Robert P. Casey Jr.

October 6, 2007

Source: Times Leader

By Rory Sweeney

Local police departments overextended with increasing varieties of crime might soon get help going back to basic policing, according to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr.

Casey, D-Scranton, announced in a news release that he has joined with about a dozen other Democratic senators to propose an amendment to an appropriations bill that would increase by $110 million federal funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Part of the U.S. Department of Justice, the office distributes grants to local departments. The proposed extra money would fund a program that pays 75 percent of newly hired, entry-level officers’ salaries and benefits, up to a maximum amount of $75,000 per officer over a three-year grant period. Local departments then kick in the remaining 25 percent unless a hardship waiver is granted by the agency.

The additional funding would put approximately 1,400 new police officers or sheriff deputies on the street, the release stated. The program released more than $208 million in grants in fiscal year 2006.

“For more than a decade, the COPS program has been successful in reducing crime by helping local communities put more law enforcement officers on the beat,” Casey said in the release.

The COPS office was created in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. “Community policing puts law enforcement professionals on the streets and assigns them a beat, so they can build mutually beneficial relationships with the people they serve,” according to the office’s Web site. “By earning the trust of the members of their communities and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety, community policing makes law enforcement safer and more efficient.”