| Myth: Washington can solve neighborhood crime. Reality: Effective local police efforts can best address neighborhood crime. |
In 1994, polls showed crime as the nation's #1 concern. Washington
responded with a multi-billion dollar crime bill that sounded tough, but
actually spent money on arts and crafts?
Getting Political on Crime: Substituting Rhetoric for Results
· Wanting to appear "tough on crime," President Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill
contained more than $6.5 billion in spending on social programs, including:
· Arts and crafts;
· Midnight basketball;
· Gender sensitivity training;
· Interpretive dance programs.
· The 1994 Crime Bill also called for 100,000 new police. However, almost 60
percent of local law enforcement agencies have declined to apply for the
grants due to cumbersome Washington requirements and other reasons.
· Studies have shown that the sheer number of officers added to police
forces is not the determinative factor in reducing crime.
What roles do the secretaries of Agriculture and Interior have in the
federal efforts to "prevent" crime?
Local initiatives work
· New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton has established
accountability programs with precinct commanders that have helped drop the
crime rate by more than 27 percent in just two years, without help
from Washington.
· In Jacksonville, Florida, tougher prosecution of juveniles has decreased
juvenile arrests by 30 percent, without help from Washington.
· In Oxnard, California, creative high-tech crime fighting techniques have
helped decrease violent crime by 38 percent and murder by 60
percent, without help from Washington.
Vision: Stronger families, stronger local law enforcement, more community
involvement, less Washington.
Concluding that Magical Bureaucrats in Washington are defeating the criminal enemy ignores the increase in violent crime in America that has occurred since 1960. There were 160 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens in 1960. In 1994, 716 violent crimes were committed per 100,000 Americans. This represents an more than 400 percent increase in total violent crime over the past three decades.
More than 400,000 Americans have been murdered since 1977 p; almost seven times the number of American soldiers killed in the Vietnam War. Whatever the yardstick, it is obvious that violent crime is alive and well in America.
Washington has attempted to address the crime problem with a number of bureaucratic, command-and-control, one-size-fits-all responses. For example, Washington has promised to provide funding for 100,000 new police officers to patrol America's streets and neighborhoods, whether or not they actually need additional officers or not. The administration has also increased spending on social programs like midnight basketball.
What has Washington's magical crime bureaucracy produced? The data and results are anything but convincing.
Let's begin with the much-publicized myth of 100,000 cops on the beat. Clinton's promise of 100,000 new police officers for local law enforcement agencies was based on wishful thinking. According to The Washington Post, "...[T]he program would never have supplied enough to pay salary, benefits, pensions and other costs, so cities would have had to come up with a lot of upfront money many say they do not have." (2/14/95) In addition, the funding for the limited number of officers provided by the grant program was only designed to last six years, not long enough to allow such officers to have the permanent effect that Washington proclaimed they would have. The COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program exhibits at least two of the prominent characteristics associated with the bureaucratic myth. First, COPS assumes that success is defined by spending money and creating programs that are completely inadequate to meet the expectations created or fill the phantom need in society. Second, the COPS program contains a built in substitution effect by encouraging local police agencies to use Washington money to pay for local staffing needs, at least on a short-term basis. Local government does not have to fund their law enforcement staffing needs when the federal government will step in and do it for them.
Yet another problem with COPS was noted by Professor John J. DiIulio Jr. of Princeton University, The Brookings Institute and the Council on Crime in America. In a Wall Street Journal article (2/15/95), Prof. DiIulio notes that COPS suffers from a one-size-fits-all mentality, allowing communities to decide whether of not to apply for the federal government's handout. He states, "... more cops are not needed everywhere.... Instead what is needed is saturation community-based policing of America's most drug-and-crime ravaged neighborhoods. The place to put more cops is in the inner cities, not in the suburbs." By allowing localities to decide whether or not to apply, and treating the placement of an additional officer in the inner city equal to placing an officer in a rural or suburban setting, COPS perpetuates the myth that a simple solution solves all of our crime problems.
DiIulio also points out that COPS is a failure because the sheer number of officers added to police forces is not the determinative factor in reducing crime. Citing studies completed by Prof. David Bayley of SUNY-Albany, DiIulio notes "for every 10 officers on a big-city squad barely one is on the streets at any given moment. On average, one big-city cop costs $50,000 a year. Given the 10-for-1 rule, every around-the-clock officer costs $500,000 a year."
