[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COPS IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2007, THE JOHN R. JUSTICE PROSECUTORS AND
DEFENDERS INCENTIVE ACT OF 2007, AND THE WITNESS SECURITY AND
PROTECTION ACT OF 2007
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM,
AND HOMELAND SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 1700, H.R. 916, and H.R. 933
__________
APRIL 24, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-72
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
----------
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34-926 PDF WASHINGTON : 2007
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. (BOBBY) SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RIC KELLER, Florida
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DARRELL ISSA, California
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia STEVE KING, Iowa
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TOM FEENEY, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
ROBERT C. (BOBBY) SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
MAXINE WATERS, California J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
JERROLD NADLER, New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia Wisconsin
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
Bobby Vassar, Chief Counsel
Michael Volkov, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
APRIL 24, 2007
THE BILLS
Page
H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of 2007''................. 2
H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
Incentive Act of 2007''........................................ 14
H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007''.... 22
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Robert C. (Bobby) Scott, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Subcommittee
on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security..................... 1
The Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security........................ 27
The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New York, and Member, Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security............................... 38
WITNESSES
Ms. Laurie Robinson, Director, Master of Science Program,
Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania
Oral Testimony................................................. 41
Prepared Statement............................................. 42
The Honorable Douglas H. Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey,
President of the United States Conference of Mayors
Oral Testimony................................................. 48
Prepared Statement............................................. 49
Mr. Edmund H. Mosca, Chief of Police, Old Saybrook Department of
Police Services, Old Saybrook, Connecticut
Oral Testimony................................................. 53
Prepared Statement............................................. 55
The Honorable Kamala D. Harris, District Attorney, City of San
Francisco, California
Oral Testimony................................................. 75
Prepared Statement............................................. 76
Mr. Mark Epley, Senior Counsel, Office of the Deputy Attorney
General, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC
Oral Testimony................................................. 82
Prepared Statement............................................. 85
Mr. John Monaghan, Consultant, New York City Law Department, New
York
Oral Testimony................................................. 93
Prepared Statement............................................. 94
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and
Member, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security 30
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record........................ 115
OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record but not Reprinted
GAO Report, GAO-06-104, entitled Report to the Chairman, Committee on
the Judiciary, House of Representatives, October 2005, Community
Policing Grants, COPS Grants Were a Modest Contributor to Declines
in Crime in the 1990s. This report is available at the Subcommittee
and can also be accessed at:
http://www.gao.gov/news.items/d06104.pdf
COPS IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2007, THE JOHN R. JUSTICE PROSECUTORS AND
DEFENDERS INCENTIVE ACT OF 2007, AND THE WITNESS SECURITY AND
PROTECTION ACT OF 2007
----------
TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
and Homeland Security
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Robert
C. (Bobby) Scott (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Scott, Waters, Weiner, Jackson
Lee, Baldwin, Forbes, Sensenbrenner, and Coble.
Staff present: Bobby Vassar, Majority Chief Counsel;
Gregory Barnes, Majority Counsel; Carolyn Lynch, Minority
Counsel; and Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member.
Mr. Scott. The Subcommittee will now come to order.
And I am pleased to welcome you to today's hearing before
the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on
H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of 2007;'' H.R. 916, the
``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of
2007;'' and H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and Protection Act
of 2007.''
[The bills, H.R. 1700, H.R. 916, and H.R. 933 follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Scott. The first of the three bills, H.R. 1700, the
``COPS Improvement Act of 2007,'' amends the Omnibus Crime
Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to expand the current
authority of the attorney general to make grants for public
safety and community policing for the COPS program.
COPS program was originally created in 1994 as part of the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Since its
inception, the mission of the program has been to advance
community policing in all jurisdictions across the United
States.
The program achieves this objective by awarding grants to
State, local and tribal law enforcement agencies so they can
hire and train law enforcement officers to participate in
community policing, to purchase and deploy new crime-fighting
technologies and to develop and test new and innovative
policing strategies.
Since 1994, the program has awarded more than $11 billion
to over 13,000 law enforcement agencies across the United
States, and at the end of fiscal year 2004, the program had
been credited with funding more than 118,000 community policing
officers.
The second of the three bills, the ``John R. Justice
Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007,'' also seeks
to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
1968, but in the case of this measure, the legislation
specifically directs the attorney general to assume the
obligation to repay student loans of any individual who agrees
to remain employed for at least 3 years as either a State or
local criminal prosecutor or a State, local or Federal public
defender in a criminal case.
The inherent difficulties associated with retaining
qualified public attorneys are not new, and there are multiple
reasons why an attorney might choose the private sector over
the public sector. The most frequency discussed reason centers
around the need for higher-paying jobs in the private sector to
pay off lingering student loans.
The National Association of Law Placement reports that the
median salary for a 5th-year associate in private practice is
$122,500. In contrast, the median salary for a 5th-year State
prosecuting attorney is merely $55,000, while a 5th-year public
defender makes even less at $54,000, and a 5th-year local
prosecutor makes about the same.
With significant pay disparities such as this, it is easy
to understand how public-sector attorneys are easily lured away
with the hope of obtaining larger salaries that can be found in
the private sector, particularly when you have student loans
involved.
The final measure we are considering today is H.R. 933, the
``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007.'' It seeks to
amend title 28 of the U.S. Code to establish within the U.S.
Marshals Service a short-term witness protection program for
witnesses that are involved in a State or local trial involving
homicide, a serious violent felony or a serious drug offense.
To ensure the best possible use of limited Federal
resources, the legislation also directs the U.S. Marshals
Service to give priority to those prosecutors' offices that are
located in a State with an average of at least 100 murders per
year during the 5-year period immediately preceding an
application for protection.
Witness intimidation reduces the likelihood that citizens
will engage in the criminal justice system which will deprive
police and prosecutors of critical evidence. Moreover, it can
have the unwanted effect of reducing public confidence in the
criminal justice system and can create the perception that the
criminal justice system cannot adequately protect its citizens.
I am looking forward to the testimony of our witnesses on
these latter parts as well as their thoughts on the previous
issues with regards to prior-mentioned bills.
With this said, it is my pleasure to recognize the esteemed
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, my colleague from Virginia,
Representative Randy Forbes.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Chairman Scott.
I thank all of you for being here with us today. We
appreciate your time and look forward to your expertise on
these matters.
I want to thank the Chairman for holding this legislative
hearing on H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement Act of 2007; H.R.
916, the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive
Act of 2007; and H.R. 933, the Witness Security and Protection
Act of 2007.
These bills attempt to address serious crime problems in
our country: the rise in violent crime, the need for more State
and local prosecutors and defenders, and witness security
programs in State and local courts.
But I hasten to emphasize the word ``attempt'' to address
these problems. Unfortunately, in their haste to address these
problems, those drafting these bills have grabbed on to their
old tried-and-true solutions: throw money at the problem, put
out press releases, and in the end, waste taxpayers' money. We
can and should do better.
The Cops on the Beat program was created in 1994 to award
grants to State, local and tribal governments for the hiring
and rehiring of police officers. Since then, COPS has awarded
more than $11 billion to over 13,000 law enforcement agencies.
The COPS Office within the Department of Justice reported
that by the end of fiscal year 2004, it had funded 118,000 new
positions. That is what it reported.
A review of the program by the White House Office of
Management and Budget, however, found that the COPS program had
put fewer than 90,000 officers on the street. Likewise, a
University of Pennsylvania study found that the number probably
would wind up closer to 82,000, or 30 percent fewer cops than
DOJ's estimate.
Despite the billions spent on this program, studies on the
impact of the COPS program have reached conflicting findings
and conclusions. A 2005 GAO report found that the COPS program
has had only a modest impact on reducing violent crime.
The GAO report concluded that although COPS expenditures
led to increases in sworn police officers above levels that
would have been expected, ``Without those expenditures, we
conclude that COPS grants were not the major cause of the
decline in crime from 1994 through 2001.''
A May 2006 Heritage Foundation study reached two important
conclusions: One, spending on the COPS program did not lead to
an increase in the overall spending by local law enforcement,
but merely supplanted State and local funds; and two, the COPS
program has led only to small reductions in crime, the benefits
of which do not outweigh the costs of the COPS program.
In 2005, Congress passed a bipartisan DOJ reauthorization
that included a variety of changes to the COPS program,
including authorizing over $1 billion a year through the end of
fiscal year 2009. Here we are, less than 2 years later,
considering a bill that would increase the COPS reauthorization
to $1.5 billion through fiscal year 2013.
It is business as usual. Rather than seeking to use
innovative policing programs which have been shown to produce
results, this bill simply throws more money down the drain and
ignores the fact that as much as $277 million has been misspent
and despite multiple reports that the COPS program has little
to no impact on crime.
The better approach would be to take time to identify what
works. Cities like Los Angeles and New York are experiencing a
drop in violent crime. We need to ask why. What are these
cities doing to achieve this success? What can we learn from
them about innovative policing programs?
H.R. 916, the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
Incentive Act of 2007, establishes a loan forgiveness program
within the Department of Justice for State and local
prosecutors and for Federal, State and local public defenders.
Despite the good intentions of the bill's sponsors to encourage
young attorneys to join the criminal justice system and prevent
attrition, I have several concerns about the bill.
First and foremost, I am alarmed at the enormous cost of
the bill, which would assume up to $60,000 in student loan debt
for every prosecutor and public defender in the country without
any limitation whatsoever. Repaying the debt for even just
50,000 participants would cost $3 billion.
In addition, H.R. 916 requires the Department of Justice--
and not the Department of Education--to administer the program,
this despite the fact that the Department of Education is the
agency charged with awarding Federal student loans and
currently administers several loan forgiveness programs. I can
see no reason why the Department of Justice should be required
to establish a system for repaying student loan debt when one
already exists in the Department of Education.
Moreover, the bill requires the Department of Justice to
undertake this program, regardless of whether any money is
appropriated by Congress. We all know that simply authorizing
funds for a program does not guarantee that those funds will
ultimately be appropriated. Should this bill become law, the
Department of Justice would be required to divert funds from
its criminal justice functions to administer this program.
Finally, the bill makes no provision for whether
participation in existing State and local loan forgiveness or
repayment programs would disqualify participation in this
program or at least offset a recipient's award.
Finally, H.R. 933, the Witness Security and Protection Act
of 2007, creates a short-term State witness protection section
within the U.S. Marshals Service to provide the short-term
witness security services for State and local witnesses in
homicide, violent crime and drug cases.
