THE NATION - Uptick in crime spurs push for more police - Democrats in Congress want to renew federal hiring grants for cities.
WASHINGTON — During the 1990s, as the crime rate fell to its lowest levels in decades, President Clinton used a simple formula -- more cops equals less crime -- to explain that dramatic decline. His administration assisted local agencies in putting more than 100,000 additional police officers on the streets, an effort that proponents say helped reduce crime nationwide.
The arithmetic got a fresh look last month when the FBI announced that the number of violent crimes had increased nationally for the second consecutive year. The finding prompted Democrats on Capitol Hill to criticize Bush administration cuts in funding for state and local law enforcement, and to call for federal programs to again place more police officers on the beat.
On Thursday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a presidential candidate, introduced what he called the most comprehensive anti-crime package since the 1994 crime bill -- which he also sponsored.
The legislation would reauthorize a program called Community-Oriented Policing Services, or COPS -- providing federal funding for local law enforcement agencies to hire up to 50,000 more police officers over six years. The bill would also add 1,000 FBI agents to focus on local crime-fighting.
Biden called it "a bitter irony" that the Bush administration removed criminal investigators from local communities to focus on terrorism.
"We've improved our ability to fight . . . international terrorism, but we left our communities here at home less safe from the threat of murderers, rapists and drug kingpins," Biden said.
A centerpiece of the 1994 crime bill, COPS has provided police departments with nearly $7 billion over the last decade to hire street-patrol officers. More than 109,000 have been hired.
But the Bush administration decided to take a different tack after federal audits found COPS misspending worth millions and after studies questioned the effectiveness of adding officers.
Since the 2004 fiscal year, much COPS funding has gone not to officer hiring but to such purposes as technology upgrades and methamphetamine abatement, a May report by the Congressional Research Service said. COPS offered no hiring grants this year or last year.
In 2006, violent crime increased about 1.9% from the previous year, according to the FBI.
Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin called it "too much to suggest that changes in the president's budget request is the cause of these changes."
