniformed officer in 1993. He helped found the
Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and he has
continued as the coordinator of that task force ever since.
I would like to think there is no need for such a task
force. Unfortunately, the reality is there is, and it has
served Vermont well.
He has been a State leader in computer forensics, was a co-
founder of the Digital Forensic Technology Program at Champlain
College in Burlington. He received his bachelor's degree in
political science and his master's in leadership and policy
development from the University of Vermont.
Chief Schirling, please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. SCHIRLING, CHIEF OF POLICE, BURLINGTON
POLICE DEPARTMENT, BURLINGTON, VERMONT
Chief Schirling. Good afternoon. I appreciate the
opportunity to be with you here again and to discuss the
challenges currently confronting small cities and U.S. law
enforcement and how innovative and cost-effective strategies
could benefit public safety and the Government bottom line. I
agree with you, Senator Sessions, that encouraging best
practices and resource utilization is a key factor for us, and
it may not be for all municipalities necessarily increasing the
number of law enforcement officers on the street. I am actually
going to talk about other issues today.
By way of background, Burlington is a community of
approximately 40,000, located on the eastern shores of Lake
Champlain about 35 miles south of the Canadian border. It is
the central hub of activity and commerce for northwestern
Vermont, which encompasses a population of about 150,000. So we
are a rural law enforcement agency that has a little bit of
city atmosphere to it.
We believe that critical law enforcement innovation can
occur not just in traditional policing endeavors but also in
other areas. Beyond traditional law enforcement, increasingly,
law enforcement, together with the communities they serve, must
focus on education and prevention as well as outreach and
intervention to stem the tide of crime by reaching youth and
the disenfranchised at a neighborhood level.
We have faced a variety of challenges in our area over the
course of the last few years, and they range from recruitment
and retention of qualified police candidates to shifts in
violent crime from urban areas, challenges posed by computer
and Internet crime, and diminishing resources to support
offender reentry, among others.
Responses to those challenges I believe must be crafted
using creative, collaborative approaches--as this hearing's
title clearly states--innovative, cost-effective law
enforcement strategies. And while there are literally dozens of
things we could talk about, I have chosen a few that are sort
of snippets or cross-sections of alternatives that we could
embrace. Clearly, alternatives will differ in various regions
of the country.
To begin with, integrated justice system models that take
into account the idea that investing early on in changing the
path of an individual away from entering the justice system are
often going to be more cost-effective than prosecuting them if
we fail. So education and prevention initiatives, and then
outreach and intervention types of programs like pre-arrest
diversion, municipal tickets, community justice centers,
traditional court diversion--all could provide swift,
meaningful, community-based alternatives to the traditional
justice system potential at a lower cost.
Second, the consolidation of services and regionalization.
As outlined to some extent in the introductions, the idea that
we can consolidate some of our operations is one that I think
is important to take a hard look at. We have been talking in
Chittenden County in Vermont for over 40 years about
consolidating the 13 law enforcement agencies in one realm or
another, whether it is information technology, communications
infrastructure, or simply consolidating all of the departments
into one. That conversation has been going on for years. Yet
there is nothing to entice local governments to take the
initial steps into that consolidation arena. There is nothing
to break the surface tension to get those kinds of program
moving and begin implementation of the best concepts that could
potentially result in enhanced operations and long-term cost
savings.
One of the areas of potential innovation is in information
technology and the consolidation of information technology
infrastructures. There is extensive duplication of effort in
core office technology, e-mail, and computer-aided dispatch and
records management systems that contemporary technologies--
increases in bandwidth and the ability to network multiple
departments together--could achieve significant savings.
Creating regional IT centers that host information technology
infrastructure for multiple agencies could leverage technology
to enhance information sharing and open doors to better
services.
Among the other items that are outlined in my written
testimony, the idea that unified strategies for offender
housing could be a viable alternative; instead of duplicating
facilities and trying to provide robust services to offenders
that are either housed in facilities or reentering society,
meshing those things together under one roof to provide sort of
all of the necessary tools at a potentially lower cost rather
than running, as we do in Vermont, multiple decentralized
facilities at significant cost.
So all of these things potentially have merit as ways to
encourage innovation, potentially decrease costs, and there are
a variety of others that could potentially be embraced.
So, in closing, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished Senators, for taking the testimony on this
important set of issues and for your continued leadership and
assistance to law enforcement matters nationwide.
[The prepared statement of Chief Schirling appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you, Chief.
I was sort of sitting here thinking, and I whispered this
to a couple of the others just now. I wish we had time to take
the Committee out of here and go to some of these departments,
whether it is Alabama or Vermont or anywhere else, and see some
of the things that are happening.
As I said, Rodney Monroe, is the chief of the Charlotte--
and I have difficulty saying ``Char-lot'', Chief, because in
Vermont we have a ``Char-lot '' and it is pronounced--it is
spelled the same, obviously pronounced differently. But it was
an example in a campaign by somebody who moved into the State
to run for an office and was asked by his opponent--he was
saying how well he knew Vermont, and the opponent gave him a
list of ten names of Vermont municipalities, asked if he would
just read them, and he mispronounced eight of the ten. That was
one.
But he is the chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police
Department. He has led the largest municipal police department
in the State of North Carolina since June of 2008. Before that,
he was chief of another very large police department, Richmond,
Virginia. His work resulted in the lowest number of homicides
in more than a quarter century.
I might say parenthetically my son-in-law was born and
raised in Richmond, Virginia.
Partly as a result of Chief Monroe's community-based
policing initiatives, Richmond's crime rate decreased by around
10 percent in his 3-year tenure there. He began his career
working for 21 years for the Metropolitan Police Department
here in Washington, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief of
Police. He received his bachelor's from Virginia Commonwealth
University and has graduated from the FBI's National Academy
and the National Executive Institute.
Chief, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF RODNEY MONROE, CHIEF OF POLICE, CHARLOTTE-
MECKLENBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA
Chief Monroe. Thank you and good afternoon, Senators. As
chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, it is an
honor to have the opportunity to discuss the tremendous
progress that can be achieved by partnering and collaborating
with other law enforcement agencies to leverage resources and
strategic efforts in order to implement a comprehensive and
cost-effective approach to reduction of crime.
In today's police environment, law enforcement
professionals have an ongoing responsibility to identify
strategies that are both efficient and effective in addressing
crime and disorder within the communities we serve.
As an agency, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department
has made it one of its highest priorities to maximize these
relationships in order to enhance our capabilities and use of
resources to fight crime. Moreover, experience has proven to me
that crime is most effectively prevented and reduced through a
multi-agency approach that encompasses a broad array of
resources, skills, and expertise.
In particular, when focusing upon violent crimes and the
offenders responsible for committing these crimes, our agency
and the community as a whole receive great benefits when we
formally organize our Federal, State, and local partners to
share in that responsibility.
For the purpose of this discussion, I will provide examples
of experience that has allowed us to see these labors bear
fruit for our cities.
