A REPORT OF THE HERITAGE CENTER FOR DATA ANALYSIS THE FACTS ABOUT COPS: A PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW OF THE COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES PROGRAM

Transcription

1 A REPORT OF THE HERITAGE CENTER FOR DATA ANALYSIS THE FACTS ABOUT COPS: A PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW OF THE COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES PROGRAM GARETH DAVIS, DAVID B. MUHLHAUSEN, DEXTER INGRAM, AND RALPH RECTOR CDA-1 September 25, Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 22 (22) NOTE: Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.

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3 CDA 1 September 25, 2 THE FACTS ABOUT COPS: A PERFORMANCE OVERVIEW OF THE COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES PROGRAM GARETH DAVIS, DAVID B. MUHLHAUSEN, DEXTER INGRAM, AND RALPH RECTOR EXECUTIVE SUMMARY One of President Bill Clinton s priorities when taking office was to put 1, additional police officers on America s streets. To achieve this goal, on September 13, 1994, he signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (P.L ), which authorized the establishment of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the U.S. Department of Justice. This program became the federal government s most significant criminal justice initiative throughout the 199s. Designed to support state and local community policing activities to reduce crime, the program developed into a set of federal grants that cost American taxpayers $7.5 billion by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2. 1 If COPS has actually achieved its goal of deploying 1, more police, then one in every six state and local police officers today is federally funded. According to the Justice Department, the COPS program reached an important milestone on May 12, 1999, funding the 1,th officer ahead of schedule and under budget. 2 On August 22, 2, COPS officials stated that, [t]o date, the COPS program has funded more than 15, community policing officers. President Clinton has proposed continuing the COPS program for an additional five years to add up to 5, more community policing officers to local communities. 3 Are these estimates valid? And if it is indeed the case that 1, additional police officers are now on the street, is it not also reasonable for policymakers, community leaders, and taxpayers to ask where these officers have been placed? To evaluate the effectiveness of the COPS program in reaching its stated goals, analysts at The Heritage Foundation s Center 1. The $7.5 billion figure was obtained by summing appropriations designated for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Office of Justice Programs funding for community policing grants. See Public Laws , , , 14 28, , , and See About COPS: Rebuilding the Bond Between Citizens and the Government, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at (August 28, 2). 3. Press release, COPS Office Announces Grants to Enhance Law Enforcement Infrastructures and Community Policing Efforts in Indian Communities, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, August 22, 2, at (August 28, 2).

4 for Data Analysis examined the Justice Department s own records in the COPS Management System database as well as data supplied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the Uniform Crime Reports for 1994, 1995, and The results of the Heritage analysis suggest that the COPS program has put far fewer than 1, more police officers on America s streets. Moreover, many of the jurisdictions receiving COPS grants have funneled a sizeable portion of that funding into areas that have comparatively less need to hire more police officers. Specifically, this study found: Far fewer than 1, additional officers have been put on the street as a result of COPS. Between 1993, when federal awards for community policing began, 5 and 1998, the total number of full-time sworn police officers in the United States grew by 87,435 from 553,773 to 641,28. 6 Yet a study of the historic rates of growth in the number of police officers before the COPS program began indicates that the number of officers who would have been hired without COPS funds would have increased between 47,818 and 81,24 from 1993 to In other words, the number of officers on the beat in 1998 is just 6,231 to 39,617 higher than the historic hiring trend suggests would have occurred without COPS funds. The lower number of officers on the street mirrors the conclusions of the Justice Depart- ment s own inspector general. These Heritage findings are compatible with other independent analyses. For example, in a July 1999 report, the Justice Department s inspector general stated, Clearly, the COPS grants will not result in 1, officers on the streets by the end of FY 2. Based on projections by the COPS Office, only 59,765 of the additional officers will be deployed by the end of FY 2. 7 This number (59,765) not only includes the increase in the number of police officers in the United States, but also counts existing officers who are claimed to be redeployed to community policing as a result of the hiring of clerical employees or the purchase of equipment under the COPS program. A recent report funded by the COPS Office finds that the program will result in far fewer than 1, additional officers on the street. A team of researchers working for the U.S. Department of Justice found that the COPS program has resulted in a net increase of between 36,288 and 37,523 police officers in the United States at the end of Moreover, the Justice Department report notes that the number of additional officers hired because of the COPS program will peak at a maximum of 57,175 in 21. Even after counting officers who are redeployed due to the purchase of equipment or the hiring of administrative staff 4. The authors gratefully acknowledge the role that Scripps Howard News Service played in initiating this project. Inquiries from Scripps Howard reporters about the relationship between COPS grants and crime rate change prompted analysts from the Center for Data Analysis to construct a database for this study. 5. Although the COPS program was officially created under the 1994 Crime Act, this paper references funding awarded in 1993 since Congress included funding for community police officers in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (P.L ). The funds were awarded in calendar year The Department of Justice referred to these funds as Police Hiring Supplement (PHS) grants after the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) was created in PHS grants were superseded by a set of similar grants administered by the COPS Office. According to the Justice Department s Office of Inspector General, PHS grants were a down payment in the effort to deploy 1, additional officers on the street. See Michael R. Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Audit Division, Report No , July 1999, at (August 18, 2). 6. From a select summary of data published in the FBI s Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, at (August 24, 2). 7. Ibid. 8. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Evaluation of the COPS Program, August 2, pp