Now, recently, this same Committee held a field hearing in
New Orleans to address the increasing crime problem plaguing
that city. We learned that witness intimidation is a reason why
criminals go unpunished.
However, we learned that the major reason was because the
entire judicial system was just so bad that even before the
hurricane, only 7 percent of those arrested--7 percent--for
even violent crimes, ever went to jail, and only 12 percent of
those arrested for murder ever went to jail; that even when the
prosecutor caught the murder and the murderer on videotape, he
did not prosecute; and that judges who let criminals on the
street saw their courts get a percentage of the release bond.
The reason witnesses were intimidated, according to
testimony given to us, is because the judges put criminals back
on the street before the witnesses could get home from the
courthouse.
So what is our answer? Just send them a check.
This bill is sponsored by Mr. Cummings of Maryland, who has
championed the issue of witness protection and witness
intimidation, and I commend him for his dedication on this
important issue. However, I have several concerns about the
practical effects of this bill.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to put the rest of my statement
in the record. And I hope we can work together to address the
concerns with all three bills we are reviewing today.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forbes follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable J. Randy Forbes, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Scott. Thank you. I thank my colleague for his
statement, and I join you in insisting that programs be cost-
effective, and we need to have more hearings on that. Many of
the things that we have done are not cost-effective.
I notice that you did say that the COPS program did reduce
crime, unlike many of the slogans that we have codified which
actually increased the crime rate. So I join you in making sure
that we can have cost-effective crime reduction policies.
We have a vote coming very shortly, and the sponsor of the
COPS legislation is with us, and I would recognize him for a
short statement.
Mr. Weiner. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will speak with my
usual Brooklyn alacrity. I want to thank you for scheduling
this hearing and thank your staff for their help with this and
Mark Dunkelman of my staff, who has become perhaps the foremost
expert on this program.
You know, when the COPS program was originally created,
there was a certain amount of controversy surrounding it. There
were some that said, ``You know what? Philosophically, putting
on cops on the beat is not what the Federal Government should
be doing,'' despite the fact in the mid-1990's we were
experiencing an explosion of crime.
The COPS program, though, has now, with some exceptions--
and perhaps some of them are in the room--become seen as the
classic democrat--with a small D--distribution of smart
resources. We have had small towns, big cities all get
additional cops out on the beat because of this program.
There might be some who argue that it is no longer the job
of the Federal Government to provide assistance to localities
in trying to protect themselves, but those people do not
include former attorney general John Ashcroft, for example, or
former secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge who said
famously before this Committee that homeland security starts in
our hometown, that it is going to be hometown police
departments that are ultimately going to be the way we stay
safe not only from crime, but from threats from terrorists as
well.
The gentleman on the other side talked about some of the
criticisms that remain of the program. He said that there is
disagreement about how many cops were hired. Well, there are
118,000 additional cops on the street, according to the GAO,
according to our own stats, according to the COPS Office of the
Bush administration. There are additional cops on the street
because of this program.
Now we have gone through this period where in Congress have
said repeatedly that we believe the COPS program should be
continued. In a bipartisan way, we reauthorized the Justice
Department which included language that said fund the COPS
program.
We said that there are some changes that needed to be made,
for example, to reflect the idea that there are more terrorism
jobs that localities have, that we might want to do some things
to incentivize local police departments to hire troops
returning from the front with these grants and to allow more
use of technology.
One of the things that the gentleman points out, there is
some controversy about exactly how many cops were added. Well,
one of the things the COPS program has done has said that if
you can invest in your local police department, you might not
need more officers, but you might need technology to make it
possible for them to leave their police car or leave their desk
and go out and patrol the streets. We count that as an
additional cop on the street, as I thought most good Government
people would.
We are doing in this House, frankly, what has been
supported in a bipartisan fashion. We have several--I think
over 25--Republican cosponsors in addition to virtually every
Democratic Member of this House.
If my colleagues believe that it is our job to help law
enforcement do their jobs in localities, the COPS program has
been a success, and it has not just been a success in big
cities like New York. It has been a success in tiny counties
and tiny villages all across this country, and now we are here
to say let's not let that success end.
And finally, let me point out one other thing. You know,
while the Bush administration has continued to provide funding
for the COPS Office, we have gradually become--over the course
of years, less and less of the COPS funding is going to
actually hiring cops.
In 1995, 81 percent of the money went for cops, and 19
percent went for non-hiring parts of the program. In 2006, it
went for zero for hiring--not a single new officer was hired--
all of the funds were used for non-hiring elements of the COPS
program. Our bill reverses that.
It is going to be passing in the other body, we are going
to pass it here, and citizens of the United States are going to
be safer because of it.
And I thank you, Congressman Scott and Mr. Chairman, for
taking the lead on this.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, and I thank the gentleman for his
comment.
As I indicated, we have several votes, and it will be
probably about half an hour or so before we get back. We will
be back as soon as we can.
[Recess.]
Mr. Scott. The Committee will come to order. And we
apologize for taking so much time, but when the speaker calls,
then we have to respond.
We have a distinguished panel of witnesses here to help us
consider the important issues of the day.
Our first witness, Laurie Robinson, currently serves as the
director of the Master of Science program at the University of
Pennsylvania's Department of Criminology, a position she has
held since 2004. Prior to that, from 1993 to 1999, she served
as the assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of
Justice. In that capacity, she headed the Office of Justice
Programs, the department's research, statistics and State and
local criminal justice assistance arm, which includes the
National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Statistics
and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Our next witness, the honorable Douglas Palmer, was elected
in 1990 to serve as Trenton's mayor, the first African-American
to hold that post. In 2003, he was appointed to serve as
president of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and
just 3 years later, in 2006, he became president of the
bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors. Through his tenure, Mayor
Palmer has focused on improving health care, particularly for
children, the elderly and poor. Mayor Palmer is a graduate of
Hampton University, where he received a Bachelor of Science
degree in business management.
Our third witness is police chief Ed Mosca. He joined the
Old Saybrook Police Department in 1960, rose through the ranks,
being promoted from detective to sergeant to lieutenant and
ultimately appointed chief of police in 1971. Past president of
the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association and a past member
of its board of directors, he attended Springfield College and
the University of New Haven. He also attended the Connecticut
Chiefs of Police Academy where he graduated first in his class.
He also attended the Command Training Institute of Bapson
College, the FBI National Academy and the FBI-sponsored LEEDS
course.
Our next witness, Kamala Harris, is currently the district
attorney for the City of San Francisco. In December 2003, she
was elected as the first woman district attorney in San
Francisco's history and the first African-American woman in
California's history to hold that office. A successful
prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco, she served in
the San Francisco district attorney's office as the managing
attorney for the career criminal unit from 1998 to 2000. She
then headed the San Francisco city attorney's division on
families and children. Throughout her tenure, Attorney Harris
has touted a smart on crime approach, vigorously prosecuting
criminal offenders while remaining committed to rehabilitation
and preserving civil liberties. She holds a bachelor's degree
from Howard University and obtained her doctorate from the
University of California's Hastings College of the Law.
Our fifth witness, Mark Epley, currently serves as senior
counsel to the deputy attorney general of the United States. In
this role, he provides advice on budget and legislative matters
and oversees the grant-making components of the Department of
Justice. In addition to his other duties, he is charged with
being the lead within the deputy's office for the attorney
general's Project Safe Childhood Initiative, a nationwide
effort to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
Our final witness, John Monaghan, currently serves as a
consultant on police policy and procedure. In this capacity, he
provides assistance on research writing and expert witnesses to
various organizations, including the New York City law
department, the Sergeants' Benevolent Association and the
Lieutenants' Benevolent Association. Prior to assuming his
current responsibilities as a consultant, he served for more
than 20 years with the New York City Police Department, rising
through the ranks of sergeant to captain and ultimately to
lieutenant. He holds a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice
from John Jay College and a master's in public administration
from Harvard University.
Each of the witnesses' written statements will be made as
part of the record in its entirety.
I ask each witness to summarize his or her testimony in 5
minutes or less, and to help stay within that time, there is a
timing light at the table. When you have 1 minute left, the
light will switch from green to yellow, and finally to red when
5 minutes are up.
So we will begin with Professor Robinson.
TESTIMONY OF LAURIE ROBINSON, DIRECTOR, MASTER OF SCIENCE
PROGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Robinson. After a decade of decline, we know that
violent crime and homicide is now increasing in many cities
across the country. The Police Executive Research Forum
released a report just last month that found dramatic increases
in violent crime among 56 jurisdictions surveyed, more than a
12 percent increase in robberies and a 10 percent in homicides.
And crime is again in the center of public concern, as we
have seen in mayoral races now ongoing in Dallas and
Philadelphia. Philly, in fact, has had more homicides so far
this year than the much larger cities of New York, Los Angeles
and Chicago.
As I talk to thoughtful law enforcement and criminal
justice leaders around the country, they are struggling. They
are confronting very difficult gun, gang, drug and violence
problems, but working with fewer officers, reduced budgets and
added homeland security duties
Despite the fact that in our system of Government, States
and localities have the major responsibility, of course, for
public safety, I know from the 7 years that I spent as
assistant attorney general in the Justice Department that
effective Federal leadership in addressing crime is critical.
And in thinking about the best way that the Federal
Government can assist, I think it is helpful to recall the
history of the Federal criminal justice assistance program
which goes back to the highly acclaimed report of the 1967
Johnson Crime Commission.
In my written statement, I discuss the appropriate Federal
roles that the commission reports laid out, many of which were
reiterated in the Reagan administration's violent crime report
in 1981 and which are still timely and pertinent today.
For purposes of this oral statement, I will make four
points.
First, Federal dollars should be used to ensure we learn
what works, as Mr. Forbes laid out, and to spread that
knowledge. Federally supported research to understand what is
effective in controlling and preventing crime, field
experiments conducted in concert with police and other
practitioners, are terribly important just as we would conduct
drug trials in NIH in the field of medicine. The difference is
that in medicine, there are hundreds of millions of dollars
being invested, but in crime, only a few million dollars are
spent.
And then we need to spread that knowledge very broadly. I
have urged creation in OJP of something like a what works
clearinghouse. Nothing like that now exists. I wish I had set
that up before I left.
Second issue: Federal leadership can support innovation,
something local communities often do not have the money to pay
for on their own. Examples here would be initiatives like the
COPS Office has launched on school violence or methamphetamine
or OJP's work over the last decade with drug courts.