In my former role as Richmond Police Chief, as a result of
the efforts to bring law enforcement agencies together, I led
the coordination to establish the Comprehensive Violence
Reduction Partnership to coordinate the prevention, deterrence,
intervention, and the accountability of all of our policing
efforts. The centerpiece of the CVRP was to coordinate those
local, State, and Federal law enforcement to include FBI, ATF,
DEA, Marshals Service, U.S. Attorneys, and others with the
focus of sharing intelligence and strategically looking at
various areas within the city that needed our attention.
The FBI, under their Safe Streets initiative, was
responsible for identifying the most prolific gangs in our
city. ATF, under their Violent Crime Interdiction Teams,
addressed the top two violent neighborhoods. DEA, under their
Drug Task Force, focused on our major open-air drug markets.
Other agencies' resources and expertise were also utilized.
The U.S. Marshals hunted down our fugitives; Probation focused
on conducting home visits of our probationers; the Sheriff's
Department helped identify gang members through their jail
intelligence network. Our U.S. Attorney's Offices monitored and
prosecuted firearm, drug, and conspiracy cases.
To sustain and continuously assess the effectiveness of
this strategy, we made the point to meet every 45 days to make
sure that we were achieving our stated goals.
I am proud to report that we experienced great success in
realizing significant crime reductions in Richmond. In 2007 and
2008, Richmond experienced the lowest number homicides in over
30 years--from an average of 100 to a low of 35.
One particular element of the partnership was our ``Call
In'' program. Under this program, we identified approximately
20 offenders that were called into Federal court before a
Federal judge.
In the presence of the heads of the partnering agencies--
FBI, DEA, and others--under the direction of the Department of
Probation, it was made clear to these offenders that we, as a
group, were watching them and their associates very closely to
determine the level of criminal activity. And, further, we told
them that we were going to use our combined resources to
investigate and prosecute all of their crimes.
In addition, they were shown pictures of their associates
and the amount of prison time that they received for their
crimes. We had victims come before them to give personal
accounts of the impact of the crimes upon them and their
communities.
But, in addition to that, we offered them an opportunity to
do the right thing, to refrain from engaging in criminal
activity with a different approach. In those cases, offenders
received services to support them in their efforts to
rehabilitate and to change their lives. Those services included
GED training, job training, substance abuse counseling,
assistance in exiting gang life, and helping them to reunite
with their families.
As law enforcement professionals, we understand that our
primary role must always focus on crime reduction and making
sure criminals are held accountable for their activities and
the negative impacts on our communities. But we also understand
that there is a greater role for our agencies to play when we
work together to be effective in reducing crime and that
criminal activity.
So, with that, we understand that other organizations that
can work with offenders but also need the support of law
enforcement need to be our partners also. Sometimes we can see
even greater results in reaching out to these other partners
than we can in bearing the load by ourselves.
I thank you for the opportunity to bring forth these ideas
and strategies, and I hope that they will find root not only
here in Charlotte but in other cities across America. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Chief Monroe appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Whitehouse. [Presiding.] Thank you, Chief Monroe.
As you will notice, the Chairman has stepped out. We have
two votes on right now, and he has gone to vote the first time.
Then when he comes back, I will go out and vote the first and
second votes, then come back and relieve him. So if you see us
getting up and down, that is the reason.
I am very proud now to have the chance to introduce Colonel
Dean Esserman, who is the chief of police for our capital city,
Providence, Rhode Island. Colonel Esserman is truly one of our
most valued public servants in Rhode Island. He did not follow
a traditional path to his job. He graduated from Dartmouth
College and NYU Law School, served as an ADA in Brooklyn, and
is general counsel to the New York Transit Police. There he ran
across William Bratton, who is one of our Nation's most
innovative police chiefs, and from there he became assistant
police chief in New Haven, chief of police for the MTA Metro
North Police Department, and chief of police in Stamford,
Connecticut, before he ultimately came to Providence.
Our Providence Police Department has been transformed under
the leadership of Colonel Esserman and his very impressive
command team. Since arriving in 2003, Colonel Esserman has
implemented key programs to decentralized the department and
place greater focus on community policing. He is a leader on
reentry of incarcerated persons into our communities and a key
supporter of the innovative Providence Street Workers Program.
He has established new community substation offices, encouraged
police officers to interact more directly with citizens out in
the highest-risk parts of our city, and partnered with local
nonprofit organizations to help turnaround distressed
neighborhoods.
Hardly a week goes by that the local newspapers do not
report on successful programs developed with the Providence
Police Department. This is in addition to an array of
institutional reforms within the department which are not
relevant to today's hearing, but have made a vastly improved
police department. We in Rhode Island are very fortunate that
Colonel Esserman accepted a position in our capital city 7
years ago. It is a testament to his skill and innovation that
he has been called upon to testify before this Committee and a
tribute to the selfless dedication of the officers of the
Providence Police Department that that department now serves as
an example for other police forces across the Nation.
I want to add just a particular personal word for that
command team. The men and women of that command team are people
who I have known for many years. Some of them served through
quite dark days in the Providence Police Department. But they
kept their honor, they kept their hope, and when the day came
that new leadership was there, they have flourished and
assisted in leading their department to brighter days. It is a
truly inspiring human story of honor through difficulty and
redemption through leadership.
So, Colonel Esserman, I am delighted to have you here.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL DEAN M. ESSERMAN, CHIEF OF POLICE,
PROVIDENCE POLICE DEPARTMENT, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
Colonel Esserman. Thank you for those words about my
command team. It is good to surround yourself with people who
are better than you. I have learned to do that.
Good morning to Senator Whitehouse and Senator Sessions. I
am grateful for the opportunity to testify before your
Committee. I sit here in front of you as one of America's
police chiefs. I have been the chief of police of the city of
Providence for 7 years. Providence is the capital of Rhode
Island and the second largest city in New England. The city of
Providence proper encompasses a very high concentration of our
metropolitan area's residents living in poverty; we are, in
fact, one of the poorest cities in the United States for
children, and for too long we were also a city that saw too
much violence, especially violence among our young, among our
children.
I am very proud to say that the men and women of the
Providence Police Department who I proudly represent today,
``Providence's Finest'', have been making a difference turning
the tide. For more than 7 years, crime has been going down in
Providence. Led by an energetic and reform-minded mayor, David
Cicilline, the Providence Police Department has done more than
transform its strategies and tactics. The department has
undergone extensive reengineering and has fundamentally changed
the way it thinks about itself and its work.
In the past, the department saw itself like many police:
armed referees who kept an authoritative distance--to the point
of being almost anonymous--while trying to maintain order in a
community that was not their own.
I was recruited by the mayor to change that. In our
reengineering efforts, we have adopted the lessons learned over
the past two decades in American policing of what works. First,
we have embraced and instituted community policing,
decentralizing the department, and dividing the city into
neighborhood police districts. Each district has a community-
donated neighborhood substation office and a commander
accountable to the residents and to the department.
Second, the management tool adopted by the department to
oversee our newly decentralized operations is weekly detective
and command staff meetings driven by timely and accurate
statistics--often known as the New York City model of Compstat.