5 with COPS funds, the Justice Department researchers found that the number of officers added to the street will peak at between 68,991 and 84,63 in 21. Some police departments have used COPS funds to supplant or substitute for local funds they would have used to hire new offic- ers. An audit of grantees suspected of not complying with the grant requirements conducted by the inspector general found strong evidence that the COPS Office s projection of 59,765 additional police officers still may have overestimated the number of new officers that would be put on the street. According to an analysis of 147 high risk grant recipients, up to 41 percent used the money to supplant local funds. 9 Estimates of how many additional hours offic- ers spend on the street because of COPS grants are overstated. The COPS Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) grants were intended to enable agencies to purchase equipment and hire clerical staff so that officers could be reassigned from administrative work to community policing. Yet the inspector general found that almost four in every five high risk recipients (78 percent) could not demonstrate they had or would re-deploy officers from administrative duties to the streets. 1 Some funded agencies showed small to no growth in the numbers of new officers despite receiving large amounts of COPS funds. Between 1994 and 1998, the Miami Police Department grew by only 21 new officers, according to data the department reported to the FBI, despite receiving some $45.9 million ($34.4 million for hiring new officers) in COPS grants between 1993 and This means that an average of almost $2.2 million in federal grants was received for each additional police officer placed on the streets. Meanwhile, although Atlanta was among the top 2 grant recipients with a total of $15.3 million ($11 million for hiring new officers) in COPS funding between 1993 and 1997, the city s police department reported to the FBI a total of 75 fewer officers by The distribution of COPS funds has been highly concentrated. Almost half (47.7 percent) of the $1.58 billion in COPS funding allocated to 315 large agencies serving jurisdictions of over 1, persons between 1993 and 1997 went to just 1 police departments. These 1 departments serviced only 21 percent of the combined population of the 315 communities studied, and their officers handled only 24 percent of their reported violent crimes. Some communities with low crime rates received large COPS grants. The Heritage analysis found that the 1995 violent crime rates for at least five of the 2 largest police agencies receiving the largest grants between 1993 and 1997 were below the average for comparable jurisdictions. 9. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations, Report No , April See also Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program. 1. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations. See also Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program. 3

6 INTRODUCTION One of President Bill Clinton s priorities when taking office was to put 1, additional police officers on America s streets to help fight crime. On September 13, 1994, the President signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (P.L ), authorizing the Attorney General to implement a six-year, $8.8 billion grant program to enable state and local law enforcement agencies to hire or redeploy 1, additional officers for community policing efforts. 11 Attorney General Janet Reno announced the establishment of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in October 1994 to administer these grants. Since then, the COPS program has developed into a set of different federal grants that had cost American taxpayers $7.5 billion by the end of fiscal year (FY) It is reasonable for policymakers, community leaders, and taxpayers to question how effective the COPS program has been in meeting its objective of placing 1, additional police officers on the street. 13 As recently as August 14, 2, President Clinton reaffirmed this objective and then took credit for having succeeded in placing more than 1, new community police officers on the streets 14 (though in congressional testimony, the COPS Office sometimes redefines the objective of the program to be the funding of 1, officers). 15 This objective has been closely tied to the overarching goal of reducing crime. 16 To meet this objective, it is reasonable to expect COPS grants to be targeted to the communities most plagued by violent crime. At a fundamental level, the issue of whether or not the COPS program has indeed achieved its goals can be addressed by analyzing two assertions: 1. More Police. Many of the supporters of the COPS initiative assert that its grants are responsible for adding 1, police officers to community patrols. To test for the accuracy of this assertion, Heritage analysts estimated the number of new police. 2. Lower Crime. Supporters also assert that the COPS program awarded grants to the communities with the greatest need. Heritage analysts tested the accuracy of this assertion by examining awards in terms of per capita population and crime rates. Confounding the goal of putting 1, additional police officers on the street is the possibility that recipients will supplant the funds substitute funds from one source for another. In the case of COPS grants, supplanting occurs when state and local governments use program funds to hire officers they would have hired using their own money if the COPS program did not exist. 17 In the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law ). 12. The $7.5 billion figure was obtained by summing appropriations designated for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Office of Justice Programs funding for community policing grants. See Public Laws , , , 14 28, , , and David Peterson, Democrats Take a GOP-Like Stance on Crime, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.), September 6, 1992, p. A William Clinton, Remarks by the President to the Democratic National Convention, Staples Center, Los Angeles,, at (August 15, 2). 15. U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services, at (July 28, 2). 16. Part 2: Justification of the Budget Estimates, Department of Justice, Hearing before the House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, 16th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2), p According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, examples of supplanting the COPS grants include the following: (1) A department with vacant positions at the start of the grant period, or at any time thereafter, hires no new officers other than COPS grant-funded hires ; (2) No timely hiring, other than COPS-grant funded hiring, is done by a department to replace vacancies created by attrition existing at or after the beginning of the grant period ; and (3) Grant funds are used to replace, or to allow the reallocation of, funds already committed in a local budget for law enforcement purposes. Cited in Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program. 4