Third issue: One of the most cost-effective ways Federal
money can be spent, in my experience, is on technical
assistance and training, and here I would mention the COPS
Office's Regional Community Policing Institutes. I think they
are an excellent example.
Fourth, despite our limited ability to scientifically
measure the effectiveness of the large block grant programs,
like Byrne or JAG or the COPS Office program, where spending is
invested in a limitless number of locally chosen programs, I
think they have done much good.
Even those who have opposed using Federal dollars with
COPS, for example, to pay local police salaries have frequently
acknowledged that COPS has helped dramatically to spread
community policing, and it has certainly reinvented the way a
Federal grant agency relates to its constituents.
The fact is that State and local criminal justice right now
is in a twofold crisis: dealing with rising crime on the one
hand and juggling additional responsibilities in the post-9/11
world on the other.
In the spirit of the 40-year criminal justice assistance
program, in my view, Federal leadership and support is vital to
help States and localities deal with the challenging problems
they are now facing of rising crime and homicide, drugs and
gangs.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Laurie Robinson
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
My name is Laurie Robinson. I served from 1993 to 2000 as Assistant
Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in the U.S.
Department of Justice, overseeing an annual budget of more than $4
billion to work in partnership with states and localities in addressing
crime. During my last year at OJP, the agency was administering some
42,000 grants. I currently direct the Criminology Master of Science
Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to talk
about the recent increase in violent crime nationally--and why it is
crucial that the federal government provide support to states and
localities struggling to combat the problem.
why federal leadership--and support--is important right now
in addressing crime
While crime is largely a state and local responsibility, federal
leadership and federal support is necessary--especially at a time, like
today, when violent crime is on the rise--to ensure citizen confidence
in public safety and the fair administration of justice. No one local
jurisdiction, no one state can address these problems alone.
After a decade in which it was on the decline, violent crime is now
increasing in many cities across the country: The FBI tells us that
crime in the U.S. increased in the first half of 2006 by 3.7% (compared
with the previous year)--including a 1.4% increase in murder and 9.7%
increase in robbery.\1\ A report released by the Police Executive
Research Forum (PERF) last month found dramatic increases in violent
crime among 56 jurisdictions surveyed--increases of 12.27% in robberies
and 10.21% in homicides.\2\
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\1\ Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of
Investigation. See http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/prelim06/table3.htm
\2\ Chief Concerns: Violent Crime in America: Alarming Trends,
Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C., March, 2007, at 2.
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And after years when crime was not a major national issue, it is
again squarely in the center of public concern. As voters are going to
the polls this May in Dallas to elect a new mayor, crime is cited as
the top issue facing the city in recent polls.\3\ And in Philadelphia,
where I spend much of my time, the central issue in the upcoming
mayoral race this spring is violence on the city's streets. We have
suffered more homicides so far this year than the far larger cities of
New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
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\3\ ``Poll: Crime tops election issues,'' The Dallas Morning News,
Mon., March 12, 2007.
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As I talk to thoughtful leaders in law enforcement and criminal
justice around the country, many are struggling. With lessons learned
from years of federally supported research, they know a great deal
about how to deal with crime--that comprehensive approaches involving
prevention, treatment and community engagement are critical, along with
enforcement and punishment, to ensure public safety. But they are
confronting problems of gangs, drugs, and violence (some of it
committed by very young teenagers) that are difficult to address. They
are stymied by working with fewer officers, reduced budgets, and the
burden of added homeland security responsibilities. Anti-terrorism
duties have, in fact, drawn attention and resources away from day-to-
day crime fighting, while none of those longtime problems have gone
away.
Indeed, some of the high profile ``glamour'' of the terrorism focus
frustrates local cops. I asked a former student of mine, who is high up
in the ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department, whether his
colleagues had used federal Department of Homeland Security funds to
conduct training on suicide bombers. He looked at me somewhat
scornfully and said, ``Laurie, we'll get around to that if we ever have
a suicide bombing in Philadelphia. Right now, we're just busy trying to
keep up with the shootings we see out here every day.''
The fact is--as the National Criminal Justice Association has aptly
put it--that federal funding for homeland security and for state and
local criminal justice should not be an ``either/or'' proposition.\4\
Safe streets, safe neighborhoods and safe cities are the predicate for
a secure homeland, in both a conceptual and a practical sense. One
can't neglect the former and expect the latter to exist. And--at the
end of the day--we need to recognize that both rely on the same public
safety infrastructure.
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\4\ ``The Role of the Federal Government in Law Enforcement and the
Administration of Justice,'' March 2005,See http://www.ncja.org/
Content/NavigationMenu/GovernmentAffairs/
FederalGovernmentandJusticeAdministrationWhitePaper/default.htm
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reflecting on history
It is helpful to look at the history of the federal criminal
justice assistance program when thinking about the appropriate federal
role in reducing crime--and what is needed and can be most effective
today.
Criminal justice in the United States has historically been, and
still remains today, largely a state and local enterprise. According to
the Bureau of Justice Statistics, of all the adults who went through
the justice system in 2002, 94% were convicted in state court--not the
federal system. Our justice system is also more decentralized than
almost any other in the world. With 18,000 separate law enforcement
agencies in the U.S., something as simple as training police in a new
counterterrorism procedure becomes very complicated. By contrast, in
the United Kingdom, an order could simply be issued from the Home
Office and sent to the mere 45 police agencies throughout Great
Britain.
The federal role in addressing crime was first defined in a
document that is still very timely today--40 years later--``The
Challenge of Crime in a Free Society,'' the report of President Lyndon
Johnson's Crime Commission in the 1960s. Chaired by former Attorney
General Nicholas Katzenbach (someone I've had the pleasure to get to
know over the past two years), the Commission has had a profound
influence on criminal justice in this country.
It called for a federal role in
research
fostering innovation in criminal justice
gathering statistics and
improving criminal justice.
It also called for establishment of a small federal office to fund
state and local innovations in criminal justice--the seed that led in
later years to the creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration (LEAA) and to the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S.
Department of Justice. Many of the core federal functions that I
describe in this statement had their origins in the Katzenbach
Commission's report.
These recommendations did not reflect partisan politics. They were
re-affirmed in the Reagan Administration's report of the Attorney
General's Task Force on Violent Crime (1981), which stressed the unique
role of the federal government in demonstrating and promoting what
works in crime prevention.\5\
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\5\ Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime, Final Report,
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (1981).
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what are the key federal roles in reducing crime?
There are six core ways in which the federal government can--and
should--assist state and local government in addressing crime. It is
important to underscore that five of these six roles do not entail
large investments of federal dollars.
1. Developing knowledge is a central federal role in public
safety
Just as research and experimental trials have led to better
ways to prevent and treat heart disease, the same has been true
for crime over the past four decades. We now know a great deal
more about how to deal with crime than we did in the 1960s. Two
key differences between medicine and crime, however, are that,
first, there are no business investors (like pharmaceutical
companies in medicine) funding research relating to public
safety and, second, the federal dollars devoted to crime
research are in the low millions--not in the billions (as at
NIH).
But the federal government, in fact, has a crucial role to
play in supporting social science research and evaluation to
learn ``what works'' in addressing crime. Aside from an
occasional private foundation, no one else pays for this work
to get done. Nor is it realistic to think local jurisdictions
can afford to do this themselves.
Why is this knowledge so important? The answer is that,
particularly at a time of tight budgets, we need to be
investing in evidence-based approaches that can actually help
reduce crime and we need to stop funding programs that don't
work, even when they have great popular appeal.
Research also leads to the next breakthroughs--such as data-
mining that is identifying the most likely murderers in the
phalanx of 52,000 probationers in Philadelphia. Or the survey
that tells us how law enforcement is really using closed
circuit television in different cities. Or the randomized
controlled experiment that demonstrates whether an in-prison
treatment for pedophiles can be effective in reducing future
offending.
Research and development for new technologies to serve and
support criminal justice agencies has also been an important
role of LEAA and OJP. The Science & Technology Office within
the National Institute of Justice has made enormous
contributions to the field--including its network of National
Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Centers that conducts
demonstration projects and provides invaluable assistance to
law enforcement to help it assimilate new technologies.
2. The federal government should collect and disseminate
independent and credible national statistics on crime
The highly respected National Crime Victimization Survey
(NCVS) reported by BJS since 1973 has provided what the FBI's
Uniform Crime Reports has never attempted to produce: a count
of crime that includes serious offenses, like rape, that may
never be reported to police. This past year, however, BJS was
threatened by budget shortages for its crime victims' survey.
While this year's survey is going forward, the threat to a
three-decade data series is a reflection of the limited funding
that has been made available for this central federal function.
Too often, BJS--despite its irreplaceable role--has been the
``poor stepsister'' of the OJP agencies. In fact, at a time of
rising crime, BJS should be charged by Congress with a
broadened role in helping in our understanding of
victimization. BJS should be mandated to measure crime on a
state-by-state basis, even to the level of large cities, and
provided with appropriate funds to support this mission. At
present, the survey cannot provide this level of information.
The integrity of crime statistics is crucial to ensuring
their credibility. No one questions Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports because no one would dare to ``mess'' with its
products. Yet a political appointee of the current
Administration did try to rewrite the press release describing
the findings of a key BJS report on racial profiling several
years ago. After BJS's Director objected to this political
interference, he was fired by the White House. For that reason,
I urge this Subcommittee to consider legislation to give BJS
explicit authority to issue its statistical reports and
explanatory press releases independent of any outside
clearance.
3. Federal dollars should support the innovation that
localities cannot fund on their own
Supporting pilot projects through discretionary grants has
been a central feature of the federal criminal justice
assistance program from its earliest years--as the 1967
President's Crime Commission recommended. Funding of this kind
allows jurisdictions to implement programs that have been
proven effective or to undertake experimentation. Local
jurisdictions can rarely free up money to undertake these kinds
of initiatives. Once established and shown to be successful in
local settings, however, city councils or other budgetary
officials will frequently buy into their continuation. Drug
courts are a good example of this phenomenon.
But probably the best illustration of this is the work of the
COPS Office--which has literally changed the face of policing
across the United States since it was established in 1994. What
is telling is that it is not just the hiring grants that caused
this revolution to occur. Perhaps more important was the change
in the culture of policing--and police/community
relationships--that occurred as a result of a myriad of COPS
innovation grants, conferences, and other initiatives.