The results speak for themselves. Over the past 7 years,
crime is down 34 percent. This represents the lowest level in
more than 30 years. And behind every statistic is a story, and
behind every number is a name. Thousands of less victims in the
city of Providence. And just as importantly, there is a strong
and growing sense of trust and partnership between the
community and their police department. When we form community
partnerships, we are not just meeting, we are not just
visiting. We are now staying.
I like to tell this story so that we do not abandon what
works but, rather, build on it as we seek out new and
additional and innovative, cost-effective crime reduction
strategies for the future.
It is in these tough economic times that our city, like so
many communities across our country, have been severely tested.
These times cause us to seek out the most cost-effective crime
reduction strategies and invest in what we know makes a
difference. And so I am here to tell you today that cops count,
that your investment in local policing has made a difference,
that the framework of community policing works. America's
police no longer work alone, nor need they.
In partnership with the United States Justice Department,
whether conducting research or understanding best practices
through the different arms of the Office of Justice Programs,
such as the remarkable NIJ, BJA, or OJJP, or the newly
refurbished COPS office, or targeting offenders through the
local United States Attorney; whether in partnership with LISC,
the Local Initiative Support Corporation, to transform
distressed neighborhoods into vibrant and healthy places to
work, and building our way out of crime; whether in partnership
with the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence,
pursuing an initiative first born in Boston in the 1990's, of
working with former street gang members to intervene in
violence and teach peace; whether in partnership with the
Family Services of Rhode Island to replicate and enhance the
community policing-child development program of police and
mental health clinicians first pioneered by the Yale Child
Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1992; or whether in
partnership with the Department of Probation and Parole in the
State of Rhode Island; and, finally, in 2006, with the National
and Rhode Island Urban Leagues who approached this department
about an idea from Professor David Kennedy at John Jay College.
I am a charter member of the executive board of the National
Network for Safe Communities created by John Jay College and
David Kennedy. It has been brought to Providence, and it has
worked.
All I mentioned, these many initiatives, and others, were
born from federally sponsored research and started with Federal
grant funds from the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau
of Justice Assistance, the COPS office, or Project Safe
Neighborhoods, and Edward Byrne Memorial grant assistance, they
were innovative then and they are innovative now.
These investments directed by Congress in local policing
make a difference. They bring dollars back to the neighborhoods
of our many communities and to those who work and live in them.
They save communities money, and they save Government money.
And so the future of innovative and cost-effective crime
reduction strategies must be focused on the twin pillars of
prevention and partnership with the community, as my colleagues
before me have just said. The investment in children, families,
and neighborhoods impacts crime and violence. It is cost-
effective, it is well researched, and it is right.
And so an increased investment in technology, as is often
raised in today's environment, would only be a step in the
right direction, so long as the investment in technology does
not replace the workers in the field but supports and augments
them. The working officer on the street is the face of
America's police departments. The working officer is the face
of the working partnerships with our community-based agencies.
The technology that can be developed to enhance ever more
timely and accurate information, whether reactive or
predictive, must be delivered to the officers on our beats.
Only if it is relevant and helpful in the day-to-day work of
America's front line police officers will it make the
difference.
And one example is the BlackBerry I hold in front of me
which, with Federal money that came from this Congress, is now
called the ``pocket cop'', which is in the hand of every police
supervisor in the city of Providence, and in the future, the
near future, will be in the hands of every police officer in
Providence.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Esserman appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. [Presiding.] Thank you. I might note that
even the President carries one of those.
You may have noticed, Colonel, it was not because of
something you said that Senator Whitehouse left or Senator
Sessions. Those lights on the clock behind you indicate we have
been having a series of votes, and we have been doing tag team.
We actually have to have at least part of you on the floor of
the Senate physically to vote. That can sometimes raise
interesting things. I once had an unexpected vote, was out
playing----
Colonel Esserman. You are kind to allay my concerns.
Chairman Leahy. I was out playing softball with my office
team, and I arrived in shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and I
never had the courage to do that again.
Chief Patrick Berarducci has been the chief of police in
Medina, Ohio, since August 2009. Prior to joining the Medina
police force, he served as the chief of Police in Boardman,
Ohio, and as an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives. During his time with the ATF, he was
highly decorated, received the Treasury Department's Medal of
Valor and at least 11 other service and achievement awards. He
worked extensively in the South Florida Violent Crime Task
Force and the Caribbean Gang Task Force, which had to be an
education in and of itself, where he led investigations
covering a wide range of major crimes.
Chief Berarducci, please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK J. BERARDUCCI, CHIEF OF POLICE, MEDINA
POLICE DEPARTMENT, MEDINA, OHIO
Chief Berarducci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Leahy. Incidentally, everybody's full statement
will be made part of the record.
Chief Berarducci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It may surprise
you, looking at me, I know I do not look that old, but I am in
my 37th year of law enforcement, and so I am proud to be here
before you. I have been a fan for a lot of years. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. Some of us are entering our 36th
year in the Senate, and we do look older.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. Go ahead.
Chief Berarducci. Thank you very much. Do I still have to
count that time, sir?
Chairman Leahy. No. No.
Chief Berarducci. The city of Medina is 12.5 square miles,
and we have a population of about 26,000 people. Eight years
ago, the city of Medina was nearly bankrupt. We had to lay off
police officers. We had to lay off city employees. Our bond
rating was terrible. We had our battles with drugs and violence
and disorder. But today, thanks to strong leadership, we have
turned that around.
Medina was recently ranked 40th on the list of America's
best small towns by Money Magazine. The ranking was no surprise
to people of Medina. We have always known it was a great place
to live and work and raise a family.
The architect of the community policing program in Medina
was then Police Chief Dennis Hanwell, who served for 13 years.
He is now the new mayor in Medina, and my boss, so I think it
is important that I mention that he set up this whole community
policing thing. He instilled the philosophy of ``broken
windows'' in our community, and in our community we adhere to
the community-oriented government model also. So, basically, we
are doing the same as all of the other chiefs have related to
you today. We may call it something different, but it is the
same basic type of policing.
One of the most important reasons for our success is our 5-
year budget and the stability that it provides us. I already
know what my budget is going to be in 2014, and I can plan
accordingly. Every decision to hire, purchase, innovate, or
participate is weighed against the effect on our budget. When
cuts need to be made, we know well in advance and we can plan
for them.
I would suggest our 5-year budget operates like a ``broken
windows'' program for government by establishing minimal levels
of order in our finances and maintaining the stability with the
5-year budget. As a result, our community is stable, and I am
convinced it is an important key to our success.
As Colonel Esserman said, you know, our most important
asset are our officers on the street, and I take very
personally the responsibility to keep them from being laid off,
to keep them working, and to keep them safe. I think this 5-
year budget gives me those tools.
One of the things we did in 2009, we were looking for ways
to engage the community, and the answer came from a young
patrol officer named Sara Lynn, and her suggestion was to use
Facebook to capture fugitives. And I have to confess, Senator,
I did not even know what Facebook was when she brought it to my
attention.