7 Crime Act, Congress specifically prohibited states and local governments from using federal funds to supplant local funds. 18 Determining whether supplanting has in fact occurred is necessary for the effectiveness of the program to be evaluated accurately. How well the Justice Department has allocated the COPS funding can be discerned by analyzing crime rates and population sizes for communities that received the grants, as well as by observing the concentration of grants among law enforcement agencies. Thus, determining whether the COPS grants went primarily to communities that have high violent crime rates, rather than to safer communities, is important to the analysis. To answer these questions, Heritage analysts first combined U.S. Department of Justice data on the COPS grants that have been awarded to police agencies across the country with data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reports on violent crime, officer employment, and population. This merged microdatabase makes possible an analysis of crime rates and COPS grants on an agency-by-agency basis. THE COPS PROGRAM: GRANTS AND GOALS To meet the goal of placing 1, additional police officers on the street, the COPS Office developed both hiring and redeployment grant programs for state and local law enforcement agencies. (See box on Major COPS Programs. ) Hiring grants, such as those awarded under the COPS Universal Hiring Program (UHP) and the Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deployment (AHEAD) program, are intended to fund the employment of new police officers. These grants usually last for three years. 19 Redeployment grants under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program usually last for one year. They fund the costs of equipment, technology, and support services (including civilian positions) so that current officers can be freed from administrative duties and deployed to the streets to accrue additional hours of community-related policing. 2 After the grant period, agencies are expected to use their own monies to continue funding the positions that were created under COPS and to keep track of the extra community policing hours that result from the equipment or technology purchased. 21 EFFECT ON TOTAL NUMBER OF OFFICERS According to FBI data in the Uniform Crime Reports, there were 87,435 more officers in the United States in October 1998 than there were in October 1993, an increase from 553,773 to 641,28 officers. 22 Much of this growth undoubtedly is due to long-term trends that predate the establishment of the COPS program, such as rapid population growth during the 198s and economic growth. Given the rapid growth in the number of officers during various periods before 1993, it is likely that a large portion of the observed growth in officer strength after Title I, Section 174(a) of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (P.L ) requires that [f]unds made available under this part to States or units of local government shall not be used to supplant State or local funds, or, in the case of Indian tribal governments, funds supplied by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but shall be used to increase the amount of funds that would, in the absence of Federal funds received under this part, be made available from State or local sources, or in the case of Indian tribal governments, from funds supplied by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 19. Prepared statement of Robert L. Ashbaugh, Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, on the Community Oriented Policing Services Program for the Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, 16th Cong., 1st Sess., October 28, 1999, p See U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, at grant_prog/more98/default.htm (August 23, 2). 21. Ashbaugh, prepared statement, p U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, 1975 to From U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, at (August 24, 2). 5

