[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1344-H1348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight and I will be joined by 
some of my colleagues on the Democratic side to talk about the 
community policing program and the proposal that will be before us 
later this week to do away with the community policing program and the 
100,000 cops as the President has outlined in the past, in last year's 
crime bill.
  So the special order tonight will deal with community policing 
commonly called cops on the beat or Clinton cops.
  Today at a press conference there were representatives from police 
organizations all over the country, mostly the FOP and the National 
Association of Police Organizations which represent most of the rank-
and-file police officers in the country.
  They spoke articulately of the need to get police officers on the 
street.
  The program has been a win-win situation not just for the police 
officers, not just for fighting crime but especially for the 
communities in which they serve.
  Last night in this Chamber we spoke, a number of us, about community 
policing, how you need to restore the trust, confidence and faith in 
the police with the specific area they serve in order to form a working 
partnership, working in concert to help with community policing, to 
combat the crime elements that they face in their communities.
                              {time}  1940

  The gentleman from California [Mr. Filner] was here, and he 
represents San Diego, and they had one of the first programs ever on 
community policing and the dramatic impact it had on crime in San 
Diego, and then there was the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Meehan], Middlesex County, Lowell, MA, where he talked about his role 
as a district attorney to help to reduce crime.
  Mr. Speaker and those folks who are listening to us, there is no one 
program that is going to solve crime. There is no one police agency in 
and of itself that can solve crime. We will never solve crime until the 
citizens we serve work hand in hand with the police officers who are 
there to help them. Fighting crime is more than just prisons, fighting 
crime is more than just putting a new law on the book, and it is even 
more than just police officers. There must be a partnership between the 
police, the citizens they represent, but most of all it is a 
responsibility for each and every one of us in this great country.
  I would like to speak, if I may, about two programs tonight in my 
home State of Michigan; the COPS program, as it is called, in 
Marquette, MI, which is in northern Michigan and is a town of only 
17,000 people. But the community policing program works in rural areas 
as well as in urban areas, but the COPS program was started back in 
1990.
  In its first 2 years of operation, Mr. Speaker, overall crime in my 
city dropped 23 percent. As the community police officers get 
progressively closer to the community in which he lives and serves, 
more and more citizens are coming forward to report incidents of crime. 
This is because a community and a community police officer have 
developed a special relationship that relates to more trust, more 
confidence, a greater willingness to become involved in the system.
  I would like to share with my colleagues some other stories regarding 
the COPS program in Marquette, MI, because the program is often 
referred to as just Cops on the Beat. Well, more than just cops on the 
beat, they must interact with the communities.
  A major problem area in Marquette centered around a 116-unit family 
public housing development the COPS program in Marquette County and 
Marquette city had developed in coordination with the city police and 
the public housing authority in an attempt to decrease the crime rates 
there at the public housing. A police officer, a public housing 
authority and residents there formed a partnership which was developed 
to reduce crime and maintain order. The program has lowered crime and 
has restored a sense of pride in that housing project.
  A good example was back in 1991 and 1992, Halloween or Devil's Night, 
as it is called, with the first 2 years in which there were at least 26 
fires, arson fires, per night in and around this housing project. But 
with the working with the local police departments, volunteers on 
patrol and CB radios, Mr. Speaker, we have gone on to deter this 
program, and last year not one arson complaint was answered during 
Halloween or Devil's Night.
  Another one they did in Marquette was the adopt-a-park program, and 
it was to eliminate the drinking and drugs in a wooded area by the 
community, and again the COPS program opened up this community, 
identified the problem and patrolled the area.
  Other achievements that COPS programs have helped out is bike 
registration, bicycle safety, child identification fingerprinting, bike 
patrols, court-referred workers to do community service work, anti-
trespass programs, say no to drug crimes,
community child watch program and others. Again the first year the COPS 
program, and there has been much criticism of the President's program, 
and you only have so much money. How are you going to pay for 100,000 
  cops?Well, as you all know, it is a sharing program--75 percent of 
the costs of the police office for the first year is paid by the 
Federal Government, 25 percent is paid by locals. Second year it is a 
50-50 match. That is how we can provide 100,000 police officers 
underneath the crime bill that was passed last year and that took 
effect as of October 1 this year.
  There are 17 police departments in Michigan with COPS programs. The 
COPS programs throughout the State, the one in Marquette, was rated No. 