Other examples of LEAA/OJP-supported innovations include:
Problem-oriented and hot spots policing
Problem-solving courts (drug courts, mental health
courts, domestic violence courts, etc.)
Victim/witness programs
Career criminal prosecution units
Bulletproof vests
Forensic applications of DNA technology
Drug testing programs
Less-than-lethal weapons
4. There is no more central federal role than diffusion of
knowledge
As I stated before, we already know a great deal about what
can be done to prevent and control crime. For example, we know
that, correctly used, drug treatment in the criminal justice
system can play a powerful role in helping change offender
behavior and reduce post-incarceration recidivism.\6\ We also
understand that, beyond a certain level, increasing rates of
incarceration (while adding a staggering burden to state
budgets) may not be as effective in reducing crime as other
strategies (such as increasing numbers of police and reducing
unemployment).\7\
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\6\ See http://www.nida.nih.gov/PODAT--CJ/faqs/faqs1.html#3 and
http://www.evidencebasedprograms.org/Default.aspx?tabid=150, for
example.
\7\ See, for example, Reconsidering Incarceration: New Directions
for Reducing Crime by Don Stemen, Director of Research, Center on
Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice, January 2007.
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But we have done a poor job--especially at the federal
level--in getting information out. While I take credit for many
things accomplished in the seven years I headed OJP, this is an
area where I did not do enough to advance the ball.
A strong recommendation I have therefore made to the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science is to
mandate that OJP fund a ``What Works Clearinghouse'' that
summarizes--in brief, layperson's language--what is known from
research about evidence-based approaches to addressing crime.
Although it's hard to believe, no such resource now exists. A
clearinghouse of this kind should provide information written
in succinct, non-scientific language that is easily accessible
to criminal and juvenile justice practitioners. Information for
busy legislators and policymakers could be distilled into one-
page summaries--something their staffs will do for them in any
event.
This is an ideal role for the OJP agencies to undertake--in
fact, it's hard to think of a more central federal role than
this one. Three important resources here are:
Evidence-Based Crime Prevention, edited by Lawrence
W. Sherman, David Farrington, Brandon Welsh, and Doris
MacKenzie (Routledge, 2002). This is an update of a
Congressionally-mandated report which OJP commissioned and
published in 1997 entitled, ``Crime Prevention: What Works,
What Doesn't, What's Promising.''
The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a project
of the Council for Excellence in Government in Washington,
D.C.\8\
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\8\ See http://coexgov.securesites.net/
index.php?keyword=a432fbc34d71c7 and http://
www.evidencebasedprograms.org/
The Campbell Collaboration--an international non-
profit organization that prepares systematic reviews of effects
of interventions, among others, in the area of crime and
justice.\9\
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\9\ See http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/index.asp and http://
www.campbellcollaboration.org/CCJG/index.asp
5. Technical assistance and training are two of the most
effective federal public safety investments
During the years I spent at the Department of Justice I don't
think I saw a better expenditure of federal dollars (other than
on research) than those spent on technical assistance. Helping
practitioners do their jobs better--on the front lines--is the
ultimate way that the federal government can assist in
conveying evidence-based best practices. It's one of the most
cost efficient ways federal money is spent. And it's not about
spreading the wisdom of high-priced Washington consultants; the
best T.A. I saw provided was ``peer-to-peer'': Having drug
court judges from Portland, for example, host teams from other
jurisdictions. Judges trust what other judges tell them. So
we'd provide training for courts to serve as ``mentors'' and
fund travel so others could visit.
Another good example of successfully integrated technical
assistance and training are the Regional Community Policing
Institutes (RCPIs). I've been a fan of these since their
creation by the COPS Office in the late 1990s. They provide
high quality but low cost (or free) training for law
enforcement agencies on topics ranging from community policing
and gangs to school safety and meth labs. The RCPIs have
provided a national presence with access to local
practitioners, but they are about to be a victim of the
dramatic cuts at COPS--a perfect example of a wonderful (but
low profile) investment of federal money that has built
infrastructure and credibility in the field, but now may be
dismantled.
Yet another illustration of the federal government's central
role has been in encouraging better information sharing. The
Justice Information Sharing Initiative enables agencies to get
the information they need to be effective within and across
jurisdictions.
6. Larger federal grant programs--like JAG/Byrne and COPS--
play a vitally important role
None of the core federal criminal justice assistance
functions are expensive. Research, statistics, information
sharing, technical assistance and training, innovative pilot
programs--these are minimal investments in the scheme of the
federal budget. While each could surely use more money, none
requires substantial appropriations. The same, of course, is
not true of the large block grant programs, or large
discretionary grant programs like COPS, which have been a
mainstay of the LEAA/OJP program since the passage of the 1968
Safe Streets Act.
The COPS program, in particular, has been distinctive. Even
those who have questioned the value of federal subsidies of
local police salaries have acknowledged that the COPS Office
has helped dramatically to spread the concept of community
policing and has reinvented the way a federal grant agency can
relate to its constituents. Continuation--and strengthening--of
the COPS program is something I strongly support (and passage,
therefore, of legislation like H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement
Act of 2007, makes good sense).
In general, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
measure in any scientific way the impact of large programs like
the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, for which
spending is invested in an almost limitless number of locally
chosen programs. Despite that, however, I come down in strong
support of continued federal funding of COPS and of JAG/Byrne.
State and local criminal justice right now is in a two-fold
crisis, dealing with rising crime, on the one hand, and
juggling additional responsibilities in the post-9/11 world, on
the other. In the spirit of the 40-year criminal justice
assistance program, federal leadership and support is vital to
help states and localities deal with the challenging problems
they are now facing of rising violent crime and homicide ,
drugs, and gangs.
I would offer these suggestions, however, regarding these
programs and the pending legislation before the Committee:
Strongly encourage block grant program grantees to
consider funding programs of proven effectiveness. Creation of
a ``What Works'' clearinghouse would allow state and local
practitioners and policymakers to find that information much
more easily.
Consider placing a four-year limit on federal
funding for projects, in light of the fact that federal money
should primarily be used for innovation, rather than ongoing
support.
Emphasize the strengths of programs--e.g., in COPS,
to support community policing initiatives for crime prevention
and crime fighting, not just putting officers on the streets
(so to allow flexibility to support gang task forces, anti-meth
lab activities, and other specific initiatives to target
problem areas).
Ensure and require coordination between DOJ's
efforts and those in DHS. I hear from state and local
practitioners examples of their need to coordinate ``on the
ground'' when the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security
have not adequately collaborated from inside the Beltway. That
kind of collaboration is tough in Washington. But it needs to
be done better.
Support repayment of student loans for individuals
who remain employed as public prosecutors or public defenders.
The John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of
2007, H.R. 933, deserves support because of the worthy goal of
encouraging young lawyers to enter public service in those
areas. Too frequently, recent law graduates are saddled with
such heavy loans that they have little choice but to enter
large law firms in order to repay those debts. My only
suggestion here is that--at some time in the future--this
Committee consider extending this program to encompass those
earning graduate degrees in programs such as the Masters
Program in Criminology at Penn and entering positions in
probation, corrections and law enforcement. Shouldn't young
people in these areas of public service deserve our support as
much as young lawyers do?
final crime control recommendation: reducing homicide by focusing on
probation and parole populations
I want to end with a positive suggestion regarding an area where
federal investment of dollars could make a substantial difference in
reducing crime. For reasons that are hard to discern, federal grant
programs over the years have largely ignored probation and parole
populations. There are 6 million convicted offenders on probation or
parole in the nation, compared to only 2.2 million offenders or
defendants behind bars. Offenders in the community clearly present the
greatest risk to public safety, yet they receive little attention from
the criminal justice system or from public budget allocations.
My Penn colleague Lawrence W. Sherman (Director of the Jerry Lee
Center of Criminology) has pointed out that the majority of the 406
murders in Philadelphia last year were committed by--or against--
individuals on probation, parole or pretrial release. He estimates that
persons under the supervision of Philadelphia's Adult Probation and
Parole Department (APPD) committed 22% of all homicides in the city in
2006 and made up 16% of murder victims. ``This would mean that almost 4
out of ten murders involved an APPD case as victim or offender,''
Sherman notes.\10\
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\10\ Lawrence W. Sherman, ``Reducing Homicide by Enhancing High-
Risk Probation and Parole: A Peer-Reviewed Grants Program,'' Testimony
before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and
Homeland Security, February 15, 2007.
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Using statistical data-mining techniques pioneered by another Penn
colleague, Dr. Richard Berk, we are now working with Philadelphia's
probation department to identify the handful of offenders most likely
to kill or be killed. But with caseloads of 185 probationers per
probation officer, such offenders usually receive minimal oversight. A
small demonstration project with just five officers whose caseloads do
not exceed 15 offenders is now testing a new way to prevent homicide.
On a national scale, this approach could test a wide variety of murder
prevention strategies--including clinical treatment for Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder, drug abuse and mental illness--to prevent violence.
If this kind of approach could be undertaken in carefully designed
randomized controlled experiments under a federal grant program, using
collaborations between local probation agencies and universities, there
is real promise, using scientific knowledge, of reducing homicide in
many violence-ridden communities around the country--a prime example of
the kind of innovative federal/state/local partnerships this criminal
justice assistance program has fostered over four decades.
conclusion
Because of my longstanding involvement in the program, I have twice
convened reunions of leaders of the LEAA/OJP agency--in 1996, as
Assistant Attorney General, and again in 2006, as a private citizen. In
both instances, I was struck by the support--across every era and from
individuals of both political parties--for the federal criminal justice
assistance program. The program has benefited from that passion, which
has translated, I believe, into strong leadership over 40 years. For
those of us who have had the chance to serve in that position, it has
been an honor and a privilege to do so for a program dedicated to
reducing crime and ensuring justice.
__________
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the
Subcommittee, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. Your time has expired.
Next, we will hear from Mayor Douglas Palmer.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DOUGLAS H. PALMER, MAYOR OF TRENTON,
NEW JERSEY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS
Mayor Palmer. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
It gives me great honor to be on this very distinguished
panel and talk about an issue as president of the United States
Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan organization of mayors
representing over 1,100 cities in this country, something we
are all united on.
You have a 10-point plan that talks about Strong Cities,
Strong Families for a Strong America, and, quite frankly, you
cannot have a strong America, strong cities or strong families
unless we have safe cities. As has been mentioned, it is very
important that we have homeland security, but hometown security
is equally important.
