Congressman Frank Votes for Cops Bill - Passes the House

Congressman Barney Frank today voted in favor of the COPS Improvements Act (H.R. 1139), which passed the House with overwhelming support.

The COPS legislation would authorize $1.25 billion a year for Community Oriented Policing Services for grants to hire additional police officers.

Over the next five years, it is expected that the legislation would put 50,000 police officers on the streets of America. In Massachusetts alone, it is projected that the funds will allow communities to hire more than 1,200 additional police officers. The COPS bill also authorizes $350 million a year for technology grants, and $200 million a year for community prosecutors. All COPS grants are made on a competitive basis.

“Passing this important bill is step one,” said Frank. “Step two will be working with the communities I represent to get our fair share so we can put more police officers on the street.”

Some Massachusetts cities and towns have been forced to cut the size of their police forces because of rapidly increasing budget pressures due to the financial crisis. Meanwhile, some cities and towns in America have experienced increasing crime rates.

The COPS program was created in 1994 under the Clinton administration, and between 1995 and 2005 it helped local law enforcement agencies hire 117,000 additional police officers across the nation. According to the Government Accountability Office, between the years 1198 and 2000 alone, the COPS hiring grants were responsible for reducing crimes by about 200,000 to 225,000 crimes. It is estimated that one-third of those were violent crimes. The COPS program has been widely-praised, including by former Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft, who hailed it as a “miraculous sort of success.

However, the Republican Congress cut funding for COPS grants, and in FY 2006 and FY 2007 completely eliminated funds for the hiring program. Democrats reversed this trend when they became the majority in 2007, passing a new COPS bill which then stalled in the Senate.

The COPS bill passed the House today by a vote of 342-78, with 248 Democrats voting for the bill and none voting against it. 94 Republicans voted for the bill, and 78 opposed it. The legislation passed today is likely to be confirmed by the Senate and signed into law.