1, but from a small city like Marquette of 17,000 people you can go on 
to city like Detroit, our largest city in Michigan.
  The recently passed crime bill has awarded the Detroit Police 
Department 96 new police officers. These officers are currently 
attending the Detroit Metropolitan Police Academy and are being trained 
in community policing. Why community policing? Because we know that 
when police officers work with the folks in which they must serve, it 
is the greatest positive effect on reducing crime.
  The community policing program in Detroit has conducted over 130 
residential surveys, has installed security hardware for citizens, has 
organized over 50 blocks in the city streets into neighborhood watch 
programs and has increased and provided aggressive patrolling in high 
drug activity areas. It has created and maintained child safety and 
substance abuse programs and continues the youth programs to combat 
violent crime and drug related offenses.
  I want to ask in the survey what was the most positive change in 
these areas just during the last 3 months. The 
 [[Page H1345]] great majority of these residents responded and said, 
``It was community policing and a police keep-the-cops-on the-streets 
program.''
  Now our friends on the other side of the aisle are going to tell us 
in the next few days, and probably on to Monday, that Members, that 
mayors and local elected officials, support this family and the Clinton 
COPS program, that they want to wider discretion, and let the locals 
determine what it is. But we believe, those of us on this side of the 
aisle, that what we will do is just buy more pork barrel projects that 
we saw in LEAA in the late 1960's and early 1970's, but as my mayor in 
Detroit, Mayor Dennis Archer, said, the time has come for us to stop 
throwing money at crime, but put it into law enforcement officials, and 
what they want is cops and not programs.
  Mayor Archer believes that the President and the Congress got it 
right last year when we funded the police on the street program. People 
in Dennis archer's city of Detroit, or whether it is up in my district 
in Marquette, want protection and the ability to walk their streets at 
night, and we know that the only way to do it is to continue funding 
for the 100,000 cops that currently exist with the cops on the beat 
program.
  One of the most effective tools for law enforcement committees is 
about to become a casualty underneath the GOP crime bill. Those of us 
are here tonight, and many others who cannot be with us, intend to keep 
fighting to keep the 100,000 police officers on the street.
  Underneath the GOP plan of block grants there is no guarantee that 
any police officers will be hired. There is no guarantee that the cops 
on the street
 program will be maintained. There is no program specifically earmarked 
for community policing.

  Tomorrow I know the President will announce underneath a fast cops 
program that 49 more police officers have been awarded in my district 
alone, 250 in the State of Michigan. Marquette, with their program 
ready to run out, will be awarded another police officer. In the 
President's program, in the one that we are fighting to try to save, 
there is very little bureaucracy. In fact, in order to do a fast cop 
application, it is a one-page form. It is a program that began November 
1, and here we are on February 7, 1995, just over 3 months, and they 
are already just in my State alone providing 250 police officers 
underneath the cops fast program.
  It is a good program. It works. There is very little pork--there is 
no pork in it. There is very little administrative cost. My police 
agencies are very pleased with us and implore us to continue keeping 
this program.
  One more word before I turn over to my good friend from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Meehan]:
  Community policing and the cop on the street or cop on the beat, 
whatever handle you want to put on it, is a program I strongly believe 
in, having been a police officer for many years myself. When I was in 
the Michigan legislature, I helped to write the community policing 
program in Michigan. It is a winner. It works. But it only works when 
we put police officers in touch with their local communities, and they 
work together to provide secure residents, secure neighborhoods, by 
getting the trust, the faith and confidence back in law enforcement.
  With that I yield to my good friend from Massachusetts who comes from 
maybe a little different perspective, not being a police officer, but a 
district attorney in Lowell, MA.

                              {time}  1950

  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say to the gentleman 
from Michigan, Congressman Stupak, I want to congratulate the gentleman 
for his efforts. One of the ways I think we are better able to 
articulate what we need to do in the fight against crime is to rely on 
the various experiences that the Members of Congress have. Certainly 
the gentleman's experience, 12 years as a police officer, is a very, 
very important experience and one that I hope that our colleagues will 
pay attention to as we debate this bill offer the coming days.
  I wanted to comment first of all, the gentleman mentioned the one-
page application. Because he was a police officer, the gentleman is 
aware that oftentimes police departments across the country express 
concern in dealing with the Federal Government because of bureaucracy 
in the past. But the gentleman has indicated a one-page sheet is all a 
police department had to fill out. I would imagine that the gentleman 
has gotten some favorable responses from the police departments in his 
district, as I did.