About 389 days ago, I happened to be in Los Angeles with
Mayor Villaraigosa and Attorney General Gonzales and other
chiefs of police and mayors, and we talked about the issue of
rising crime. After that hearing was over--it was on a Friday--
my police director got a call. He said to me, ``Hold on a
minute, Mayor,'' and he came back and said, ``We had a
shooting,'' which was the second one in 2 days.
This time, it was a warm Friday afternoon, a 7-year-old
girl by the name of Tajahnique Lee, who was doing what most
young girls and boys would do on a summer day, while riding her
bike, got caught in a crossfire of rival gangs and was shot in
the face. This is something that happens far too often in all
of our cities, suburban areas and across this Nation.
As mayors, we understand. We have to make the phone calls.
I had to make a phone call to her mother an hour later while
she was in the hospital with her daughter and, of course, the
things that her mother was saying to me, I could not really
repeat, but I understand.
As mayors, we are the ones that have to make the phone
calls, and that is why the work that you are doing is so very,
very important. As you have said many times, mayors are on the
front line of these issues. We have to make the calls. We get
the calls in the middle of the night. We confront the families.
We go to the funerals.
As crime has increased, we see a reduction in the COPS
program, a program that is cost-effective, efficient and that
works and achieves results. As we talk about a surge in Iraq
and needing more soldiers, we talk about hometown security, we
need a surge of police officers in our cities.
It is unfortunate, and as someone that was educated in
Trenton and at Hampton University and as an African-American
man, it is very upsetting to me to have to say that we need to
have more police, we need to arrest the bad guys out here, but
quite frankly, we do.
We need to make sure that we have common-sense gun
approach. We need to make sure that we can close the gun show
loophole. We need to make sure that we can deal with the Tiahrt
amendment and have police officers be able to trace data. We
also need to go after the cultural violence that permeates the
airways. We also need the resources that critical for our
police officers.
Part of our 10-point plan is also about prevention, and I
know the district attorney is doing great things as a result of
re-entry and other kinds of issues that we support.
But when we talk about the COPS program, I am urging a
bipartisan way that we give the police officers the resources
that they need, that we make sure that the funding is flexible
so that some areas may not need as much police officers as they
need help with other kinds of programs like technology or other
kinds of things, but have it in a block grant approach.
The mayors want to be held accountable and our police
chiefs and police directors want to be held accountable for the
results.
We are at a critical time in this Nation's history where we
see terrorism abroad, we see terrorism at home in the form of
gangs and drugs and guns, and I think as a Nation we have to
say enough is enough, that we need a comprehensive proactive
approach, but we also need to have the resources that these
police officers need to have more police on the streets.
It is ironic that in England just last year when they
foiled a terrorism plot, it was not the terrorism experts that
did it. It was the cop on the block because the cops in these
cities on the blocks know the neighborhood, know the people and
know when something is wrong.
This is a form, quite frankly, of helping fight domestic
terrorism, and I urge the passage of the reauthorization of
H.R. 1700 as well as, I think, that H.R. 933 is a great idea to
help States and cities with witness protection.
I thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Palmer follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Douglas H. Palmer
Good afternoon. I'm Doug Palmer, Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey and
President of The United States Conference of Mayors. I have been Mayor
of Trenton since July 1990, and became President of The U.S. Conference
of Mayors in December of 2006.
I want to thank my good friend Chairman Scott for calling today's
hearing on issues related to crime in America's cities, as well as
Ranking Member Forbes, and the entire Subcommittee.
This hearing is being held in the shadow of the April 16 tragedy at
Virginia Tech University, where more than 30 people lost their lives,
and many more are still suffering with injuries.
I want to express my personal sympathy for the victims, and the
parents, families, teachers and friends of those killed or injured in
this terrible attack. And I want to especially express my support to
both Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Forbes, who both represent the
Commonwealth of Virginia.
As this tragedy continues to demonstrate, gun violence and crime
know no geographic boundaries. Whether at Columbine High School, or the
Amish schoolhouse, or Virginia Tech University, or in cities across the
nation every day, crime and violence are increasing.
How do I know this is a life and death matter?
In my own city, just over a year ago, seven-year-old Tajhanique Lee
was out in the neighborhood riding her bike on a Friday evening.
Unbeknownst to her, she rode right into a gang war, a reckless
crossfire. And even though she was not the target, this beautiful
little girl was shot through the mouth, the bullet going through both
of her cheeks. Miraculously, she lived.
As our country and our people united to address the reality of
terrorism after the attacks of 9/11, we must unite now to address the
reality of gun violence and crime which continues to ravage our cities,
suburbs and rural areas alike.
We must act now to prevent acts of violence and provide positive
alternatives and help to those in need.
To be very honest, I am angry.
I am angry that after Columbine, Congress would not act to close
the gun-show loophole, which allows criminals and others to buy guns
without a background check.
I am angry that the assault weapon ban was allowed to expire.
I am angry that Congress has limited the ability of local law
enforcement to trace illegal crime guns through the Tiahrt Amendment.
And I am angry that positive law enforcement partnership programs
like COPS and the local block grant have been eviscerated.
We simply have to act now, and the nation's mayors are ready,
willing, and able to stand with this Subcommittee and everyone in
Congress who wants our help in moving forward a positive law
enforcement and prevention agenda.
Mayors know that our first responsibility must be public safety.
Only when our cities are safe can we focus on other priorities such as
public education, job creation, and affordable housing. That's why one
of the top priorities in our new Mayor's 10-Point Plan on Strong
Cities, Strong Families for a Strong America is support for anti-crime
programs.
In the 1990's, mayors and police chiefs put extensive effort into
increasing public safety. And as we all know, there were dramatic
results. Many cities saw crime rates drop to historic lows.
We recognize that there were a number of factors for this reduction
in crime--including a strong economy and tougher prosecution and
sentencing practices, mainly of drug related crimes.
However, additional police officers on the streets and greater
support for innovative prevention programs had a major impact on crime.
And, the partnership developed between the federal government and
local governments--under programs such as COPS and the Local Law
Enforcement Block Grant--greatly helped cities deploy more officers and
change the way policing is done in America.
I know that in Washington, there is debate as to whether these
programs made an impact. In my city, and in thousands of cities across
the nation, there is NO QUESTION that these programs made a significant
difference.
In my city of Trenton, we are confronting a small number of heavily
armed street thugs who are intent on committing violence against one
another.
New Jersey, with huge public support, has some of the most
stringent gun laws in the nation--but criminals circumvent those laws
simply by crossing the state line--which is our city line--into
Pennsylvania. There, an assault rifle can be purchased at a gun show
for about a hundred dollars. Life should not be that cheap.
I have been to Harrisburg to urge legislation addressing guns and
gangs and now I am here before you . . . again making the case against
a gun market that feeds those who are severely mentally ill . . . or
whose ruthless drug trade often involves the assassination of young
African American or Latino men.
Rampant gun violence is more than a national tragedy. It is a
disgrace.
Recently in Trenton our police arrested a murder suspect. At the
time of the killing, he was out on bail. He was awaiting trial on the
charge of shooting at a Trenton police officer.
Two years ago, a young man was arrested on gun charges four times
in six months. Only on the fourth arrest was bail set high enough to
keep him locked up.
Clearly, we have to address this ``revolving door,'' which is why I
am urging the New Jersey General Assembly to create a special ``gun
court'' to focus on weapons crimes and the small number of repeat
offenders who are responsible for so much violence.
Like all mayors, I am responsible to the residents of my city for
keeping our streets safe. Working for tougher gun laws everywhere in
America is what I have to do to meet that responsibility.
In my city, as in many in the Northeast, we are the objective for
an interstate gun market. Half the guns confiscated by our police come
from Pennsylvania. They come up from Virginia, Georgia, and Florida.
Who in their right mind would twist this situation into a threat
against the rights of hunters? We must confront the real threat--to
innocent citizens. We must put some reasonable curbs on what is a
scandalous supply line to chronic offenders who use guns--and to do so
we need leadership and partnership, not rhetoric.
While the history of the 1990's was one of partnership and crime
reductions, what has happened in recent years has been very different.
Cities lost more than $2 billion annually as the COPS hiring
program was eliminated, and the local block grant was merged into the
Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program--and then slashed. And now many
cities are seeing significant crime increases.
The latest findings from the Police Executive Research Forum found
that some cities are experiencing double-digit or even triple-digit
percentage increases in homicides and other violence.
PERF's 56 city survey found that over a two year period:
Total homicides were 10.21 percent higher;
Robberies increased 12.27 percent;
Aggravated assaults increased 3.12 percent; and
Aggravated assaults with a firearm increased by
almost 10 percent.
Funding cuts are not the sole cause of the recent crime increases.
But they DID have a major impact.
In my city, crime dropped 27 percent last year--but our focused
enforcement required us to exceed our budget by $6 million.
Cities face many problems related to crime such as:
the growth of gangs;
the increased availability of illegal guns--something
made harder to address by bad federal policies;
drug abuse, including new drugs such as meth; and
the return of more than 600,000 ex-offenders annually
to our cities.
There is also a growing culture of youth violence and disrespect on
our streets--fueled by negative media and entertainment images and
messages--that is contributing to the increase in crime.
And all of this is happening at the same time that local
governments are being asked to do more to help secure our nation from
terrorist attacks.
I know that the federal government has increased anti-terrorism
grants, but the increased support for ``homeland'' security has
unnecessarily come at the expense of ``hometown'' security.
We need to once again form a strong partnership between the federal
and local governments to fight crime. And we also need to focus greater
attention on successful efforts to prevent crime, and create meaningful
alternatives for children and young adults.
Chairman Scott recently participated in a meeting of our Criminal
and Social Justice Committee. Half-way through a discussion on crime
prevention, the mayors switched to a discussion of education and after-
school programs. Clearly, the issues of crime, education and
opportunity cannot be separated.
In Summits we have held across the country, the Conference of
Mayors has been focusing on finding innovative ways to:
improve early childhood education;
strengthen school learning;
reduce school dropout rates;
promote after-school opportunities; and
increase college and workforce preparedness.
Law enforcement officers can be a critical resource in not only
enforcing laws, but in preventing crimes and creating positive
environments in schools and communities.
