Government Technology - August 2007 - (Page 24)

At a Glance When peering into the future of law enforcement, police see a dramatic increase in the use of technology that could increase their effectiveness, like this virtual hallucination device. In Colorado Springs, Myers said, the situation is critical. “We are increasingly reaching what we call the saturation point, which is when you make a call for service and we don’t have one free officer citywide to respond to that call.” Myers’ staff recently met to discuss and identify what police activities bring the greatest value to the community and which ones can be eliminated. They may decide to go completely to “cold reporting status” for traffic accidents as they do at busy times of day, meaning that unless there’s an injury or drunk driver involved, the police won’t come. Less Money, Less Flexibility Everyone acknowledges a combination of factors led to the lowered crime rate of the ’90s, including a strong economy, a decrease in crack cocaine use and a smaller population of young people. Currently there are several factors boosting the surge in crime, such as the resurgence in methamphetamine use and baby boomers’ children at an age when they’re most likely to commit crimes. “It’s complicated,” said Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty. “Talk to any chief and if they say they have control of crime, they’re not being honest. You don’t, because there are so many social factors involved.” Oklahoma City didn’t accept COPS hiring grants because of the stipulation that officers hired had to be kept for at least a year after the grants ran out, and the city didn’t think it could match the funds. “I think a lot of communities had that problem,” Citty said. “They took advantage of the COPS grants and all of a sudden, they had to fund it themselves.” Yet, as critics of the COPS hiring program quickly point out, Oklahoma City, too, experienced a drop in crime in the ’90s, proving that with or without the extra cops, most cities saw a hiatus in criminal activity anyway. Another criticism of the COPS hiring program was that some of the money was misspent, and that many open positions were never filled. Federal audits have actually proven as much. Oklahoma City, however, tapped other justice block grants, such as Justice Assistance Grants, which were used to buy technology and for overtime to staff high-priority areas. “The block grant money was huge,” Citty said. “We went from having $1 million to spend before 9/11 to about $300,000 now. That’s a big hit for us.” Now there’s less money for everyone, and a lot of it is earmarked for homeland security. “We had much more discretion with that [Justice Assistance Grants] funding,” Citty said. “We bought computers with it, used it for information systems, our fingerprint systems, overtime programs in high-crime areas and entertainment districts where we really needed additional manpower.” “The grant money that came in from homeland security was extraordinarily restrictive, even for training,” said Flynn, who served for more than three years as Gov. Mitt Romney’s secretary of public safety and administered homeland security and criminal justice grant money during that time. “You might want to do sniper training but no — you had to prove you were doing terrorist-related sniper training. Fire departments might have wanted to do HAZMAT training, but if they didn’t link it to a nexus with terrorism, they wouldn’t fund HAZMAT training.” That lack of flexibility may have been a backlash to claims that some of the early homeland security money was misspent. “It’s been limited, and that’s been compounded by the fact that in some parts of the country, I don’t think the grants have been used wisely,” Myers said. “The pie has been carved up in so many pieces trying to satisfy dozens and dozens of constituencies that it’s turned into more of a Christmas list for local government managers who couldn’t get what they wanted out of their normal budgeting procedures. They’ve leveraged some of those homeland security grants to get — I don’t want to call them toys — but operational items that probably should have been a part of the regular operating budget.” As much of the rest of the nation, Oklahoma City is now dealing with a gang problem and an alarming rise in violent crimes involving fatalities. “Last year 35 percent or 40 percent of Cause and Effect? This graphic shows the decline in funding for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants and Justice Assistance Grants (JAG), along with the rise in U.S. homicides. 2500 2479 2000 MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 16,742 (est.) 16,528 2191 16,204 1640 16,134 16,692 16,800 16,400 16,000 15,600 U.S. HOMICIDES 1500 1000 500 0 1240 102 15,200 AUG_07 FY2002 FY2003 FY2004 FY2005 FY2006 24 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - August 2007

Contents Point of View The Big Picture The Last Mile Letter to the Editor GT Spectrum Up Close Vanishing Act Way Back Machine Fast Track to Nowhere Best of Both Worlds Texting 911? GIS to Go Neighborhood Watch Two Cents Products Signal: Noise Government Solutions

Government Technology - August 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.