  Mr. STUPAK. In the first round of the Clinton
   cops program, we did receive four sheriffs in one of my larger 
growing areas, two in Grand Traverse County, one in the city of 
Escanaba, and another in the California Kalkaska sheriff's department. 
All these individuals related to me once we submitted our application, 
there was some phone calls and verifications, and that was it. They 
sent in a voucher periodically, certifying the individual is working 
for that department. They sent in an invoice based upon their cost to 
the local department. The Federal Government then pays 75 percent. It 
was one of these programs that was so simple, they were so surprised at 
the reduction in paperwork, that the Federal Government not only did it 
right but did it extremely efficiently, quickly, and responded to their 
needs.

  Mr. MEEHAN. I do not remember any time the Federal Government 
undertook such a major project, putting 100,000 police officers on 
American streets, and did it so quickly without really any of the 
bureaucratic messes that have plagued other programs in the past.
  Just this past September, President Clinton signed into law what I 
believe was the most comprehensive, smartest, toughest crime bill in 
the history of this country. This legislation, as the gentleman 
indicated, was the result of many years of hard work from law 
enforcement professions. When I listened to the debate and the rhetoric 
in the Congress, I cannot help but think that we would be better off if 
we had more Members of Congress with some of the experiences in law 
enforcement. It would help kind of frame what this debate ought to be 
about.
  It seems to me any law to put more police officers on the streets is 
very, very important, particularly this community policing, which is 
really the cutting edge of law enforcement.
  We have an Attorney General now, Janet Reno, who is a lot different 
from previous Attorneys General in that she has been in the front line 
of the fight against crime. It is not often when we have been able to 
point to an Attorney General that has ever prosecuted a case, that ever 
has managed a criminal law enforcement agency, that has ever had to put 
prosecutors out to a homicide scene.
  As I listen to the rhetoric in the Congress, it is very, very clear 
that there are very, very few Members of Congress who have had that 
experience in the front
lines of the fight against crime. And this crime bill, with 100,000 
  police officers, is without question working everywhere in America.I 
want to mention my home city of Lowell and community-based prosecution. 
When I first became the first assistant DA in Middlesex County, by the 
way, it is one of the largest counties in the country, we had 13,000 
criminal cases per year that came into that office.
  It was my responsibility under the district attorney when there was a 
homicide anywhere in Middlesex County to have to respond to a beeper 
from the State police to get to a homicide scene to begin the 
investigation. The first five homicides in the county, three of them 
were in the city of Lowell. It is an area that has suffered through a 
very, very difficult time in terms of crime. Since the passage of the 
initiatives from this Attorney General and this administration, they 
have formed community partnerships, which are the hallmark of community 
oriented policing.
  During the last year Lowell has opened up several neighborhood 
precinct departments in several neighborhoods. They put together 
something called Team Lowell that involves the community, the probation 
departments, the police department, and the school departments, working 
together to identify career criminals and identify those who are the 
repeat offenders.
  They have also put together a community response team, with 
inspection services. They have closed down more 
 [[Page H1346]] than 150 buildings in 1994 which were identified as 
drug houses. That is what the front line of fighting crime is all 
about. They have established flag football leagues, where the police 
officers are volunteering their time to work in these leagues to get 
kids headed in the right direction.
  As I listen to the debate and I anticipate the debate on this bill, I 
am very concerned because the Republican alternative will not put 
100,000 new police officers on the street.
  Mr. STUPAK. I know the gentleman has been working on the crime task 
force with myself and many others, and you have been deeply involved in 
this. Do you know how many police officers will be allocated or 
earmarked under the Republican crime bill we are debating this week?
  Mr. MEEHAN. There will be absolutely zero earmarked. What they are 
attempting to do is put money into block grants and send them to 
communities, and hope that those communities use the money correctly, 
and hope that those communities are on the cutting edge of community 
policing. So there is no guarantee there will be any police officers as 
a result of this crime bill.
  Let me also say in regard to that, as I watch and try to figure out 
how in the world we could have passed a crime bill initiative like 
this, it has only been given four months to work, and all of a sudden 
there are new proposals coming forward. I see stories where it shows 
there are political polls that have been conducted to come up with this 
data, focus groups where they bring in citizens and figure out what 
citizens are thinking or what the buzz words are. And it really bothers 
me, because the fight against crime is serious business. It requires a 
level of professionalism. It requires looking beyond political polls 
and focus groups and looking at hard data of what works and what does 
not.