The Conference of Mayors has adopted policy which calls for the
reauthorization of the COPS program, and we urge passage of H.R. 1700,
sponsored by Representatives Weiner, Scott and Keller. As this bill
moves forward in the House and the Senate, we hope that it will contain
a number of elements supported by our policy including:
Funding for the hiring or re-deployment of additional
officers, with a continued emphasis on community oriented
policing in and around schools;
Significant retention funding beyond the initial
three years of the program for officers where local fiscal
conditions require continued support;
Much needed flexibility to pay overtime so long as it
results in an increase in the number of officers deployed in
community oriented policing;
A significant increase in the per-officer funding
limitation;
Significant support for crime-fighting technology
including: improved public safety communications and crime
mapping; expansion and replacement of facilities necessitated
by the hiring of additional officers; and crime solving
technologies including crime lab improvements and DNA backlog
reductions; and
Support for the criminal justice system including
efforts to increase community prosecutions.
We also commend the new Congress for increasing funding for COPS
and the JAG program--the first time in years that the programs were not
cut--and urge that both programs be fully funded in Fiscal Year 2008.
And while we have not adopted official policy on the matter, I
think that H.R. 933--which would establish within the United States
Marshals Service a short-term State witness protection program to
provide assistance to state and local district attorneys to protect
their witnesses in cases involving homicide, serious violent felonies,
and serious drug offenses--could be very helpful.
All levels of government need to work closer together to find
innovative ways to:
Reduce the availability of illegal drugs;
Increase access to drug treatment;
Help ex-offenders successfully re-enter society;
Keep kids out of gangs, and prosecute gang crimes
with all available resources; and
Fight the illegal gun trade and adopt common sense
gun laws.
I want to end on this last point. April 16, 2007 is a national day
of tragedy.
We need a common sense approach to guns in America.
We must allow the police to do their jobs and trace illegal guns by
defeating the Tiahrt Amendment.
We must close the gun show loophole which allows guns to be sold
without background checks.
We must prohibit the sale of military-style assault weapons and
large capacity ammunition clips.
We must make sure that records are accurate and shared regarding
those who should be prohibited under current law from purchasing a
firearm.
The federal government must actively enforce all the current gun
laws, and make sure the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF)--which has been a strong partner with local
governments--is provided all the resources and staff it needs to help
keep America safe.
Beyond legislation, a new effort must be made against the use and
trafficking of illegal weapons. Weapon buyback programs and ballistics
tracking offer the hope of reducing the toll these weapons take on our
citizens, our communities, our children. And in our communities, we can
do more to help teachers, coaches and family members intervene where
predictors for violent behaviors exist.
But comprehensive legislation at the federal level can take the
lead in ensuring uniform protections and bringing safety to our
communities. The dangers raised by inadequate protections in any given
state threaten us all.
Our nation lost more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University,
and we lose thousands more in cities across America every year to gun
violence and crime.
This issue has been labeled gun control and cast in the terms of
sacred, abstract constitutional arguments.
But respectfully, I am here to tell you that there is nothing
abstract about innocent victims being wounded and killed.
Yes, we have a Second Amendment, but we also have a Declaration of
Independence and there is something to be said for life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Bi-partisan, common sense action must be
possible, and we call on Congress and the President to act now.
Thank you.
Mr. Scott. Chief Mosca?
TESTIMONY OF EDMUND H. MOSCA, CHIEF OF POLICE, OLD SAYBROOK
DEPARTMENT OF POLICE SERVICES, OLD SAYBROOK, CONNECTICUT
Chief Mosca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here
representing the International Association of Chiefs of Police
as its legislative chairperson this afternoon, and I appreciate
this opportunity.
The IACP has been and continues to be a strong supporter of
the COPS program and the COPS Office. Since its inception in
1994, the COPS program and the community policing philosophy
that it fosters has been very successful in helping law
enforcement agencies throughout the Nation reduce crime rates
and maintain safer communities. That is why we are so pleased
to be here today to express our strong support for H.R. 1700,
the COPS Improvement Act.
The COPS Improvement Act will, if enacted, allow us to
build upon and extend the success of the COPS program when the
COPS program was fully funded almost a decade ago. Communities
throughout the Nation witnessed a remarkable decline in the
crime rate. Years of innovative and effective efforts by
Federal, State, tribal and local law enforcement agencies
enabled us to transform our neighborhoods from havens of fear
to safer, more secure communities.
I can speak from personal experience about the value and
the benefits of the COPS program provided to the local police
departments. In the 1990's, the COPS program made a profound
impact on the ability of my department to protect the citizens
that we served.
I was able to hire additional officers, purchase equipment,
provide training that would have been otherwise out of reach
for a smaller department like mine. We were also able to
establish a highly successful and acclaimed school resource
officer program which provided a practical level of security
within our school system.
As a result of this assistance, my officers were better
equipped, better trained and better positioned to fulfill their
mission on a daily basis.
However, the success of the COPS program is not derived
solely from the amount of Federal assistance funds that have
been made available to State, local and tribal law enforcement
agencies, but also in the manner in which the program has
operated.
The key to the success of the COPS program is that it works
with individuals who best understand the needs of their States,
communities--State, tribal and local law enforcement
executives. By adopting this approach, the COPS Office ensures
that the right funds are provided to correct agencies to
address appropriate needs.
Yet despite the best efforts of our Nation's law
enforcement officers, the disturbing truth is that each year in
the United States, well over a million of our fellow citizens
are victims of violent crime. Unfortunately, in the last 2
years, we have seen a steady increase in the rate of violent
crime in the United States. According to the FBI Uniform Crime
Report, violent crime rose at a rate of 2.5 percent during
2005. To put that into perspective, that is an additional
31,479 victims.
This increase in the crime rate appears to be accelerating
for the first 6 months of 2006. The crime rate rose at a
percent of 3.7 percent when compared to the same frame in 2005.
If this rate holds for the final 6 months--and I am sorry to
say that I believe that it will--it will mean an additional
47,000 Americans found themselves victims of violent crime.
Further, for violent crime in general, cities with
populations of 25,000 to 50,000 are seeing the fastest-growing
incidents. From 2004 to the first 6 months of 2006, the violent
crime rate in these communities rose by more than 8 percent. In
towns with populations of 10,000 to 25,000, the homicide rate
went up more than 6.5 percent over the same 2-year period.
I believe it is important to note that when compared to
fiscal year 2002, the funding level of $3.8 billion, the
Administration's fiscal year 2008 proposal represents a
reduction of more than $3.2 billion, or 85 percent, and no
program has been hit harder than the COPS program.
It is for these reasons that the IACP is such a strong
supporter of the COPS Improvement program. By reauthorizing and
expanding the mission of the COPS program, this legislation
will ensure that the COPS program continues to serve and assist
the State, tribal and local law enforcement communities.
For 5\1/2\ years, law enforcement agencies and officers
have willingly made the sacrifices necessary to meet the
challenges of fighting both crime and terrorism. They have done
so because they understand the critical importance of what they
are sworn to do and they remain faithful to fulfilling their
mission of protecting and serving the public.
However, the expenditure of resources necessary to maintain
this effort has left many police departments in a financial
situation so dire that their ability to provide the services
their citizens expect and deserve has been threatened and, in
fact, diminished. This must not and cannot continue.
If our efforts to reduce crime and promote homeland
security are to have any chance of succeeding, it is absolutely
vital for Congress and the Administration to make the necessary
resources available that would America's first line of defense,
law enforcement, to mount successful and effective anti-crime
programs, which are also effective anti-terrorism programs.
That concludes my statement, and I would certainly be
pleased to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Chief Mosca follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edmund Mosca
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
ATTACHMENT
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you.
Ms. Harris?
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE KAMALA D. HARRIS, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,
CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Ms. Harris. Good afternoon, Chairman Scott and Ranking
Member Forbes and other Members of the Committee. My name is
Kamala Harris. I am the District Attorney of the City and
County of San Francisco, and I also serve on the board of
directors of the National District Attorneys Association.
I will be speaking about each of the three bills, beginning
with H.R. 933, Witness Intimidation.
Nationwide, witness intimidation is among the most urgent
and important challenges facing prosecutors and police, and the
issue seriously undermines our efforts to catch and prosecute
the country's most dangerous and violent criminals. In many
jurisdictions, in fact, it has become an epidemic.
District Attorney Dan Conley of Boston, a colleague serving
on the National DA's Association, reports that 90 percent of
his office's gun-and gang-related cases involve some form of
witness intimidation. Baltimore states attorney Pat Jessamy
also estimates that there has been witness intimidation in 90
percent of her homicide cases.
In a recent Massachusetts survey of children and teenagers,
64 percent said that people will not report gang-related crime
because they are afraid of retaliation or being killed.
Recently, this hit home for us in San Francisco.
We had basically a real tragedy occur when one of our
witnesses, who I will refer to as a hero, was murdered in the
streets of San Francisco simply because he had the courage to
come forward and be willing to testify about this most
outrageous crime. His name was Terrell Rollins.
Terrell Rollins was shot, and he was seriously injured by
the alleged shooter in the homicide case. He agreed to come
forward and be relocated through our witness relocation
program, and as a result of his safety during that time in the
program, he successfully testified before the grand jury, which
returned an indictment.
Tragically, however, he returned to the old neighborhood,
and he was killed, as we could have predicted.
He was a witness and the only witness in that case, and as
a result, the court had to dismiss that homicide case against a
killer who is now walking the streets. And by the way, no
witnesses have come forward to talk about the killing of
Terrell Rollins.
Last year, in San Bernardino, California, two witnesses
were also killed. Eighteen-year-old Melquiades Jose Rojas
testified before two gang members and against two gang members
in a murder case. After he testified, he was found dead, shot
25 times.
In another case in San Bernardino, a defendant broke into a
witness's home and killed the witness and the witness's father
and wounded the witness's infant son.
In 2003, in Shenandoah County, Virginia, Mr. Forbes, a 17-
year-old girl was found stabbed to death on the banks of the
river. She was 4 months pregnant. She had cooperated in the
investigation of a Texas gang homicide but left the Federal
Witness Security Program. Four gang members were charged with
her murder.
Each of these cases underscores the urgent need for H.R.
933. Law enforcement must have the tools we need to bring order
to communities that are too frequently being overrun and
overwhelmed by gang violence.
H.R. 933 is critical also because local and State witness
relocation programs are severely under funded. In fact,
California only has $3 million per year for witness protection
for the entire State. In 2005, Baltimore only had $400,000 to
relocate 184 families. Federal support is necessary because
effective witness support is essential to our ability to
respond to an increasingly rising tide of violence, as the
chief of police has indicated.