We began quietly putting the fugitives' photographs on
there, and we did not really even publicize it, but it caught
on in our community. And today we have gotten well over 2,400
people who are listed as fans and follow us on a daily basis.
We have arrested several of our fugitives, and we have other
fugitives who turn themselves in rather than have their photo
and their name placed on the page. So, you know, we really are
getting a nice extra bounce out of Facebook.
The beautiful part about it for me as the chief is that
when I have 2,400 people listening to what we say, we can then
impart our different philosophies, tell them about our
programs. We have an autism seminar coming on to teach law
enforcement how to deal with the autistic and their special
needs. We have people enrolling from all over the community
based off of seeing that on Facebook. So in a small town, it
gives us access to our community that we would not even
normally have in our local newspaper.
Chairman Leahy. And what is the population of Medina?
Chief Berarducci. The population is just over 26,000.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Chief Berarducci. We also use the services of A Child Is
Missing, which is a nonprofit organization in Fort Lauderdale,
and it is dedicated to helping law enforcement find missing
children, the elderly, people with Alzheimer's.
We made one call to A Child Is Missing, and they sent out
an alert to 4,000 people in a geographic area in our community
when we had a missing child. We found that child as a direct
result of that call and the calls that came in to us because of
it. There is no charge to law enforcement. I think it is a
great tool.
The other thing that we are doing is trying to use the
things that we have more efficiently. We shut down our city
jail, and we now take our prisoners to the county jail. That
lets me alleviate the liability and the costs of running a 40-
year-old jail and take advantage of a jail operation that is an
accredited operation just a mile down the road from us. It
saves us all a lot of money.
We do centralized dispatching for several communities out
of our dispatch center, and the revenue that comes in from that
helps us keep updated on our software and our equipment needs.
The last suggestion I have here for you today, Senator, we
have over 400,000 police officers in the United States. They
are trained, they are certified, they qualify on a regular
basis, and yet every day there are officers getting on flights
anywhere in this country who are off duty, and so they are not
allowed to carry their firearms. Those firearms have to be
stored in the luggage hold or not even taken on the flight. It
just seems like such a waste to take 400,000 trained officers
at a time when people are begging you for more money to protect
our skies and make them sit in the coach section unarmed and
have no effect on an outcome. So I would encourage you to look
very seriously at that issue and look at the potential cost
savings involved with that.
Thank you very much. I am sorry I ran over.
[The prepared statement of Chief Berarducci appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. I apologize for--the day started off early.
I apologize for especially mispronouncing Medina, especially
after I had talked with Chief Monroe about ``Char-lot'' and
``Char-lot''. And I should note my staff had it written
phonetically correctly in my notes. You have to understand,
Chief, that Senators are merely constitutional impediments to
their staff.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. So often we totally screw up. You probably
have never heard that from your officers about the chief.
Chief Berarducci. I have not heard that.
Chairman Leahy. You might not have.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. But thank you.
Dr. Muhlhausen is here. David Muhlhausen is a senior policy
analyst at the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.
He has testified before Congress on several previous occasions
about law enforcement grant programs, particularly the COPS
program. We sometimes agree and we sometimes disagree, but I
want to say on a personal note, Doctor, I do appreciate you
being willing to take the time to come here and testify any
time we have asked you to, and I realize you have a pretty
intense schedule, and I appreciate your taking that time. And I
also apologize to you, as I did to the others, that we had to
change things around today.
Dr. Muhlhausen received his Ph.D. in public policy from the
University of Maryland Baltimore County and his bachelor's
degree in political science and justice study from Frostburg
State University, and he is currently an adjunct professor of
public policy at George Mason University.
Please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF DAVID B. MUHLHAUSEN, PH.D., SENIOR POLICY ANALYST,
CENTER FOR DATA ANALYSIS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON,
D.C.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Thank you for your kind words. My name is
David Muhlhausen. I am a senior policy analyst in the Center
for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation. I thank Chairman
Patrick Leahy, Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, and the rest of
the Committee for the opportunity to testify today on
innovative crime reduction strategies.
The views I express in this testimony are my own and should
not be construed as representing any official position of the
Heritage Foundation.
This morning I want to lay out the case that innovative
policing strategies and the leveraging of law enforcement
assets can significantly reduce crime, but first I must caution
Congress against further Federal funding for the routine
activities of State and local law enforcement. The
Congressional Budget Office recently warned Congress, again,
that Federal spending in an unsustainable course. The national
debt is set to reach 67 percent of GDP by the end of fiscal
year 2010.
While the debt is driven largely by entitlement spending,
Congress' funding of routine law enforcement activities and all
the other programs Congress just cannot say no to only moves
the Nation closer to fiscal insolvency. Given that public
safety from ordinary street crime is almost exclusively the
responsibility of State and local governments, and in light of
the severe burden of the Federal Government's debt, State and
local governments need to be weaned off their dependence on
Federal funding for the provision of basic law enforcement.
Simply put, it is not a Federal responsibility to pay police
departments to be police departments.
Now I would like to discuss innovative policing and
leveraging strategies that communities across the Nation should
consider adopting. Innovative strategies such as problem-
oriented policing, ``hot spots'' policing, and focusing on
repeat offenders can effectively reduce crime. Unlike broader
strategies that concentrate on community relations, these three
approaches share a common focus of targeting high-risk
locations and repeat offenders.
In particular, problem-oriented policing is a systematic
process used by the police for inquiring into the nature of
problems and then developing specific tactics to address these
problems. During the 1990s, the Jersey City Police Department
implementing a problem-oriented policing strategy that included
aggressive order maintenance. An experimental evaluation funded
by the Department of Justice found that the strategy was
effective at reducing crime.
In addition to innovative policing strategies, local law
enforcement, through leveraging assets with other criminal
justice agencies, can develop effective strategies that have
greater potential for reducing crime than if they acted alone.
While I discuss the pulling levers approach in my written
testimony, I would like to take this time to focus on
immigration enforcement partnerships under Section 287(g) of
the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Section 287(g) acts a force multiplier for the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement agency. This provision allows State and
local agencies to assist in the process of identifying,
detaining, removing from the country illegal aliens arrested
for crimes. Before the implementation of Section 287(g), ICE
frequently failed to take custody of the individual, thus
setting in motion the individual's release. This inaction meant
that the Federal immigration law was unenforced.
Based on 25 participants in the program, a General
Accountability Office report found that ICE detained
approximately 34,000 illegal aliens, put about 14,000 in
removal proceedings, and assembled about 15,000 to be
voluntarily deported. Congress should support the expansion of
this program.