  That is what this bill is all about. Community policing works. It 
works anywhere where it is instituted in America properly.
  In my city of Lowell we have 13 city police officers that undertook a 
program of community policing, where we got those police officers in 
the community, learned who was who in the community, identified those 
worse offenders, those people who should be made a priority, and made 
them a priority in the criminal justice system. It worked with the 
majority of the other people to get the trust.
  The gentleman told a story at one of the task force meetings of what 
happens and where you get information. You more likely get information 
riding in the neighborhood from a kid riding a bicycle, assuming that 
police office has the credibility. That is what happens under community 
policing.
  It is interesting to me, because there was a press conference in the 
city of Lowell last week; the police chief wanted to have a press 
conference and show what happened in the city of Lowell as a result of 
the community policing efforts.
  The report is out, and I got a copy of that report this week, that 
shows the number of assaults, burglary, larcency, and car thefts. In 
1994 they have changed dramatically. For example, burglaries are down 
34 percent in the city of Lowell as a result of community policing; 
residential burglaries, down 32 percent; business burglaries, down 41 
percent; larcenies, down 23 percent; car thefts, down 20 percent.
  Now, a lot of Members will not want to make determinations of how 
they going to vote based on this, because it is hard data from a police 
chief in a community that is making community policing work.
  You see, this is not a political poll. It is not a focus group. It is 
not anything that necessarily sounds good. It is not something that has 
anything to do with authorship of a crime bill. It is just cold, hard 
facts of what is working in Lowell, MA. And it is community policing. 
All of these categories, crime is down significantly, and the police 
chief of that community says the reason it is down is because of the 
fact that they have instituted the community policing program there.
  This is how we should be determining what we do in the crime bill, 
what is working and what is not. That is what fighting crime is all 
about. I know in your experiences you have had experiences where some 
things work and some things do not. Once we know what works, we have to 
put it into the form of legislation that gets the job done.
                              {time}  2000

  Community policing gets the job done.
  Mr. STUPAK. It is not just what works; there has to be a commitment, 
a commitment so the resources will be there.
  Back in 1978, 1979, when I was in the Michigan State Police, one of 
the first community policing pilot programs in the Nation was in 
northern Michigan. If I can go back up to Marquette County, it is a 
very large county. There it is very sparsely populated at some point 
and other points it has, like I said, my largest city of 17,000. But 
there are these three townships. We call them the tri-townships, which 
was sort of struck away from the center of population, sort of extreme 
end of the county. They had a rampant crime rate going on, based upon 
the number of people there.
  The factors we looked at, back in 1978 and 1979, is population 
density, the number of crimes committed, and the number of juveniles 
who live in that area. Then when we went in there, we identified these 
three townships. We asked the township boards, one of the most local 
forms of government, if they would be willing to share in a community 
policing program and would they put up a police officer and some 
resources and the Federal Government would provide them with a State 
trooper to go in and to coordinate it and work out of homes and live in 
the communities.
  Well, in less than 2 years, they reduced the crime rate by 70 
percent. They were solving burglaries and safe jobs 5, 6, 7 years old 
already. But once the community realized that it was their police 
officer and it was them that were involved in this fight against crime, 
they knew that when they called that police officer and if their house 
was broken into, the police officer who responded would be the same 
police officer that followed up the investigation, who would be the 
same police officer that went to the prosecutor's office. It would be 
the same police officer would be there in court with them, that trust 
relationship developed and we were able to solve crime in this very 
sparsely populated, tri-township area of Marquette County. That was 
back in 1978-79.
  When they left, when the trooper left in 2 years, tri-township still 
has a police department. They are still involved in community policing. 
And they still have been able to keep the crime rate at a very low 
rate, even up in northern Michigan.
  So community policing does work.
  You mentioned Lowell and your Team Lowell. In Detroit, with the 96 
police officers they received underneath the Clinton Cops Program, they 
called their team or the program CLEAN, which is the initials for 
Community Law Enforcement And Neighborhood Teams.
  So CLEAN in Detroit really symbolizes what we want. We want the 
community working with law enforcement who are in neighborhoods working 
together to help solve the crime problems. If it can work in Detroit, 
MI, or tri-township in northern Michigan, it can work anywhere in this 
country.