8 The major hiring and redeployment initiatives administered by the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program account for almost $5.9 billion (9 percent) of the more than $6.5 billion granted from December 1993 to May 2. 1 Police Hiring Supplement (PHS). Although the COPS program became official with the enactment of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in September 1994, Congress appropriated funding for community police officers in the fiscal year (FY) 1994 appropriation bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State (P.L ). Total amount awarded in December 1993: $148,,. Phase 1. In October 1994, the COPS Office awarded Phase 1 grants to applicants not funded under the PHS program. Recipients included 392 state, municipal, county, and tribal law enforcement agencies. According to COPS, these grants made it possible for agencies to hire about 2,6 additional officers and deputies. Phase I grants are no longer awarded under this program. Total amount awarded in 1994: $186,,. Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deploy- ment (AHEAD). Developed in 1994, these grants provide community policing funds to law enforcement agencies that serve populations of 5, or more. According to COPS information, about 4, additional community police officers were hired as a result of these grants. AHEAD grants are no longer awarded. Total amount awarded in 1995: $283,,. Funding Accelerated for Smaller Towns (FAST). This program was developed in 1994 to simplify the application process for jurisdictions serving populations of less than 5,. According to COPS, FAST grants have resulted in the hiring of more than 6, officers and deputies. FAST grants are no longer awarded. Total amount awarded in 1995: $39,,. MAJOR COPS PROGRAMS Universal Hiring Program (UHP). These grants are open to all law enforcement agencies, regardless of population served. Since FY 1995, most COPS hiring grants have been awarded under this program. According to COPS, as of February 1999, more than 42, officers and deputies had been hired with UHP grants. Total amount awarded in : $3,45,,. Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE). MORE grants are designed to expand the time available for community policing by current law enforcement officers rather than to fund the hiring of additional officers. The program is open to all law enforcement agencies regardless of population served. Grants can be used to fund up to 75 percent of the cost of equipment and technology, support resources (including civilian personnel), or overtime. For each $25, in federal funds received, agencies must redeploy the equivalent of one fulltime sworn officer to community policing. The first grants were awarded in FY According to COPS, as of February 1999, the program had funded the redeployment of 35,852 officer full-time equivalents. Grants continue to be awarded under this program. Total amount awarded : $1,147,,. Cops in Schools (CIS). The CIS program, initiated in 1999, provides federal funds to law enforcement agencies for the hiring of community police officers for schools. Total amount awarded : $259,,. Other Grants. Approximately 1 percent of COPS funding is awarded in grants for other purposes, such as research and demonstration grants related to community policing, funding to combat methamphetamine use and gang violence, and grants that encourage the hiring of military veterans. Total amount awarded : $683,5, The descriptions of the programs are from prepared statement of Robert L. Ashbaugh, Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, on the Community Oriented Policing Services Program for the Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, 16th Cong., 1st Sess., October 28, 1999, pp Totals for the grants are based on data in the COPS Management System for awards between December 1993 and May 2. These totals do not include grants awarded between May 2 and September 3, 2. They also do not include other expenses such as administrative costs. When all expenditures are considered, the total cost of the program by the end of FY 2 is $7.5 billion. Description for the CIS program from U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services Web site at default.htm (August 17, 2); description for other grants from default.htm (August 24, 2). 6

9 Chart 1 CDA-1 6 D A H C H = = I ) EJ E ) > L A EI J H E? = 6 H I 7, 65, 6, Actual Officers Employed Projected Officers Employed, Based on Trend Projected Officers Employed, Based on Trend Projected Officers Employed, Based on Trend 6,231 32,526 39,617 55, 5, COPS Related Funding Begins December Note: Trend calculations based on the geometric mean growth rates for various years for the total number of sworn officers in the country. Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, From the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. would have occurred even without the COPS program. It is difficult to estimate the total net change in officer strength that can be attributed directly to COPS program grants, but the Heritage analysis identified a set of scenarios in which the number of officers grew between 1993 and 1998 at rates similar to those seen in previous periods (see Chart 1). For example: Had the number of police officers grown between 1993 and 1998 at the rate experienced between 1975 and 1993, there would have been 61,591 officers in Using the 19-year trend, the increase in officers would be 39,617. During the 1 years prior to 1993, the number of officers grew at an annual rate of 1.91 percent. If growth during the period had matched this rate, 68,682 police officers would have been reported in the United States in Using the 1-year trend, the increase in officers would be 32,526. Duplicating the trend in officers employed would result in 634,977 officers in Using the five-year trend, the increase in officers would be 6,231. These projections, based on an extrapolation of previous growth patterns in officer employment, suggest that the number of officers at the end of 1998 was 6,231 to 39,617 higher than the historic 7

10 trends would predict (depending on the period examined). 23 The findings of this Heritage analysis are compatible with results of investigations conducted by independent analysts within the federal government. For instance, the Justice Department s Office of Inspector General reported in 1999 that, at most, only 59,765 additional officers would be added to the street by the end of FY A report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that, in its first four years, COPS had put only 3,155 additional officers on the street. 25 However, the findings of the inspector general s report suggest that even these official reports are likely to overestimate the number of additional officers hired under the COPS program and put on the streets. An audit of 147 high risk grantee cases selected by the COPS Office and supplied to the inspector general found evidence that 41 percent of these agencies used their COPS grants to supplant (or substitute for spending) their own local funds. 26 As a result, these COPS-funded officers and projects simply had displaced officers and projects that would have been funded with state and local revenues and without a net increase in officer strength. Many of the grants made under the COPS program do not actually go toward the hiring of new officers. Rather, they are used to purchase equipment and to hire clerical employees so that sworn police officers can be redeployed from administrative tasks to community policing activities. 27 These reassigned officers (or more accurately, the full-time equivalent of the person-hours freed by MORE funds) have been included in the definition of additional officers on the street used by the COPS Office and the White House. In fact, over one-third of the additional officers that the COPS Office claims it placed on the streets as of February 1999 represent grants issued for equipment and administrative staff under the MORE program alone. 28 In many cases, these reassignments of officers from desk work to community policing are notional, not real. The Justice Department Inspector General s audit of a selection of high risk grantees found that almost four in every five (78 percent) agencies that received grants for equipment or clerical staff either could not demonstrate that they redeployed officers or could not demonstrate that they had a system in place to track the redeployment of officers into community policing. 29 In addition, these Heritage estimates are broadly consistent with data in the National Evaluation of the COPS Program report funded by the COPS Office and published by the United States Department of Justice. 3 According to this report, at the end of 1998, the COPS program had increased the number of additional officers in the United States by a net total of between 36,288 and 37,523. Moreover, under their most optimistic scenario, the authors of this report found that the number of additional police officers employed due to the 23. By using an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to analyze these numbers, it was found that these extrapolation-based calculations likely represent the upper limit of the degree to which the number of officers in 1998 exceeded the trend. See Appendix A, infra. 24. Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program. 25. Norman Rabkin, Report to the Chairman, Committee on the Budget, and the Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives: Community Policing, Issues Related to the Design, Operation, and Management of the Grant Program, GAO/GGD , September 1997, p U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations. 27. For more details of these programs, see p U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations. See also Bromwich, Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program. 29. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, Special Report: Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants, Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations. 3. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Evaluation of the COPS Program, pp