And certainly, if law enforcement is unable to ensure
safety for its own witnesses, who can? We cannot ask courageous
witnesses to come forward, putting their lives on the line, if
we are not willing to dedicate all and any resources necessary
to protect them, to keep them safe and then to ensure serious
consequences for those who are committing murders and gang
violence in our community.
As it relates to H.R. 1700, I agree with what the speakers
have said before me. I believe that it will help to address
violence and witness intimidation in addition. More violent
crime, but fewer witnesses, as I have mentioned, are coming
forward to help police and prosecutors get violent criminals
off the street. Many murders, in fact, remain unsolved
throughout this country and not because there are no witnesses,
but because no witnesses will come forward.
For example, in San Francisco, out of 181 murders occurring
in 2005 and 2006, police have only cleared 30 percent. In
Philadelphia, half the murders since 2002 remain unsolved. In
Palm Beach County----
Mr. Scott. Ms. Harris, could you----
Ms. Harris. I will close it up, and I think I have made my
point, which is that we have a situation where we absolutely
have to ensure that we are protecting witnesses. I believe the
COPS funding will help police officers on a local basis do
that.
And finally, I would ask your support of the ability for
prosecutors and public defenders to receive support in reducing
their loan debt so that they can continue to do the important
work they do pursuing criminal justice and justice in our
courthouses across this country.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harris follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Kamala D. Harris
introduction
Chairman Scott, Member Waters, Member Forbes, and Members of the
Committee on the Judiciary:
My name is Kamala D. Harris, and I am the District Attorney for the
City and County of San Francisco. I have served in this capacity for
the last three years and have been a career prosecutor for the last
seventeen years. Prior to being elected District Attorney, I served as
a prosecutor in Alameda County, California specializing in the
prosecution of child sexual assault cases, homicides, and other violent
crimes. I also served as Chief of the Career Criminal Unit of the San
Francisco District Attorney's Office and the Chief of the City
Attorney's Division of Families and Children. I currently serve on the
board of the National District Attorneys Association.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Chairman Scott for
inviting me to speak on these urgent issues. I am very grateful for the
opportunity to address the Committee regarding House Resolution 933,
the ``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007,'' H.R. 1700, the
COPS Improvement Act of 2007, and H.R 916, the ``John R. Justice
Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007.''
h.r. 933: witness intimidation--the scope and impact on criminal
prosecution
It is fitting that we are considering the pressing matters of
witness intimidation and witness security during National Crime
Victims' Rights Week. Nationwide, witness intimidation is among the
most urgent and important challenges facing prosecutors in the pursuit
of justice for crime victims.
Simply put, across the country, witnesses are increasingly refusing
to come forward to provide information to law enforcement or to testify
in serious and gang-related criminal cases. Many witnesses simply
refuse to cooperate with law enforcement and are fearful of being
labeled a ``snitch'' or becoming victims of violence themselves. Many
have received threats or have been otherwise intimidated.
This problem of witness intimidation strikes at the very heart of
the American criminal justice system. Without witnesses coming forward
to provide information leading to the arrest and prosecution of violent
criminals, law enforcement cannot apprehend and prosecute those accused
of serious and violent crimes. Indeed, the structure of our adversarial
system presumes that witnesses will be available and willing to
testify. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
guarantees the accused the right to confront witnesses against him
because it assumes that witnesses will come forward. But in an
increasing number of cases, witnesses are being intimidated, threatened
or even killed.
While it has been difficult for researchers to quantify the scope
of witness intimidation, the vast majority of prosecutors and police
believe that witness intimidation is a paramount concern. The available
data strongly support their view. District Attorney Daniel Conley of
Suffolk County, Massachusetts reports that 90% of his office's gun and
gang-related cases involve some form of witness intimidation.
Baltimore's State's Attorney, Patricia Jessamy, estimates that 90% of
her office's homicide prosecutions involve some form of witness
intimidation or coercion. Between 2000 and 2005, the Los Angeles Police
Department reported a yearly average of more than 778 gang-related
witness intimidation offenses.
The data suggest a troubling increase in witness intimidation
compared to a decade ago. According to the National Institute of
Justice's 1995 study of witness intimidation, only 51 percent of
prosecutors in large jurisdictions and 43 percent in small
jurisdictions said that the intimidation of victims and witnesses was a
major problem.\1\ Prosecutors across the country believe that the issue
of witness intimidation is the single biggest hurdle facing any
successful gang prosecution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Johnson, Claire, Barbara Webster, and Edward Connors,
``Prosecuting Gangs: A National Assessment,'' Research in Brief,
National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice,
February 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps the most compelling evidence of the broadening scope of the
witness intimidation problem is its impact on the attitudes of teens
and young adults toward testifying. Their attitudes toward law
enforcement and testifying are critical, as young people are often the
eyewitnesses to gang-related crimes in their neighborhoods. The mere
perception of retaliation profoundly impacts their willingness to
cooperate with law enforcement. In a recent study, ``Snitches Get
Stitches: Youth, Gangs, and Witness Intimidation in Massachusetts,''
sponsored by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and
the National Center for Victims of Crime, 641 young people between 12
and 18 years old who attend Boys and Girls Clubs in Massachusetts were
surveyed. Twenty-five percent of survey participants said that none of
their neighbors would report a gang-related crime, and 64 percent said
that people will not report such crimes because they are afraid of
retaliation or being killed. The number of young people who reported
these attitudes was far higher than the 12% of participants who had
actually been threatened for reporting a crime.
There is a very high level of fear of retaliation, fear which may
often by driven by recent, high-profile crimes committed against
witnesses who participated in witness relocation and protection
programs.
local law enforcement's need for expanded witness relocation and
protection services
As H.R. 933 recognizes, witness relocation and protection programs
are law enforcement's primary tool to respond to witness intimidation.
Unfortunately, most local and state-level witness relocation and
protection programs are temporary, severely underfunded, and provide
few services to witnesses. Above all, these relocation programs are
voluntary, and witnesses can, and often do, leave at any time. Indeed,
in several recent cases, witnesses have left relocation programs
against advice, returned to their old neighborhoods, and were killed.
As detailed below, one such case occurred in San Francisco, others have
occurred around the state of California, and there are other similar
examples across the nation.
San Francisco, CA. Last year, an heroic young
witness, Terrell Rollins, was killed by three masked gunmen
after leaving my office's Witness Relocation and Assistance
Program and returning to his old neighborhood. Mr. Rollins had
testified before a grand jury in a homicide case in which he
had also been shot and severely injured. His life was
threatened for testifying, so he agreed to be relocated from
his old neighborhood. Tragically, he returned to that
neighborhood and was gunned down in broad daylight. He was a
hero, and his death sparked a major outcry from the community.
I convened a citywide summit of faith, community and law
enforcement leaders after he was killed to develop a community-
based plan for supporting victims and witnesses who agree to
testify in court. The homicide case in which Terrell was to
testify was dismissed. Meanwhile, no witnesses have come
forward to help the police solve Terrell's murder.
San Bernadino, CA. Two witnesses in San Bernadino
were killed after coming forward to testify in violent criminal
cases. Eighteen year old Melquiades Jose Rojas testified
against two alleged gang members in a murder case in San
Bernadino. Shortly after he testified, he was found shot to
death on the side of a road. He had been shot twenty-five times
in the head and chest. He had qualified for witness relocation,
but he had returned home and had not relocated at the time he
was killed. In another case, a defendant broke into the home of
a witness who had testified against him. The defendant also
killed the witness's father and wounded his infant son.
Baltimore, MD. A 17-year-old cooperative witness to a
gang murder was shot in the back of the head by two members of
the suspect's gang.
Shenandoah County, VA. In 2003, a 17-year-old girl,
who was four months pregnant, was found stabbed to death on the
banks of the Shenandoah River. She had been a witness to a gang
murder in the state of Texas and had been in the federal
witness protection program, which she voluntarily left and
rejoined her gang, the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang,
commonly known as MS-13. She was apparently killed for past
cooperation with law enforcement. Four MS-13 members were
charged in federal court for her murder.
These cases are tragic, and they contribute to the climate of fear
and intimidation in communities under siege by gangs and violence.
These cases also dramatically underscore the urgent need for H.R. 933
and additional resources for local law enforcement to relocate and
protect witnesses who courageously come forward.
Many local witness relocation, assistance and protection programs
are severely under-funded, to the extent they even exist as formal
programs. Operating on shoestring budgets, local law enforcement
agencies often can only provide temporary services for no longer than
the duration of the underlying criminal prosecution. Even in
California, our state only budgets $3 million per year for witness
protection for the entire state. In 2005, 184 families were relocated
from Baltimore, but the city only has a $400,000 budget for witness
relocation. In smaller jurisdictions and states, witness relocation or
protection consists of giving a witness rent money for a hotel or
helping them move in with relatives or friends.
Effective witness relocation, support and protection are essential
to our ability to respond to a rising tide of violence in our country.
If law enforcement is unable to ensure safety for its own witnesses,
who can we protect? It is unacceptable for us to ask heroic witnesses
to come forward, putting their lives and the lives of their families on
the line, if we are not willing to dedicate the resources necessary to
keep them safe. The problem of gang violence and intimidation is most
acute in our nation's most struggling communities. We must make real
the promise of safety for those neighborhoods. We cannot tolerate in
America that there are zones of lethality in urban centers across the
country, zones of lethality a few miles from where we sit today, zones
that those of us fortunate enough to have the option, never drive
through, and where we certainly do not linger.
Law enforcement must have the tools necessary to bring order to
those communities overrun by gang violence. And let us not suppose that
the rest of us are immune from the effects of that violence simply
because we may live in a different zip code. We are all at risk when
murderers and violent gang members are left free to commit crime in a
lawless environment. There must be consequences for violent crime.
Accountability for the perpetrators so often rests on the ability of
witnesses to participate in our criminal justice process.
