COPS Improvement Act
On April 23rd, the House passed the COPS Improvements Act, H.R. 1139, which reinvigorates the highly successful COPS program. It calls for putting 50,000 additional police officers on the street over the next 5 years – authorizing $1.25 billion a year for COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) hiring grants. It also authorizes $350 million a year for COPS technology grants, and $200 million a year for hiring community prosecutors.
Created in 1994 under the Clinton Administration, the COPS hiring grants program was an enormously successful, popular program – helping local law enforcement agencies to hire more than 117,000 additional police officers, in every state in the union, from 1995 to 2005.
Under the COPS program, our nation experienced a significant drop in crime rates – and independent studies confirm that COPS hiring grants helped contribute to this reduced crime.
Unfortunately, the GOP-led Congress sharply reduced the funding for COPS hiring grants – reducing them from more than $1 billion a year in the late 1990s to $10 million in FY 2005 and zero funding in FY 2006 and FY 2007. In a first step to restart the program, in February, the Democratic-led Congress included $1 billion in the Recovery Act.
This bill is particularly needed because of the recession – which has led to both rises in certain types of crime and cutbacks in state and local funding for law enforcement across the country. Indeed, a recent survey of more than 200 police departments by the Police Executive Research Forum found:
-44 percent of police departments surveyed report increases in certain types of crime that they believe is a result of the economic downturn.
-More than a quarter of law enforcement agencies reported implementing a hiring freeze for sworn officers and more than half have frozen civilian positions.
-A third of agencies said they have discontinued, reduced in size, or delayed classes for new police recruits.
Following is a detailed overview of the bill:
Created in 1994 under the Clinton Administration, the COPS hiring grants program was enormously successful – helping local law enforcement agencies to hire 117,000 additional police officers. In 1994, Congress established the COPS hiring grants program, otherwise known as the 100,000 Cops-on-the-Beat Initiative – a top Clinton Administration initiative. Between 1995 and 2005, COPS hiring grants provided $9 billion to help local law enforcement agencies hire more than 117,000 additional police officers, spread across every state. Even GOP Attorney General John Ashcroft described COPS as a “miraculous sort of success.”
Under the COPS hiring grants program, our nation experienced a significant drop in crime rates – and independent studies confirm that these grants helped contribute to the reduced crime rate. A large part of the COPS program’s success was the nation’s commitment to community-oriented policing, particularly the program’s hiring component which helped get more officers on the beat. This approach was validated by a study by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office, which stated, “COPS-funded increases in sworn officers per capita were associated with declines in rates of total index crimes, violent crimes, and property crime.” According to the GAO study, between 1998 and 2000, COPS hiring grants were responsible for reducing crimes by about 200,000 to 225,000 crimes – one third of which were violent.
Unfortunately, the GOP-led Congress sharply reduced the funding for the COPS hiring grants – eliminating funding entirely in FY 2006 and FY 2007. Under the Clinton Administration, during the late 1990s, COPS hiring grants were funded at over $1 billion a year. However, by FY 2003, the GOP-led Congress had scaled back COPS hiring grants to $198 million and by FY 2005, to $10 million. In FY 2006 and FY 2007, the GOP-led Congress completely eliminated any funding for the COPS hiring grants program.
This bill reinvigorates the COPS program – including authorizing $1.25 billion per year for hiring grants, to fund up to 50,000 new cops on the beat over the next 5 years. The bill authorizes $1.25 billion per year for hiring grants, which can be used for such purposes as hiring officers to engage in community policing, serve as School Resource Officers, or engage in counter-terrorism duties. It also reinstitutes the Troops-to-COPS Program (which lapsed in 2005), which awards grants to hire former members of the Armed Forces as career law enforcement officers.
The bill also authorizes $350 million per year for COPS technology grants. In addition to the hiring grants, the bill also authorizes $350 million a year for the next five years for technology grants. These grants will allow police agencies to purchase things like lap top computers for patrol cars, crime mapping software, and interoperable communications equipment.
In addition, the bill authorizes $200 million per year to help hire community prosecutors. The bill also authorizes funds for community prosecuting programs – including programs that assign prosecutors to try cases in specific geographic areas. In endorsing the bill, the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) points out, “Currently, most state and local prosecutors, due to budget constraints, are either in a hiring freeze or are having to lay off staff. Your efforts to provide us with the resources to serve the public but more importantly the victims of crime are enthusiastically supported by NDAA.”
The bill is particularly needed because of the recession – which has led to both rises in certain types of crime and cutbacks in state and local funding for law enforcement across the country. A recent survey of more than 200 police departments by the Police Executive Research Forum found: 1) 44 percent of police departments surveyed report increases in certain types of crime that they believe is a result of the economic downturn; 2) more than a quarter of law enforcement agencies reported implementing a hiring freeze for sworn officers and more than half have frozen civilian positions; and 3) a third of agencies said they have discontinued, reduced in size, or delayed classes for new police recruits.