LACP.org
 
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Community policing cost effective response to budget cuts,
says Department of Justice
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Community policing cost effective response to budget cuts, says DOJ

November 2, 2011

by David Perera

State and local law enforcement should not abandon community policing due to fewer resources as a result of the economic turndown, says a report from the Justice Department's office of community oriented policing services.

When police departments are forced to make widespread budget cuts, some react by reducing or eliminating community policing programs.

"Herein lies one of the major fallacies as it relates to community policing. Community policing should not be viewed as a particular program within a department, but rather as a department-wide philosophy," the report says.

 
In fact, community policing is more cost-effective than traditional policing, the report asserts, mainly because community participation in crime prevention amplifies available policing resources and community partnerships can provide a more efficient distribution of combined police and community resources than reactive policing.

The report predicts that the Bureau of Justice Statistics census of state and local law enforcement, based on data collected this year will show this first ever absolute decrease in sworn personnel since the BJS began collecting such data in 1986.

The last comprehensive census of U.S. law enforcement agencies, based on data collected in 2008, showed 724,413 full-time equivalent sworn officers in the United States--704,814 full time officers, and 58,797 part time sworn officers.

Data extrapolated from the COPS Hiring Program shows that 10,000 police officers may have been laid off in the last 18 months, the report says.

City budgets tend to lag beyond national economic conditions by anywhere between 18 months to several years, the report notes. Data from applications to COPS filed from 2009 through 2011 also shows that police departments filing grants requests have had budget increases falling below the level of consumer price index inflation, the report says. One third of applicants in 2011 have reported a budget drop of greater than 5 percent between 2009 and 2011.

Studies and anecdotal data noted by the report show that some police departments have dealt with cutbacks in personnel by no longer responding to some types of calls, such as after-the-fact home burglaries or car thefts.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently highlighted the important of local police, telling [1] an International Association Of Chiefs Of Police conference in Chicago, Ill. On Oct. 25 that "more and more, state and local law enforcement officers are likely to be in a position to notice early signs of terrorist activity."

For more: - download [2] the COPS report, "The Impact of the Economic Downturn on American Police Agencies" (.pdf)