While State and local law enforcement resources wax and
wane as the priorities of State and local officials change,
States and localities have fully within their powers the
ability to effectively allocate resources to strategies that
have a proven track record of success. With the national debt
equaling two-thirds of America's entire economic output, the
Federal Government can no longer afford to subsidize the
routine activities of State and local law enforcement. Such
subsidies fall outside the responsibilities of the Federal
Government. Under America's system of constitutional
federalism, State and local law enforcement should never be
made dependent on the Federal Government.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Muhlhausen appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Well, of course, I have always felt that
the safety of the public is a shared responsibility of all of
us. I wish that those who are as concerned about the national
debt now, something that I am not prepared to blame on law
enforcement, I wish there has been as much concern expressed
when this country entered into two wars and for the first time
in history said we will pay for it with huge tax cuts, the only
time in our history we have not found a way to pay for wars we
were in. Perhaps the--well, anyway, I do not blame it on law
enforcement. In fact, I feel that one of the things that may
improve the economics of any area is that people feel safe in
the area and they feel they have good law enforcement. And
trust me, I will give you plenty of time to respond to that.
I want to go to Chief Schirling. You talked about the
justice system integration model, and let me give you a quick
thumbnail, part of an overall approach to crime reduction,
including education, community outreach, and use of alternative
sanctions in low-level cases. Can you tell us a little bit more
about this? Burlington is sort of the hub of a county which has
about a quarter of our State's population. Why do you believe
this is the best approach for Burlington? How do you feel that
has worked or has not worked?
Chief Schirling. Certainly. Thank you. We have been
involved in a variety of pilot projects to date that, in
partnership with our Community Justice Center, seek to find
alternative routes for people that are involved in low-level
crime and disorder. So the concept is that rather than taking
somebody in their first, second, or third offense retail theft
or disorderly conduct or some other low-level offense, rather
than putting them into a justice system that at present,
candidly, does not deliver swift or sure sanction--and it is
widely agreed that that is a critical component to the system
having any kind of deterrent effect. Rather than doing that, we
are able to deliver a much quicker, more sure community-based
restorative process in hopes of not allowing that person--or
guiding that person for their behavior not to deteriorate
further into more substantial crime.
The idea is that you bring together a variety of potential
sanctions ranging from civil and municipal tickets to time with
restorative panels that are made up of community members and
victims of crime and educate the person to the impact of their
actions and then give them some kind of alternative sanction or
community service, restitution for damaged property or stolen
property, things along those lines. And the idea is that if you
can change their path through those low-level alternative
sanctions, hopefully they will not enter the justice system,
which is much more costly and potentially less effective for
those low-level offenses.
Now, clearly those things do not work relative to high-
level felonies and violent crime, but we have had some success
in turning people away from the traditional justice system by
investing in those low-level, community-based approaches.
Chairman Leahy. If you were to commit an armed robbery or
something like that, you would go through the regular judicial
system.
Chief Schirling. Correct. Part of the concept is that you
reserve----
Chairman Leahy. If it was vandalism or something like that,
you might go to the other.
Chief Schirling. Correct. In Vermont, we suffer from a lack
of capacity. The police can arrest more people than can be
prosecuted. The prosecutors can convict more people than can be
incarcerated. It is a problem that exists in many places in the
country. So you have to have some alternative models. They have
to be swift and sure to be effective. They do not necessarily
have to be severe, but they have to be meaningful.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Chief Monroe, you have used various technology to try to
make sure you are doing the best possible use of law
enforcement. It is a little bit different than the days when
some of us first started in law enforcement. Can you tell us
some of the examples of how you have used technology?
Chief Monroe. Well, one of the things that I think all law
enforcement needs is the ability to be able to target its
resources in a sure and certain manner with information that is
both accurate and timely. And what we embarked upon both in
Richmond and now here in Charlotte is predictive analytics
where we take a host of different data sources, whether it is
arrest data, crime data, call for service data, even weather,
and put it into a model whereby we can refresh it every 2 hours
to start looking at where do we think the most likelihood of
crime to occur is, certain types of crime, whether it is
burglaries, robberies, other thefts, and be able to start
deploying our resources ahead of time.
Also, rather than having two or three robberies that may be
committed by the same individual, being notified through the
system to say that you have had that second robbery, and these
are the dynamics associated with that robbery, the type of
locations, the type of victims, the type of suspect information
and be able to deploy your resources so that you do not see
that third or fourth robbery in the particular case.
So predictive analytics serves to allow us to put our
resources where they need to be based on information that we
already have at our disposal.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Chief Schirling, can you name one or two things that you
feel is the most effective in the technology you have used?
Chief Schirling. My colleagues have outlined a variety of
cutting-edge technologies that are in play now. I think one of
the things that could potentially be leveraged to a greater
extent to supplement and enhance what has been described and
potentially reduce costs is the development of more
contemporary computer-aided dispatch and records management
systems that feed data into those predictive analytics systems.
Right now, law enforcement spends millions of dollars annually
to purchase and maintain computer-aided dispatch and records
management systems that are often built on aging technology.
Technology changes rather quickly.
In addition to that, our prosecutors, our courts,
corrections, our public defenders all build parallel systems,
and then we spend money to connect those systems together
rather than looking at it as one integrated justice information
system, one scalable record that could exist about an event
that starts when a dispatcher takes a call in the 911 center
and ends when potentially someone ends up in a correctional
facility, one thread of common information that could be fed
back into giving us robust information about predictive
analytics and other information.
Chairman Leahy. And wouldn't it be possible to do that in a
way to have enough safeguards for the obvious privacy concerns?
Chief Schirling. Absolutely. Contemporary technology will
allow you to create silos of access within that integrated
system to ensure that information only flowed in the directions
that were applicable.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. I am going to turn the gavel
over to Senator Whitehouse, and I will be back.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
I wanted to ask a number of questions. First, I wanted to
ask Chief Monroe, going back to your days in Richmond, I
remember Richmond as being the birthplace during the Clinton
administration of the Federal firearms enhanced prosecution
initiative, that it was that district and the U.S. Attorney
that began that project, that gave it sort of a name and
branded it and put in on the sides of buses and all that.
We did a similar project up in Rhode Island, but it was
more informally. It did not have a name, and it did not have
the publicity.
By the time you became the chief and through your time
there, you know, some of these programs, they start very well
and then after time goes by for a while, they begin to lose
their luster or new programs come along.
How was the duration of that program in Richmond? And what
was it like when you were there? Was it still going on? And how
effective has that been?
Chief Monroe. We are speaking of Project Exile, and we
rebirthed Project Exile in Richmond. It was part of our
comprehensive violence reduction strategy that involved our
Federal counterparts. And we used that law from two
perspectives: one, to really go after individuals that were
illegally possessing handguns that were convicted felons within
the city, and had them face the Federal system, whereby when
Senator Leahy talked about swift and certain justice, that is
what we saw in the Federal system with those gun-related cases,
and we publicized that information.
When I spoke about our Call In program, when we called
individuals in, we spoke about Project Exile and the amount of
time that individuals were receiving for the mere possession of
a firearm by a convicted felon, and that served us well in
reducing the amount of gun violence that we saw in Richmond.
Our homicides reduced from over 100 a year to an all-time low
of 35, as well as our shootings, and we primarily attribute a
great deal of that success to Project Exile.