  And it is one program that, yes, we need police and, yes, we need the 
public working with us, but we need some leadership and some financial 
resources from the Federal Government. And that should be our role. Not 
to tell them what squad car to buy or to buy this radio, but you set up 
your community policing program. We will give you the incentives. We 
will provide you, and it is up front, it says right on our application, 
75 percent the first year, 50/50 the second year. The 75/25 match with 
Federal paying 25 the third year and the fourth year hopefully you are
  financially able to then provide the program itself.And as you 
pointed out, correctly pointed out, here we are 3 months later, just 
over 3 months, arguing for the life of a program which everyone has 
said works.
  How do Members go back to their local communities and say, that cop 
that was walking the beat, that was providing you that extra bit of 
security, that person you trusted, the person you had confidence in is 
going to 
 [[Page H1347]] be terminated because we have just terminated the 
program. Because remember, we are talking about the same pot of money 
here.
  When the crime bill was passed last year, I did not support all the 
aspects of the crime bill. In fact, I, even in the House, I voted for 
it. And in the final conference committee, because of what happened to 
the Byrne grants and some other crime labs, I was not pleased with it. 
I did not support it.
  But the point is, there was $30 billion that was what we always 
centered around, $30 billion over 5 years which is going to be paid for 
by reducing the number of Federal employees that would go into the 
crime trust fund so the money would be there.
  And the Republican proposal right now is $30 billion. But instead of 
having police officers on the street, what they want to do, they want 
to go to these block grants and they want to shift it to prisons. We 
will never fight crime if we merely throw everyone in prisons. We do 
not have enough prisons.
  And the fallacy with the argument further is, you can provide money 
for the brick and mortar, but what about the costs for the security 
officers, the corrections officers, the administration of those 
prisons.
  In northern Michigan, we had two prisons, one in Baraga, a maximum 
security prison, which Michigan went on a prison building spree in the 
1980's, and we built these prisons. For 2 years, Baraga maximum 
security prison sat empty because the State did not have the money for 
the correction officers or for the administrative cost, operational 
costs of that prison. We had a juvenile detention center. We built a 
juvenile detention facility so young people that had to be incarcerated 
could still stay closer to their families. The closest one for northern 
Michigan was some 400 miles away, and it was built in Escanaba, my 
hometown. Again, when I was back in the State legislature, we got that 
program put in. That was 1989.
  It just opened this year, excuse me, July 1994. So it has been built, 
it has been sitting empty because we did not have the money to maintain 
it. And now Michigan is on another prison building spree, Newberry 
regional site is going to be built, again up in my district. But how 
long will that last? They are going to use some Federal money to clean 
it up, build it up but, again, nowhere in either bill, the Republican 
proposal, is there any money for the administration, for the correction 
officers of these prisons.
  Mr. MEEHAN. That is an interesting point. We are going to commit 
extra moneys, we are going to take money out of other sections of the 
bill and give it to build still more prisons without even having--we 
talk about local mandates, how people, once these prisons are 
constructed--who is going to pay for them? The local communities and 
the States are going to have to try to pay for them.
  You are right, many of them do not have the money to pay for them. It 
is interesting, I had gone back to the D.A.'s office during the 
congressional break, and
 they had listened to a lot of debate on the crime bill. And they said, 
``Boy, we disagree with much of rhetoric that we heard. And it sounded 
like you guys were really getting a lot of rhetoric about getting tough 
on crime.''

  Ninety to 95 percent of all crimes in this country are enforced, 
prosecuted on the local and State level. And I have been amused by the 
debate in the Congress about getting tough on crime, and we are going 
to require so many of this and so many of that. And the truth of the 
matter is, all this bill is about is giving local prosecutors, local 
police departments some help. And no bill has ever given this much help 
in the history of the Congress to local communities in hiring more 
police officers and actually putting them on the street.
  The other thing that I think is unfortunate is this bill passed with 
bipartisan support. This is not something that just Democrats should 
support or just Republicans should support. Anyone who has been in law 
enforcement, whether they are Democrat or Republican, support community 
policing.
  Governor Bill Weld from Massachusetts, a Republican, a prominent 
Republican, strongly supports community policing. And guess what, he is 
a former Federal prosecutor. He knows a little bit about what law 
enforcement is really all about. He also supports, strongly supports 
the basketball programs that were part of that bill. Guess what? He is 
a law enforcement official.