11 COPS program would peak at only 57,175 by the year 21. To arrive at a figure closer to 1, new officers on the street, Justice Department analysts include not just additional officers who are hired because of the COPS program, but also officers who have been redeployed to community policing activities as a result of the purchase of equipment and the hiring of civilian administrative staff. However, even after including these redeployed officers, the COPS program is not projected to reach its goal of 1, additional officers by 23. According to the COPS-funded report, by 1998, the program had been responsible for either the hiring or redeployment of a total of between 45,376 and 48,428 officers. Based on the same assumptions, the Justice Department researchers found that the number of officers hired or redeployed under the COPS program would peak at between 68,991 and 84,63 in 21. A common conclusion noted in the research of The Heritage Foundation and the Justice Department s own inspector general has been reiterated in this COPS-funded report by the team of Justice Department researchers, who note that (w)hether the [COPS] program will ever increase the number of officers and equivalents on the street at a single point in time to 1, is not clear. 31 EFFECT ON OFFICER STRENGTH IN LARGE AGENCIES The size of the COPS program at the national level says little about how grants have been distributed to specific communities. Studying the experience of individual police forces by examining the data for a cross-section of agencies, rather than national-level statistics, permits researchers to answer more detailed questions. For example, were COPS funds distributed to the communities of greatest need or to areas with little crime relative to the rest of the nation? To help answer this question, Heritage analysts studied 315 of the nation s largest police forces (see Table B 1 in Appendix B, infra). By concentrating on agencies that covered more than 1, persons in 1998 and that reported valid crime and officer employment data for the years 1994, 1995, and 1998, Heritage analysts were able to focus on the effects of the COPS program in a variety of cities with very different crime problems. In 1998, these 315 police departments served a combined total of 94 million persons, or 34.8 percent of the U.S. population. 32 In the same year, these agencies handled 5.2 percent of all violent crimes reported to agencies that comply with the FBI s Uniform Crime Reports program. 33 Between December 1993 and the end of 1997, these 315 police forces received a total of $1.58 billion in COPS grants or 45. percent of the estimated $3.5 billion the COPS program had awarded by the end of 1997 to all existing police departments listed by the FBI as law enforcement agencies. 34 Agencies That Reduced Their Forces. A surprising result of the analysis for the large police agencies was the number that had received sizeable COPS funding but had actually reduced the number of officers they employed. The Atlanta Police Department received $15.3 million ($11 million for hiring new officers) from 1993 to 1997, but the total number of officers reported to the FBI declined by 4.9 percent (75 officers) from 1994 to The Seattle Police Department received $4.4 million ($1.8 million for hiring new officers) from 1993 to 1997, but according to data the department reported to the FBI, the agency 31. Ibid., p The 94 million population figure was obtained by summing the populations served by the 315 law enforcement agencies in the study. 33. For purposes of this study, violent crimes are defined as offenses of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and assault. See Kathleen Maguire and Ann L. Pastore, eds., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1998 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999), p For purposes of this study, police agencies are defined as agencies listed in the 1998 Uniform Crime Reports. See Appendix A, infra. 9