Senator Whitehouse. Good. I know that the Clinton
administration initiative was actually expanded during the Bush
administration, but I believe Richmond is the place where it
has the longest track record, so I am delighted to hear your
experience that it has stood the test of time there.
Chief Monroe. Yes, it did.
Senator Whitehouse. Chief Esserman, you mentioned
specifically your relationship with LISC, the Local Initiative
Support Corporation. I am aware of some of the activities that
you have worked with LISC on and some of the successes you have
seen, but I do not think that the Committee is, and I would
like to have the record of the Committee reflect some of that
activity, if you could describe it in a little bit greater
detail, both as to the nature of the partnership, the nature of
the activity, and the nature of the success that you found
through it.
Colonel Esserman. Thank you, Senator. LISC, the Local
Initiative Support Corporation, is housed in many communities
across our Nation, and Rhode Island is one. And it is one of
the foundational partnerships we have in rebuilding
neighborhoods, home by home, community development
corporations, officers working to redesign neighborhoods,
streets, parks.
The commanding officer of the poorest neighborhood in the
State of Rhode Island, Olneyville, who grew up in that
neighborhood and now commands that neighborhood district, is
probably the greatest proponent, as he has worked side by side
with LISC to redesign the neighborhood he grew up in, to
rebuild the park that you presided over at the reopening of it,
to hear Professor Herman Goldstein, probably the old sage of
the new American policing movement of problem-oriented policing
and community policing, sit there and cheer in the audience as
he watched that ribbon being cut, designing your way out of
crime, building your way out of crime.
It is an unusual partnership that has brought crime down in
that neighborhood over 75 percent. The neighborhood that was
the busiest in the city and ate up the most calls for service
in our large police department is now a department that is
patrolled alone by an officer who is not rushing from call to
call. It is one of the partnerships that I believe matters as I
hear my colleagues who I know speak about better catching, it
must be coupled with better prevention, and better prevention
is the business we are in as much as it is better apprehension.
And LISC or the other partnerships we speak about and that we
are all involved in is really a story of prevention, just as it
must be coupled with successful and strong apprehension.
Senator Whitehouse. I will yield to the distinguished
Ranking Member, Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you.
Colonel Esserman, I know you favor the ``broken windows''
policy, the community policing concepts. I remember when those
began, and they struck me at the time as very effective
techniques. Based on your experience--I guess I will follow up
on the Exile-type question--do you think they are proven
techniques that they should be adopted as good policies
throughout the country?
Colonel Esserman. Senator Sessions, I do. I first met
George Kelling and James Q. Wilson when I read their article on
the cover of the Atlantic when I was in law school in 1982.
Several years later, I got to work with them when they brought
their thinking, through Bill Bratton, to the New York City
Transit System, a system that was known, that had a reputation
for disorder, for fear, for lack of safety.
It was a neighborhood under the streets of New York, a
neighborhood that I used every day as a child growing up in New
York to go to school on that subway.
Compared to what was going on aboveground on the streets of
New York, where there were more than 2,000 murders a year in
that day, there were never a dozen murders underground. But
when you spoke to the people who used that subway system, both
regular commuters or children like me or shoppers or visitors,
there is a sense that the most dangerous property in the city
of New York was a subway that ran underneath, that moved 3.5
million people every day.
It turned out that when Chief Bratton had George Kelling in
and had us start thinking about the environment, the graffiti,
the dirt, the sense of abandonment, the sense that no one was
in control of the subway environment so how could you be safe
in an environment that was lawless, that it did not just cause
crime, it provoked fear, we started to take advantage of that
thinking.
There was a time in New York City when you took the subway
as an adventure to see graffiti when you were an out-of-town
visitor. We knew we were doing the right thing when visitors
were complaining that they could not find graffiti trains
because we started to focus on the environment. We started to
focus on the graffiti and the broken glass and the disorderly
beggars and the garbage overflowing from the pails, and those
who would jump the fare rather than pay at the token booth, who
rarely committed any crime but jumping the fare in front of
people waiting on line.
The crime decline in New York City, as many know, did not
start on the streets of New York. The crime decline in New York
City started on the subways of New York and moved upstairs. And
the story of what happened in the transit police is the story
of broken windows to another venue in the subway, so much so
that my boss, Bill Bratton, was asked back to New York City
several years later to now do what he did in the New York City
subways for the streets of New York. And the first person he
brought with him was George Kelling, who wrote ``Broken
Windows'', to say let us look at the disorder on the streets of
New York, that the small things will impact the sense of
community and environment on the big things, and I believe he
was proved right.
Senator Sessions. History shows, I think, that that did
prove correct. I remember making the speeches, more than one,
to law enforcement officers in my State on the question of
drugs. Somehow had gotten in the idea of local police that they
should only focus on the higher-ups. Do you remember that
mentality? And I remember contending that if you allow open
drug sales in your communities on street corners, dismissing
them because they are small crimes, you are creating a climate
that is irreversible, that you are going to have big dealers.
And I think we have learned from that more and more that that
mentality is being adopted and has made a big difference.
Project Exile, I am very familiar with that. We did
something similar to that when I was United States Attorney in
the 1980's, and it really picked up a number of years later in
the Richmond program, and violence went down.
So there is a myth out there--I call it the ``Hill Street
Blues'' myth--that, oh, it is just a revolving door and we just
catch them and they get released and they go commit other
crimes and it is a hopeless thing. But that is not so.
Neighborhoods are revitalized when the proper application of
multiple factors occur that really reduces crime.
Chief Berarducci, you have had a remarkable ability to
reduce some costs and do some things. I noticed one of the
things that you did was consolidate your city and county jails.
I hear that more and more in my State. I do not know about
other States. Do you think that is a trend that should be
continued and actually saves money and is more efficient?
Chief Berarducci. Yes, sir, I absolutely do. There is quite
a bit of fixed cost in operating a jail just in the physical
plant, and then when you look at personnel and training and all
of the other things that go into that equation, it just does
not make sense to keep duplicating it in the same geographic
area when you could adequately fund one and service everybody.
Our sheriff has done a great job with our county jail. It
is a nationally accredited county jail. And so for me to go a
mile and a half down the road is just a good use of resources.
Senator Sessions. I think that is so good, and, Chief
Schirling, you talked about the different police departments
and so forth. I think you are correct. Honest discussions--I
know some departments will not like to hear it--of actual
consolidation are important. But if you do not actually
consolidate the departments, there are such things as jails,
training, forensics, computers, communication technology that
could be bought in larger quantities, and everybody would have
the same system. Don't you think--it is difficult for the
Federal Government to mandate, but it should occur at the local
level and more and more it should occur?
Chief Schirling. I do, Senator. And on my wall is a little
homemade poster that says, ``Small victories to achieve
momentum.'' The concept is if you do it a piece at a time--if I
try to get all 13 municipalities and organizations that have
police departments in Chittenden County to say on January 1,
2011, we are going to flip the switch, we are going to go from
13 to 1, it is never going to happen. But if we do small things
to create the momentum, if you start with information
technology and then you roll that into communications, then you
consolidated investigative functions and purchasing, one piece
at a time over the course of a longer period, you can
ultimately end up with efficiencies that are tailored to the
region that you are in. For us, that may mean eventually we
have one department. That may not. That may mean that we share
communications and IT and a couple of other things and we keep
13 departments. It makes it more customizable.