A further problem is found that the Administration is using the COPS program to further social agendas that are beyond the scope of normal crime control activities. Robert Moffit and Patrick Fagan of the Heritage Foundation noted, "... police funding has become yet another extension of the Clinton Administration's politically correct "diversity" agenda.... (pg. 247 of 1996 Heritage Campaign Handbook.) They go on to note that grant recipients are required to submit analyses of their attempts to hire minorities and women with COPS program funds. The program thus establishes what are essentially racial and/or gender based quotas under the guise of a crime fighting initiative. The General Accounting Office (GAO) found that some 7,000 law enforcement jurisdictions or approximately 58 percent of the local law enforcement jurisdictions across the country did not even apply for COPS program funds because of local match and excessive reporting requirements. Thus, even when given the benefit of the doubt, the program has only added 26,000 additional officers to local law enforcement agencies across the country.
The 1994 Crime Bill, in addition to COPS, sought to address the crime problem by spending billions on social programs, that while appearing innocuous, do little to directly alter the criminal realities in our inner cities. These programs attempt to do everything from train unemployed or underemployed workers for high-skilled jobs to provide diversionary recreational activities to inner-city residents. Some of the activities authorized by the bill include midnight basketball, arts and crafts, gender sensitivity training and interpretive dance programs. While the relative social merit of these programs may be open for debate, it is certain that, dollar-for-dollar, there are more effective ways to spend $6.5 billion to directly affect crime on the streets, rather than attempting to get at the problem through back-door methods.
Finally, the 1994 Crime Bill contains provisions that do nothing but expand the Washington bureaucratic infrastructure. The bill creates a new organization of mythical bureaucrats known as the "Ounce of Prevention Council." This council is expected to provide keen insight and extensive information on how to best spend Washington money or create Washington programs to solve local crime problems. The council is given the power to coordinate the various grants included in the bill and consult with other decision -makers in the awarding of the grants. Who are the members of this elite body? What qualifications do they have? One only needs to be one of the true defenders of the myth. The members of the council are: the attorney general, the secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Agriculture, Treasury and Interior, the director of the office of national drug control policy and any other person the president decides to place on the council. Membership on the council clearly is a sign that a person has "arrived" in Washington p; the Land of the Magical Bureaucrat.
The answer to local crime problems can be found at the local level. Interference from Washington bureaucrats hurts more than it helps.
There are numerous examples of effective community-based policing in America. In New York City, Police Commissioner William Bratton has instituted a highly effective crime action plan. His plan compiles crime data on a weekly basis and holds local precinct commanders accountable for addressing street crime. A precinct commander's failure to control street crime results in dismissal or reassignment. For two years, crime has declined in all of the city's 76 precincts. Serious crimes are down from 25 to 40 percent. Police agencies from across the country and around the world are taking note of the effective New York model. Part of Bratton's secret is a refusal to ignore even petty offenses like graffiti painting or public drunkenness. New York adheres to the theory that ignoring these offenses breeds disrespect for the overall rule of law and leads to an irreversible downward spiral to more serious offenses. The New York system works: Crime is down to levels that the Big Apple has not seen since the early 1970s.
New York is not the sole success story. In Jacksonville, Florida, tougher prosecution of juvenile offenders and removing problem juveniles from the streets has decreased juvenile arrests by 30 percent. In Houston, Texas, Police Chief Sam Nuchia has started an active "citizens patrol program" which has resulted in an increase in arrests and police efficiency and a decrease in crime. In Oxnard, California, the use of high-tech crime-fighting techniques like advanced crime-tracking computers and telemarketing systems to warn residents of known criminal activities in their neighborhoods has proved effective. The results: violent crime is down 38 percent and murder down 60 percent.
These initiatives all have much in common, but the key is that they are locally operated and locally driven. Washington does not have the answers to local crime problems and should not operate under the false belief that spending more money on local crime initiatives or creating new programs is the answer to local crime problems. Magic Bureaucrats in Washington cannot investigate street crimes. They cannot intervene in the local domestic abuse case. They do not arrest shoplifters. They cannot try criminals in the courts of the many states of the union. Local officials within local law enforcement and criminal justice organizations are the key to addressing local crime. Communities should look to these individuals at the local level to solve their problems and address their concerns, holding them responsible for the results which their activities produce.
If local communities are truly serious about addressing crime problems in their communities, they must look beyond the police department and the courts for solutions. Social scientists agree that the real cause of crime is the breakdown of the family in America. Lack of family and community support, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, lack of supervision and many other family problems all lead to violent crime. These problems are most evident in America's inner-cities. Until we as a society decide that we will all work as individuals to stem the tide of community and family destruction, our other efforts to resolve the symptoms of the crime problem will do little to end the destructive cycle of unlawfulness.