12 Table 1 CDA-1 6 J= E C B HJD A 2 E? A, A F = HJ A JI M EJD JD A Law Enforcement Agency New York, P.D.* Los Angeles, P.D.* Philadelphia, P.D. Chicago, P.D. Miami, P.D.* Sacramento, Sheriff* Houston, P.D. Sacramento, P.D. Newark, P.D. Phoenix, P.D. Detroit, P.D.* Los Angeles County, Sheriff Baltimore City, P.D. Atlanta, P.D.* San Diego, P.D.* Charlotte-Mecklenburg P.D. San Francisco, P.D. Nashville, P.D.* Portland, P.D. Boston, P.D. State New York Pennsylvania Illinois Florida Texas New Jersey Arizona Michigan Maryland Georgia North Carolina Tennessee Oregon Massachusetts Total COPS Funding $284,15,13 15,826,131 58,592,648 47,225,735 45,912,397 44,12,45 42,877,89 32,451,67 24,261,175 24,241,26 23,616,64 22,7,95 2,428,663 15,283,731 15,247,123 14,316,319 13,3,297 11,774,786 11,319,192 11,13,757 COPS Funding Per Additional Officer Total COPS Based on Total Funding for Hiring COPS Funding Officers ** $144,418,55 15,475, 56,475, 43,75, 34,448,14 41,584,949 25,2, 19,238,586 2,675, 21,, 17,7, 6,675, 14,45, 11,37,385 4,875, 4,799,478 7,1, 1,2, 8,66,28 8,4, $31,523 81,352 72,247 94,831 2,186,35 191,357 82, ,596 11,88 59, ,55 7,74 619,5 N/A 311, ,117 35,896 93,451 N/A 68,78 COPS Funding Per Additional Officer Based on Hiring COPS Funding $15,975 56,634 69,667 86,546 1,638,95 18,87 48,649 22,15 86,25 51, ,281 21, ,394 N/A 14,767 88,879 19,559 8,952 N/A 51,852 Note: *Law enforcement agencies where sworn officer employment data was checked by The Heritage Foundation through contacts with these agencies. The remaining agencies were contacted by The Heritage Foundation, but did not confirm the employment data they reported to the FBI. The maximum percent difference in growth rates between the number of officers supplied by the agencies and the number of officers in the FBI data was in the Nashville Police Department at 6%. Other differences in percentages are New York 1%, Los Angeles 1%, San Diego 3%, Atlanta 4%, and all others have less than 1% difference. **Funding for hiring officers between 1993 and 1997 includes the following grants: Accelerated Hiring, Education and Deployment (AHEAD), Funding Accelerated for Smaller Towns (FAST), Phase I, Police Hiring Supplement (PHS), and Universal Hiring Problem (UHP). On April 2, 1995, the NYPD absorbed 4,263 officers of the New York City Transit Authority Police Department. On April 3, 1995, the NYPD absorbed 2,779 officers from the New York City Housing Authority Police Department. This information is based on communication with the New York City Mayor s Washington, D.C., office. Source: Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis calculations based on data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, various years, and from the U.S. Justice Department s Office of Community Oriented Policing Service s COPS Management System database. downsized by 3.2 percent (41 officers) from 1994 to EFFECT ON OFFICER STRENGTH AMONG THE LARGEST 2 AGENCIES Table 1 shows data for 2 agencies that received the largest amount of funding under the COPS program between 1993 and With few exceptions, the agencies with the largest awards are located primarily in central city zones of major metropolitan areas. The four largest recipients are the police departments in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago. This distribution of funding should not be surprising considering the size of the populations these agencies serve and the high crime rates they report to the FBI. The FBI data for the 2 agencies receiving the largest volume of COPS grants strongly support the finding that federal COPS funding has had relatively little impact on growth in the numbers of officers that agencies put on the street. Given the size of their grants from $11.1 million to $284.2 million it is reasonable to expect that all 2 agencies had increased their officer strength substantially and that the increases in the number of sworn officers occurred largely in proportion to the amount of funding received. However, the data these agencies provided fail to support these expectations. In fact, in the case of two of the 2 largest recipients of COPS funding, the number of officers employed actually fell. Other agencies saw only slight increases in officer strength, while police forces that received a frac- 1