The role for the Federal Government, in my eyes, is not to
fully fund those things but to simply dangle a carrot, if you
will.
Senator Sessions. Well, what if we took some of the money
we are spending on things--heaven knows that we would cut a
dime from the COPS program. But let us say some Federal
programs that--and we created grant money, and it said if you
want to make a move toward consolidation, we have a grant that
will help fund a study of that and maybe some of the
transition, would that be a decent Federal policy?
Chief Schirling. I think it would, Senator, for many areas
of the country. It is just that that would be something that
would allow us to----
Senator Sessions. Send in a carrot.
Chief Schirling. Exactly. It would break the surface
tension to allow folks to step into that arena a little bit
further and maybe get some small victories to achieve momentum
and ultimately, hopefully cost savings.
Senator Sessions. My time is about up, but do you think
that that kind of targeted leadership policy, Federal program,
are more legitimate for the Federal Government than actual
subsidization of local law enforcement? And do you have any
suggestions that you would make from the scholarly analysis?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Well, I think the Federal Government should
not pay police departments to be police departments. They
should help out, think of it as a value-added approach, do
something that the community cannot do themselves. The
communities should be fully capable of raising their own
revenue to fund their own programs. But in a sense, taking
money and helping local law enforcements coordinate across
jurisdiction is one way that could be a Federal role. But just
paying a police department to fund its police officers, that
sets up a cycle of dependency where, as soon as those grants
disappear, instead of the community picking up the tab for
those additional officers, they go back to the Federal
Government and say, ``We are going to lay off these officers
unless you give us more money.''
Senator Sessions. I think I agree with that fundamentally.
One question. I have to go, and I thank my Chairman for his
indulgence. Immigration has a 287(g) program which
fundamentally allows the Federal Government to partner with
local law enforcement. I think there are 12,000 Federal law
officers and 600,000 or so State officers. And it allows them
to access those to help be eyes and ears in the local community
to deal with crimes related to immigration. Do you think that
is a good policy and is consistent with maximizing productivity
and would help us get a better handle on the illegal
immigration in the country?
Mr. Muhlhausen. Absolutely. It is a way to leverage assets.
Basically what it does is it is a force multiplier. You have
ICE, which has around 6,000 agents. They are busy doing
customs, helping protect other areas. They do not have enough
manpower to do internal enforcement within the borders of the
United States. So you partner with local law enforcement, and
it gives them assistance to where they can get up to speed in
being able to help enforce immigration law. And you can help in
some way compensate them for their efforts. But as long as it
is not paying them to do the normal enforcement duties, I think
it is a very good program because it multiplies the
effectiveness of ICE. And what is the point of having, you
know, immigration law without having some enforcement to
enforce the law?
So I think it is a good way to enforce the laws that we
have on the book.
Senator Sessions. Thank you. I very much agree.
Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
Dr. Muhlhausen, I told you earlier that certainly you would
have time to respond in any way to anything I had said earlier.
If you would like to, feel free.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I appreciate that. Just to be quick, in my
testimony I admit that our Nation's budgetary problems are
mainly due to entitlement spending. However, spending on
programs that are not a unique core function of the Federal
Government also adds to that debt.
Now, law enforcement is a very noble profession, but
everybody considers themselves entitled or in need of Federal
funding. So we have so many hands in the jar of the Treasury
that we can never get control of our spending. And so what I
would could say is we are living beyond our means, and one of
the ways that we can start to live within our means is for the
Federal Government to spend taxpayer dollars on things that are
core functions and not subsidize what used to be the case where
State and local police departments actually funded their own
officers instead of relying on the Federal Government.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Mr. Muhlhausen. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. I am going to put a statement by Senator
Feingold in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Feingold appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Chief Monroe, I have other questions. I
will keep the record open in case others want to ask questions.
I think every one of us has to be torn apart when we see crime
by young people. They often do not realize they have got their
whole life ahead of them. This is not a conservative or a
liberal issue. You just look at them and you say, ``You have
got your whole life ahead of you. What are you doing screwing
it up? ''
I introduced the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention Act to reduce juvenile crime, to advance programs to
keep juveniles out of the system, get them back into a track if
they do break the law, where they can be back in the community.
And I think of what Chief Schirling said about the alternative
ways of handling minor crimes.
What about in your jurisdiction? Have you taken steps to
reduce crimes committed by children and youngsters?
Chief Monroe. Well, there are a couple of different
thoughts with that. In Richmond, we partnered with a couple of
organizations, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
and the Richmond Outreach Center, whereby there was a model out
there that looked at some of our high schools where kids were
dropping out of school, high truancy rates, high suspension
rates, crime in and around the school campuses, and whereby we
went to the private sector in Richmond and were able to raise a
little over half a million dollars in order to hire outreach
workers to place into those schools. And those outreach workers
had a special training that was done, and in many cases, along
with ex-offenders and former gang members, to really understand
what some of the problems and challenges that our young people
were facing in high school.
Unfortunately, our teachers are struggling not only with
trying to teach our kids but also trying to maintain a certain
level of discipline within our schools. These 15 outreach
workers went into one of the toughest schools in Richmond,
Virginia, George Wythe, whereby they worked with this high-risk
population, whereby they became the mentors, they became the
disciplinarians, they became the ones that really focused on
their behavior and building upon their life skills, whereby we
saw significant improvement in the truancy rate, in the
suspension rate, a 37-percent reduction in crime in and around
that school campus.
I think those types of innovative programs are things that
we have to partner with both the private sector and nonprofit
organizations that can sometimes bring about greater changes in
that youth environment than we can in law enforcement or any
other government agency. But I think we just have to have the
willingness and the fortitude to support those types of
initiatives to allow them to work in their own environment.
So I think that there are enough challenges out there
involving our young people that we have to look to support
those organizations that can build the capacity.
Chairman Leahy. I think I know the answer to this, but in
the long run, does it save you money?
Chief Monroe. Yes, it does.
Chairman Leahy. Colonel Esserman, I think you wanted to add
something to that, and anybody else who wants to, feel free.
Colonel Esserman. Senator, I thank you for allowing us to
speak to this issue, because I go to every shooting in my city
I go to every emergency room intake, I go to every wake and
funeral. And in the past 7 years----
Chairman Leahy. I am glad to hear that. I did the same as
State's attorney in my jurisdiction. Every single shooting I
went to, every emergency room, I went to every wake.
Colonel Esserman. And you see for yourself, Senator, what
you must have seen for yourself, not the stories that are told
but what you see. And what I have seen in the past 7 years as
the chief of Providence is what my officers have seen, that the
violence is getting younger, and that that is disturbing to any
American police chief, that is disturbing to any patriot who
loves his country, a father who loves his children.