  Ralph Martin, a Republican district attorney of Suffolk County, 
strongly supports community policing money. So the truth is anyone that 
knows anything about what works in law enforcement in this country and 
what does not work strongly supports community policing.
  So here we are, it seems to me, having this partisan debate back and 
forth. I have to believe it is all about authorship. It is all about, 
you have some of the same Republicans who supported this bill now 
apparently are going to go along with making some changes so it now can 
be a Republican crime bill rather than a Democratic crime bill. We need 
a crime bill. We do not need it to be Democratic. We do not need it to 
be Republican. This issue transcends partisan politics.
  I wish that we could take the expertise that is available. If there 
is some tinkering that needs to be done, let us make some changes. But 
not wholesale changes that may result in my hometown community of 
Lowell, MA not being able to put together the type of community 
policing programs that work, that is making the quality of real 
people's lives better day in and day out because as a police officer in 
the communities that knows that community, making sure that burglaries, 
larcenies, and car thefts, businesses are safer, all are going down by 
anywhere from 20 to 41 percent.
                              {time}  2010

  Those are the facts. Unfortunately, too often in the debate around 
here, the facts are secondary. It is all sound bites, political polls: 
``We don't want to know what law enforcement professionals say. What we 
want to do is what we think will make either the President look bad, 
the Democrats look bad, or somebody else look good.'' It is a foolish 
way to attempt to fight crime, and it is really unfortunate if we take 
a step backward, rather than forward, when we have a program that is 
working.
  It is interesting that I talked about an urban area in Massachusetts, 
Lowell, MA, where it is working effectively, and you cited examples of 
rural areas where community policing is working effectively. It seems 
to me, Mr. Speaker, that is what this debate ought to be all about.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, the other point that should be made in 
community policing, nowhere in the bill that was passed last fall do 
they tell you how to do community policing. What may work in Marquette, 
MI, in our 116-unit public housing unit, may not work in Lowell, MA.
  But what we have said is, this concept of community policing is 
flexible. It transcends party lines, it transcends neighborhoods, and 
what it must do is, you must tell us what works in your community, put 
forth your proposal, and we promise you that we have 100,000 new police 
officers that we would be willing to put forth and assist you in that 
concept.
  So the creativity that we need to fight crime is there. The only 
thing we ask is to develop a program where the community can work with 
the police and build on friendship, trust, and confidence in each other 
to fight crime.
  As we said earlier, I know you have alluded to it and I stated 
earlier, in order to fight crime it is everyone's responsibility, 
everyone in this Chamber, everyone who is listening to us tonight. It 
is our responsibility to help the police officers.
  When I went to a crime scene as a State trooper, whether it was an 
automobile accident, a breaking-and-entering, or a murder case, 
whatever it might have been, I knew nothing when I got there until I 
stepped out of my car. I could rely on my sight, my five senses, but I 
had to rely on the community, witnesses, possible witnesses, to fill in 
the blanks for me or to create that puzzle, and when the puzzle is 
complete, hopefully then we could apprehend a perpetrator.
  So we always had community policing in a sort of effort. The 
difference about this program is that being the police officer working 
a small community, hopefully I will know them on a 
 [[Page H1348]] first name basis, we will have a chance to have 
communications in a more friendlier, relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to 
a conversation during the height of a crime or a criminal 
investigation.
  Because when I pull up in my squad car they would not know who I was, 
and I did not know who they were, so two strangers or three or four 
strangers were supposed to solve a crime. But if we have three or four 
friends trying to solve a crime, the results are much greater.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why community policing is such a valuable tool. 
It has been around for a few years. What has always kept policing down 
is the cost. It is expensive to assign a police officer to a couple of 
townships, and he takes his car home with him every night. It is not 
parked at the station.
  He has certain needs which require a little bit more than probably a 
police officer who switches cars at every shift, and trades off with 
equipment, because each individual is a police officer and almost a 
police station in and of himself. His office is his home or his office 
is his car or her car. It requires a degree of help. What this program 
offers them is, we will make a 3-year commitment if they will commit to 
a community policing program that will work in their communities.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, the other thing that is interesting, and I 
thank the gentleman, when we had the crime debate in August just before 
the recess, it became frustrating for me listening to the rhetoric of 
many Members of Congress who had never been in a district attorney's 
office, had never been police officers, and really had very little 
experience, real life experience, in crime, in fighting crime.