13 Table 2 CDA-1 6 J= E C + F = M EJD 8 E A J+ HE A E JD 2 E?A, A F = HJ A JIM EJD JD A = HC A IJ+ 2 5 / H= JI Law Enforcement Agency State Total COPS Funding COPS Funding Per Violent Crime* Violent Crimes Per 1, Covered Persons in Population Cops Funding Per Capita** New York, P.D. Los Angeles, P.D. Philadelphia, P.D. Chicago, P.D. Miami, P.D. Sacramento, Sheriff Houston, P.D. Sacramento, P.D. Newark, P.D. Phoenix, P.D. Detroit, P.D. Los Angeles County, Sheriff Baltimore City, P.D. Atlanta, P.D. San Diego, P.D. Charlotte-Mecklenburg P.D. San Francisco, P.D. Nashville, P.D. Portland, P.D. Boston, P.D. New York Pennsylvania Illinois Florida Texas New Jersey Arizona Michigan Maryland Georgia North Carolina Tennessee Oregon Massachusetts $284,15,13 15,826,131 58,592,648 47,225,735 45,912,397 44,12,45 42,877,89 32,451,67 24,261,175 24,241,26 23,616,64 22,7,95 2,428,663 15,283,731 15,247,123 14,316,319 13,3,297 11,774,786 11,319,192 11,13,757 $1,389 1,465 1, ,3 4, ,825 1, , ,794 2,97 2,73 2,55 5,271 1,488 3,212 2,258 5,86 2,884 3,35 2,172 5,764 6,461 1,914 4,237 2,425 5,231 3,265 3,55 7,319,546 3,466,211 1,529,848 2,749, ,72 674,243 1,734, ,845 26,232 1,85,76 997,297 97, ,29 44,337 1,157, , , , ,623 55,715 $ Note: *Calculated by dividing an agency s COPS grants by the total number of violent crimes in **Calculated by dividing an agency s total COPS grants by its 1995 population. Source: Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis calculations based on data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, various years, and from the U.S. Justice Department s Office of Community Oriented Policing Service s COPS Management System database. tion of their funding saw much larger increases in the number of officers. For example: Among the 2 largest recipients of funding between 1993 and 1997, the Atlanta Police Department reported data to the FBI indicating that that between 1994 and 1998, their force was reduced by 75 officers despite receiving a total of $15.3 million ($11 million for hiring new officers) in COPS grants. Although the Miami Police Department received $45.9 million ($34.4 million for hiring new officers) in COPS funding from 1993 to 1997, its force strength reported to the FBI increased by only 21 officers from 1994 to By contrast, the number of officers reported to the FBI in San Francisco grew by 363, though the city received only $13 million ($7.1 million for hiring new officers) in COPS funding. In other words, although Miami received 3.5 times as much COPS funding as had San Francisco, the increase in Miami s officer strength was less than 6 percent of that achieved by San Francisco. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GRANTS AWARDED AND NEED To evaluate the degree to which COPS funding has been allocated to areas that have the most pressing community policing requirements, Heritage analysts calculated need by examining violent crime rates and population. COPS Grants and Violent Crime The first measure Heritage analysts employed is the amount of money awarded to an agency for every violent crime reported in The basic premise of this calculation is that areas with large numbers of violent crimes have the greatest need for strengthened community policing and thus should receive higher levels of COPS funding. 11

14 Table 3 CDA-1 6 J = E C 8 E A J + H E A E J D A 2 E M EJD JD A = HC A I J2 A H+ = F EJ= / H= JI Law Enforcement Agency Miami, P.D. Newark, P.D. Sacramento, P.D. Sacramento, Sheriff Lowell, P.D. Los Angeles, P.D. Philadelphia, P.D. New Haven, P.D. New York, P.D. Knoxville, P.D. Atlanta, P.D. Spokane, P.D. Bridgeport, P.D. Wichita, P.D. Broward, Sheriff Newport News, P.D. Richmond, P.D. San Bernardino, P.D. Salt Lake City, P.D. Worcester, P.D. State Florida New Jersey Massachusetts Pennsylvania Connecticut New York Tennessee Georgia Washington Connecticut Kansas Florida Virginia Virginia Utah Massachusetts Cops Funding Per Capita* $ COPS Funding Per Violent Crime** $2,3 1,591 3,825 4,387 1,215 1,465 1, ,389 1, , , ,284 Total COPS Funding $45,912,397 24,261,175 32,451,67 44,12,45 4,751,883 15,826,131 58,592,648 4,774, ,15,13 6,542,492 15,283,731 7,64,296 4,499,52 1,423,372 5,7,142 5,72,335 6,277,459 5,761,339 5,368,736 5,74, Population 378,72 26, , ,243 96,578 3,466,211 1,529, ,64 7,319, ,96 44, , ,57 311, ,525 18,93 23, , , ,29 Violent Crimes Per 1, in ,271 5,86 2,258 1,488 4,49 2,97 2,73 5,437 2,794 2,453 6,461 3,1 4,598 3,837 3,438 3,553 2,853 4,235 3,931 2,376 Note: *Calculated by dividing COPS funding by the average population between 1994 and **Calculated by dividing an agency s total COPS grants by the number of violent crimes in Source: Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis calculations based on data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, various years, and from the U.S. Justice Department s Office of Community Oriented Policing Service s COPS Management System database. The results of this analysis (see Table 2) suggest that there are wide disparities in the allocation of funding relative to the number of violent crimes reported, even among the nation s largest recipients of grants. In fact, funding per violent crime was found to vary enormously among the 2 largest recipient agencies. For example: The Sacramento Sheriff s Department, which dealt with 1,488 violent crimes per 1, residents in 1995, received almost $4,4 per violent crime committed, while Nashville s Metropolitan Police Department received less than 1 percent of this amount despite a rate of 5,321 violent crimes per 1, residents. Of the 2 large police agencies receiving the greatest awards, at least five had violent crime rates in 1995 that were below the average for the 315 agencies serving more than 1, residents (2,472). These include the Sacramento Sheriff s Department, the Sacramento Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department, the San Diego Police Department, and the San Francisco Police Department. COPS Grants and Population Served Heritage Foundation analysts also computed need based on per capita COPS funding for the top 2 recipient agencies for total grants received between 1993 and 1997, based on average population between 1994 and 1997 (see Table 3). The reason for using a per capita measure is that in many areas, violent crime is rare and the major function of police agencies is to tackle other serious, if less threatening, problems such as traffic enforcement, minor property crimes, and general quality of life issues. 12