In my city I have lost 200 people to murder since the
beginning of this century, since the 1st of January 2000--200
as of a month and a half ago.
Chairman Leahy. And a population of----
Colonel Esserman. Approaching 200,000, and over those 10
years, my officers have seen what I have seen in the past 7
years, that the face of violence in our city--and I believe the
face of violence as I talk to my colleagues around this
country--is getting younger, getting younger on both sides of
the violence, getting younger on those who are victims, getting
younger on those who are victimized.
And I thank you for calling attention to it because what
you do not want is America's police chiefs to be distracted--
not to be distracted by issues of 287 and immigration, which is
not the issue. There is a reason less than 100 of America's
more than 17,000 police chiefs have any interest in 287(g) at
all. It is a distraction from the issue.
The issue of violence and crime in our community is an
issue today of youth, and though I do not have every answer, I
do know more youth prisons is not the answer, Senator. It must
be about prevention. It must be not about a life of crime but a
life of deterrence. Not only is that more thoughtful, it is
certainly less expensive.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Does anybody else wish to add to that? Chief Berarducci.
Chief Berarducci. Senator, thank you for bringing up the
topic. I brought with me today to this hearing an officer who
has served for 27 years, Detective Scott Thomas, and a large
portion of that career has been dedicated to the young people.
He currently runs our PAL program. He has been involved in our
juvenile enforcement efforts. He was the face of DARE in Ohio
for a decade.
As we drove here yesterday, we got a call from the
department. We had to arrest a 13-year-old for taking a gun to
school. He took his mother's gun, and he was going to shoot at
a couple other young men over a girlfriend.
Chairman Leahy. Thirteen?
Chief Berarducci. Thirteen years old. You know, we have him
in custody. We have the gun in custody. And now we are going to
have to do things to try to impact that in that school. But I
think Detective Thomas would tell you that the time that we all
spend, each of us, with these children is probably our most
important time. And, you know, the 65 that we have in our PAL
program are 65 kids who do not have anybody to help them with
homework, probably are not getting a meal when they get home
from school, and do not have positive role models, and that is
what we give them with the officers from the Medina Police
Department. And I think each of us have found that to be the
case, and that is a top priority in my city.
Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Dr. Muhlhausen.
Mr. Muhlhausen. I have some more comments on juvenile
justice issues. During 1990, I worked in juvenile corrections
in Baltimore, Maryland, and one of the things I noticed when I
worked with youth coming out of Baltimore City was that in a
secure facility a lot of these youth would behave very well,
when they had a parental figure, an authoritative figure
telling them how to behave or making sure that they were
behaving well. And a lot of these kids would just bring a smile
to your face.
But when they were released from the correctional facility
and went back into the community, they had no supervision in
their lives, and I am speaking primarily about families, and
they would return back to a life of crime. And they would come
back in, and I would look at them and go, you know, I would say
to this young man, ``Why are you back? '' And he goes, ``Mr.
Muhlhausen, I went back to my old ways.'' I am, like, ``Why? ''
He is, like, ``Because back home I have no supervision, I have
nothing in my life, somebody sitting there and telling me, you
know, to put a check on me.''
Chairman Leahy. Doesn't that go to what Chief Berarducci--
--
Mr. Muhlhausen. Yes. I think in a lot of cases with youth,
it comes down to the family and positive mentoring that can
help guide these young people, because a lot of times a lot of
these individuals will behave or be very nice people to be
around, very pleasant people when they have the appropriate
restrictions or sort of self-control placed on them. But then
when that is absent, peer pressure can lead them to a negative
lifestyle.
Chairman Leahy. I happen to agree. You see this with your
own kids. You see this with--those who are in law enforcement
see it. It is a difficult thing. Everybody wants to talk about
the good old days, but it was different growing up in a small
city in Vermont when I did because everybody knew everybody
else, and if you did misbehave, five neighbors would call your
parents, and that was usually far more frightening, with all
due respect to these law enforcement people, than anybody in
law enforcement. And now you have by necessity both parents
working. Sometimes you do not have both parents with the
children. That is why I think these mentoring programs, Boys
and Girls Clubs, things like that, are very, very important and
give some positive role models but give somebody who can say,
``Wait a minute. Do not do that. You are stepping over the
line.''
Sometimes young people can do some very terrible crimes,
and we forget they are young people, and they needed somebody
to put them on the straight path before the crimes. After the
crimes, you have lost your opportunity.
I think every police officer here would say that they would
rather prevent a crime from happening than have all the
resources in the world to investigate it after the fact to go
after somebody.
Chief Schirling you are going to get the last word on this.
Go ahead, sir.
Chief Schirling. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have heard
from all of my colleagues about partnership, and policing does
not exist in a vacuum. It does not exist in a vacuum in
creating community safety and health. The cyclical nature of
crime, whether it is in a neighborhood or potentially in a
family, as you have seen as a prosecutor, the sort of
generational recidivism that can occur and that is observed on
the street each day has its roots outside the criminal justice
system. And innovative strategies that we have discussed today
I think have to have in mind the concept that comprehensive
strategies need to involve investments in education, in the
health care system, in mental health in particular, and other
core needs in order to change the course of some of the youth
that are on the path to potential tragedy.
I gave Colonel Esserman a book earlier today by Mark
Kleiman, who is a professor at the University of California. It
is entitled ``When Brute Force Fails, How to Have Less Crime
and Less Punishment'', and one snippet of that book sort of
encapsulates this for me. He said, ``The more credible a threat
is, the less often it has to be carried out.'' And I do not
think that he is talking exclusively about the threat of
punishment from the criminal justice system but the threat of
some structure, the threat of some sanction on the part of the
youth that Mr. Muhlhausen described that was back in the system
because they did not have someone setting boundaries.
Chairman Leahy. You know, it is interesting. This is not
necessarily directly related, but I recall once at the
University of Vermont when I was a prosecutor, it was a time of
great tension over Kent State and Vietnam and Cambodia and so
on. A very, very large rally and a march in downtown Burlington
was going on. And a number of other parts of the country were
turning violent, and we were hoping to avoid all violence, and
we did. But I recall a lot of the professors and others
marching along and saying, ``Hi, Jim. Hi, Sue. Hi, Bob.'' And
the psychological effect of that, ``Ooops, I am not a nameless
person in a crowd of people. Somebody has spotted me.'' I mean,
that is just one thing, but it was more effective than sending
a lot of police officers, even though we had the police
officers to control traffic and everything else and basically
urge people to go into one thing. In fact, one very innovative
sergeant in the Burlington Police Department led them with the
blue lights flashing down the hill from the campus, back up the
hill, down the hill from the campus, back up the hill. For
those who have not seen it, it is a very steep hill. About the
fourth time of that--it was a chilly day, a chilly evening. He
was in his cruiser driving up and down. About the fourth time,
three-quarters of that crowd was gone.
With that, we will recess. I will keep the record open for
a week. Obviously, any one of you, feel free to add anything
more to the record you want, and I thank you for taking the
time.
[Whereupon, at 4:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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