  I challenge Members of Congress to take some time during their recess 
to go into a district attorney's office and volunteer, whether it be 
volunteer to work with attorneys on cases, whether it be to volunteer 
with victim witness advocates, who have to take the victims of crime 
and let them know what their rights are and help them through the 
criminal justice process, which is so intimidating to many victims,
 particularly victims of domestic violence, who really are victims 
twice, once to the original abuse, and twice when they have to go 
through a court system that frankly is not equipped to deal with the 
devastating problem that is permeating American society.

  But I challenge Members, and I have talked to Members to see whether 
any had the time to go into a district attorney's office, or to go into 
a police department and learn what the front lines of the fight against 
crime is really all about. I cannot help but believe if more Members 
had been willing to do that, to really find out what is happening in 
district attorney's offices across this country, in attorney generals' 
offices across this country, in police departments, whether they be 
urban police departments, whether they be county police departments or 
suburban or rural police departments, it would certainly help the tenor 
of the debate here if we can begin to debate real, professional crime 
tactics, real, professional crime opportunities that we have around 
this country, rather than to listen to the bantering back and forth 
based on, as I say, a focus group, a political poll, what sounds good, 
what might make the President look bad, what they might be able to 
embarrass the Attorney General with, partisan politics, back and forth.
  It is amazing. This is not a partisan issue; this is serious 
business. I feel very strongly that efforts to kill this community 
policing program are not in the interests of the communities that we 
represent, the communities clear across America.
  It is really important that we stay the course and let this program 
work. Four months, 4 months, and we are talking about dismantling a 
program that I have shown very persuasive evidence tonight that is 
working, not only in Lowell, MA. It is working all over the country.
  To take partisan politics to defeat this is something that disturbs 
me greatly. I hope that the debate on this will be a debate based on 
the merits of the argument. I oftentimes would break with my own 
party's leadership in the last 2 years, and boy, oh, boy, talk about 
party discipline this year, march step-by-step, go to the left, go to 
the right.
  I hope that we can have a legitimate debate about the community 
policing program in this country, because it would be great for 
America, it would be great for law enforcement in this country, and I 
think in the long run it would dramatically increase standards of 
living by lowering the crime rate all over this country.
  I thank the gentleman for his efforts on the Crime Task Force. I look 
forward to working with him over the next several days, and well into 
next week. I don't know how long we will get to debate the community 
policing program. It seems we are going to spend more time up front 
debating the first few days of the various victims' issues, which I 
think there is a broad agreement on.
  There is nothing wrong with, as I say, making minor adjustments to 
the bill. We spent half a day, three-quarters of a day, debating 
something that we all agree on, that we all agree on, but it seems when 
we get down to the end of this debate on community policing and 
prevention programs that are working, it looks like we are going to be 
a little squeezed for time, because we are going to be running out of 
time. I am not sure whose birthday it is, but we have to get it done on 
Tuesday, so there is not going to be a whole lot of time.
  I would hope that we could get a discussion based on the merits of 
the arguments over the next few days, and your experience as a police 
officer for 12 years has been invaluable to our task force, invaluable 
to the Members of Congress who are looking at this issue objectively, 
trying to find professional solutions to what many Americans feel is 
the No. 1 problem facing this country, crime.
  So thank you for your efforts, and thank you for putting together 
this special order. I look forward to working with you.
  Mr. STUPAK. I thank the gentleman for not only joining me tonight, 
but also last night, along with the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Filner], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Chapman], and others who came 
out.
  The purpose for doing these special orders or 5 minutes, as you can 
see, the Chamber is practically empty, is for the benefit of our 
viewing audience. It is our hope that they will call their Members and 
urge them to support the community policing program.
  This debate will probably start, I think, Thursday, and then go into 
Friday and possibly Monday.

                              {time}  2020

  So time is of the essence. We are on this fast track legislation.
  Many people throughout my district, and as I speak out more and more 
on community policing and 1,000 police officers, the cops on the street 
program, most people are not aware that the proposal that will be 
presented later this week is to kill this program, so we need help from 
the public to call their Representative and tell them to keep this 
program, keep the police officers on the street. We need police. We 
need prevention and not just the prisons and pork that are going to be 
offered by the other side.


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