15 Table 4 CDA / H = J I ) H A A = L E O +? A J H = J ) C ). A M ) 5 K = H O, = J =. H ) C A? E A I 9 E J D = H C A I J ) K J I B E C 1? E C A M ; H + EJ O 2 E? A, A F = H J - N A? E C A M ; H + E J O 2 E? A, A F 6= HJ = A. JH! # = H C A ) C A? EA I Amount Percent of Total 1995 Population 19,574, % 1995 Violent Crimes 55, % COPS Funding $754,55, % 1995 Population 12,254, % 1995 Violent Crimes 15.2% 345,528 COPS Funding $47,4, % Note: The top ten agencies include: New York City Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Philadelphia Police Department, Chicago Police Department, Miami Police Department, Sacramento Sheriff, Houston Police Department, Sacramento Police Department, Newark Police Department, and the Phoenix Police Department. Source: Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis calculations based on data from Federal Bureau of Investigation s Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data [United States]: Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest, various years, and from the U.S. Justice Department s Office of Community Oriented Policing Service s COPS Management System database. Amount Percent of Total Total 91,729,315 2,267,212 $1,581,489,662 While the bulk of these agencies can be found in jurisdictions that have high violent crime rates, a surprisingly high number are located in areas with low violent crime rates. For agencies shown in Table 3, the COPS awards ranged from over $12 per person in Miami to slightly more than $3 per person in Worcester, Massachusetts. There is nearly a tenfold disparity in the level of funding per capita between the Miami Police Department, which received $122 for each of the nearly 379, citizens it serves, and the San Diego Police Department, which received only $13 per person despite serving nearly 1.16 million residents. In 1995, 315 police agencies served jurisdictions having over 1, persons and reported crime data for all 12 months of the year. The average violent crime rate for these agencies was 2,472 offenses per 1, inhabitants. At least four of the 2 agencies that received the largest amount of per capita funding that year had violent crime rates below this average (Sacramento Police Department, Sacramento Sheriff s Office, Knoxville Police Department, and Worcester Police Department). Two of the agencies with the highest per capita funding were found in the Sacramento area of. Despite having violent crime rates well below the national average for communities of their size, the Sacramento Sheriff s Department received per capita funding that was 3.8 times the average for agencies serving more than 1, residents, while the Sacramento Police Department received funding per person that was over 5 times this average. Among agencies covering more than 1, residents, the two Sacramento police forces accounted for 1.15 percent of the population and.82 percent of violent crimes. However, these two agencies received 4.8 percent of all COPS funding awarded in the 1993 to 1997 period to this group. CONCENTRATION OF COPS FUNDING Determining the concentration of COPS grants can shed light on which, if any, local agencies received a disproportionate share of the federal COPS subsidies for hiring new police officers. This is a particularly important factor in analyzing whether agencies that have relatively low crime rates have received disproportionately large federal subsidies funds that could go to more pressing needs. Although most major police agencies receive some COPS funding, by far the largest portion of grant dollars has been distributed to comparatively few police departments. While 276 of the 315 largest agencies received at least some funding under the program, the top 1 largest recipients 13

16 received almost half (47.7 percent) of the monies allocated under the program between 1993 and 1997 (see Table 4). The 1 largest recipients of COPS grants serve areas that represent 21.3 percent of the population and 24.3 percent of the crime reported by these 315 agencies. Almost half of the COPS funds awarded to the nation s 315 largest agencies over the 1993 to 1997 period was allocated to 1 agencies. However, the concentration of awards is heavily affected by the 18 percent of the total funding CONCLUSION At a cost of almost $7.5 billion at the end of FY 2, the COPS program represents the federal government s most significant criminal justice initiative of the last decade. Had the goal of hiring 1, additional officers been realized, the effect of the COPS program would have been to federalize the funding of nearly one in every six local and state police officers, with enormous implications for the future relationship between Washington and local and state governments. received by the New York City Police Department. Nine other agencies receiving the largest COPS awards were allocated approximately 3 percent of the funding distributed to the nation s 315 largest police forces between 1993 and 1997 (see Table 4). They received close to one in every three dollars awarded in COPS program funds. However, these nine agencies represent only 13.4 percent of the population and 15.2 percent of violent crimes reported in those jurisdictions. However, the COPS program has not fulfilled its goal: Far fewer officers have actually been placed on the streets than the more than 1, the President claims. Part of the explanation for this failure is that COPS funding has been used to supplant money that state and local authorities would have spent otherwise to hire additional officers. Moreover, some large agencies receiving COPS funding actually have cut their officer strength since the program began. Regrettably, much of the funding has flowed to communities that have a relatively low need for additional community policing while areas with more pressing needs have received little or no assistance. Gareth Davis is a Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis, David B. Muhlhausen is a Research Associate in Domestic Policy, Dexter Ingram is a Database Editor in the Center for Media and Public Policy, and Ralph Rector is a Research Fellow in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation. 14