I believe the Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007 will
provide critical resources to local and state law enforcement agencies
to shore-up local efforts to relocate and protect our witnesses. It
would establish within the United States Marshals Service a short-term
witness protection program to provide assistance to state and local
prosecutors to protect their witnesses in serious criminal cases. This
assistance will be especially critical for smaller jurisdictions and in
states where there are few, if any, existing resources for witness
relocation and protection.
additional suggestions for witness relocation and protection services
In addition, I suggest that the Committee consider funding a more
comprehensive, victim-centered approach to witness relocation and
protection. Relocation must be a long-term option for witnesses and
their families. Many witnesses have left their neighborhoods for the
first time, and they often return home to danger against the advice of
law enforcement because their participation is voluntary. To ensure
that witnesses remain in their new, safer communities, witnesses and
their families should receive comprehensive advocacy to connect them
with services and opportunities in their new environment. In my office,
I assign a Victim Advocate to each witness and family in relocation.
The Victim Advocate works to connect witnesses and their families with
counseling, treatment, education, recreation programs, and local
service providers, so they can productively occupy their time and
become grounded in their new host community while they are relocated.
The goal is to meaningfully connect them to their new community so they
are more likely to resist the pull of the familiar and return to their
old neighborhood where they face danger. It is imperative to make this
investment, so that witnesses remain relocated, available to testify at
trial, and murderers can be brought to justice.
h.r. 1700: the critical importance of community-oriented policing
services and improving cooperation with law enforcement
Addressing intimidation and retaliation is necessary but, on its
own, not sufficient to ensure broad and sustainable cooperation from
witnesses. Across the country, in large and small communities,
witnesses are simply are not coming forward and will not cooperate with
law enforcement. This is a community-wide problem that requires a
community-wide approach, particularly federal support for community
policing efforts.
The primary evidence of this broad reluctance to cooperate with law
enforcement is the high number of unsolved murders in urban and
suburban America. While the impact is most severe in predominantly
poor, minority neighborhoods in major American cities, smaller and more
rural areas have been impacted as well. In many unsolved murder cases,
there were several, if not many, eyewitnesses to the murders, none of
whom have been willing to come forward.
For example, in San Francisco, out of 181 murders occurring in 2005
and 2006, police have only cleared 30%. There have been murders in my
city committed in broad daylight where we know there were 10 or more
eyewitnesses, yet no one has come forward and the crimes remain
unsolved. The killers remain on the loose, surely prepared to kill
again. In Philadelphia, half of the murders since 2002 remain unsolved.
According to my good friend and colleague Professor David Kennedy at
the City College of New York, who is among the nation's leading experts
on criminal justice issues, recently stated that the solve rates for
homicides in some urban communities have dipped into single digits, far
below the national standard of roughly 60%. A similar trend is
occurring in smaller and medium-sized jurisdictions. In Palm Beach
County, Florida, all of the county's seven murders this year remain
unsolved. In Pomona, California, only 44% of the city's homicides had
been solved at the end of 2006.
Many witnesses perceive cooperating with law enforcement as
``snitching.'' Over the last few years, a ``Stop Snitching'' phenomenon
has developed in youth culture, reflected in underground DVD's and the
ubiquitous ``Stop Snitching'' t-shirts people wear in courthouses
across the country, including parents who have worn the shirts to their
children's court hearings in our juvenile courthouse in San Francisco.
In Boston, the presiding judge saw so many of the t-shirts in his
courtroom that he banned ``Stop Snitching'' attire from the court
building and property.
My experience with young people in my jurisdiction also reflects
the strong influence of the ``Stop Snitching'' attitude and refusal to
report crime. In the aftermath of the murder of Terrell Rollins that I
described earlier, I organized a citywide summit on witness
intimidation with faith, community, youth and law enforcement leaders.
We held a focus group with four young adults between 16-28 years old,
who said that fear of ostracism from their community was a primary
reason for refusing to ``snitch'' on others.
This suggests that entire communities are experiencing a reluctance
to come forward. Witnesses fear being cast out of their communities and
labeled ``snitches'' in addition to literal retaliation. This requires
a broad, community-based response from police and prosecutors in close
partnership with a broad cross-section of partners--in other words, an
aggressive commitment to community policing.
Community policing is the cornerstone of efforts to build the bond
of trust between police and prosecutors and the communities we serve. I
strongly support restoration of the cuts imposed on the COPS program
and urge the Committee to support the program.
Community policing promises a durable, meaningful partnership
between police and citizens to prevent crime, solve problems and
conditions that encourage crime, and work together to hold perpetrators
accountable for committing crimes. Most models of community policing
focus on the delivery of police services that includes aspects of
traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving,
community engagement, and partnerships.
Community policing is the most important component of the very best
response to crime, preventing it in the first place. Significant spikes
in violent crime in many urban centers threaten to reverse many years
of tremendous improvement in crime rates. Restored funding for the COPS
program will increase the number of police officers on the street at a
time when we face a critical juncture in crime control for our country.
This funding is, again, vital to our duty to protect from crime and
violence every citizen, every neighborhood, no matter how poor or
marginalized. But we cannot be shortsighted enough to think that the
recent increases in violent crime will remain isolated in pockets of
poverty. Crime is on the rise and our response must be swift and
substantial so that violence is quickly brought under control before it
spreads and becomes more acute.
h.r. 916: the law school student loan debt problem for prosecutors and
public defenders
It is imperative that prosecutors' offices are able to recruit the
best and brightest attorneys and retain the most qualified and
experienced prosecutors in their offices. The ``John R. Justice
Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' will provide a modest
incentive to attract prosecutors and public defenders to public service
and help them maintain that commitment throughout their careers.
This is an issue on which the National District Attorneys
Association believes urgent Congressional action is needed. I should
note that I am also advocating on behalf of both prosecutors and public
defenders. We are united in this effort to ensure that our offices are
fully staffed with trained and experienced attorneys because we have an
equally strong interest in maintaining confidence in the criminal
justice system.
Prosecutors continue to be paid low salaries compared to those in
the private sector. In 2006, Equal Justice Works reported in Financing
the Future, Responses to the Rising Debt of Law Students that starting
salaries for state and local prosecuting attorneys averaged
approximately $44,000.\2\ Prosecutors' offices simply cannot compete
with private firms to attract the best and brightest lawyers. With
major law firms offering starting salaries of over $125,000 per year,
the modest salaries young prosecutors earn pale in comparison. And it
is not a lack of commitment to public service that draws many law
school graduates away from public service, but their student loans.
Burdened with loan debt from undergraduate and graduate studies, the
Equal Justice Works study concluded that the ``average amount borrowed
in law school by the class of 2005 was $78,763 at a private school and
$51,056 at a public school. Many lawyers in my office owe over $100,000
in law school debt alone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Heather Wells Jarvis, Financing the Future, Responses to the
Rising Debt of Law Students, 2nd Edition, Equal Justice Works, 2006,
citing National Association for Law Placement (NALP) 2006 Public Sector
and Public Interest Attorney Salary Report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This unfortunate combination inevitably causes high turn-over rates
that result in less experienced prosecutors in courtrooms across this
country handling more and more serious criminal cases. Neither the
safety of victims and the public, nor due process protections for the
accused, should be short-changed while a new prosecutor or public
defender ``learns the ropes.''
survey of the nation's prosecutors regarding student loan debt
In 2005, the National District Attorneys Association's Office of
Research and Evaluation and the National Association of Prosecutor
Coordinators conducted a national survey of prosecutors on law school
student loan debt and the associated issues. Researchers received 2,119
responses from prosecutors all over the country, most of whom graduated
from law school between the years 1998 and 2003 and had worked as
prosecutors for an average of four years.
Analysis of the survey results revealed that more than 50 percent
of the responding chief prosecutors and supervisors had between one and
five prosecutors leave their offices in 2005. This may seem like an
insignificant number, however, it becomes quite significant when you
learn that 64 percent of prosecutors' offices that responded to the
survey were comprised of ten or fewer assistant prosecutors. The end
result is that attrition was 50 percent or higher in the responding
small offices.
In addition, 53 percent of the chief prosecutors reported in the
survey that law school student loan debt was a very significant factor
in their ability to retain staff and 62 percent of the chief
prosecutors reported that student loan debt is a very significant
factor in their ability to recruit staff. Chief prosecutors reported on
average that low salaries and student loan payments were the causes for
nearly a third of the prosecutors who left their offices. Two-thirds of
the responding prosecutors advised that law school student loan debt is
an important consideration in deciding to become a career prosecutor.
More than 55 percent of the respondents reported that they would
continue prosecuting for 20 to 30 years if law schools loans were
forgiven.
Public defenders are subject to the same difficulties in retaining
attorneys. With starting salaries of about $35,000, new defenders
cannot afford to repay their student loans. As a result, over a three
and a half year period, the Saint Louis, Missouri Public Defender's
Office saw 36 attorneys exit their office that employs only 28
defenders.
These unfortunate retention figures signify that inexperienced
attorneys are handling cases beyond their capabilities and training.
There are numerous criminal cases that are particularly difficult
because of the dynamics involved. To name just a few--child abuse,
elder neglect, domestic violence, identity theft and public corruption.
The stakes are simply too high to allow any attorney other than
experienced prosecutors to handle these matters.
A memo from an Assistant District Attorney (``ADA'') to a
supervisor in Pennsylvania illustrates this very problem, stating:
``Nearly half of the ADAs in the Major Trials Unit and in the
Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit were hired in 1995 or
after. In the Felony Waiver Unit, our most experienced ADA has
been in the unit for approximately 4 months, and we have 8
lawyers who have been in the office 15 months or less. For the
first time since I have been chief of the Felony Waiver Unit,
there is not one lawyer currently assigned here who is ready to
try a Major case (one will be ready in another month or so).
There is no question that the departure of a significant number
of lawyers with 3-5 years experience would have an adverse
impact on this office, especially since most of the ADA's in
this unit are 6 months or more away from being capable of
trying the complex and serious cases in the more advanced
units.''
Beyond recruitment and retention difficulties caused by the high
cost of attending law school and the low salaries paid to local
prosecutors, chief prosecutors and supervisors cited other effects in
their offices such as increased caseloads per prosecutor, increased
costs for training, decreased morale, and increased risk of
prosecutorial error.
The questions then become ``How can society, in good conscience,
ask prosecutors and public defenders to sacrifice so much for so little
pay?'' How long should they be required to postpone purchasing a home,
getting married, starting a family, or buying a car? In some instances
prosecutors are sacrificing even more.
Some may be unable to purchase safe housing. Some may be driving
unsafe cars because they cannot afford repairs or replacements. Some
may even be unable to pay for necessary medical and dental care.
Falling behind in their loan payments due to inadequate salaries leads
to accrued interest, making the task of paying the debt off even more
daunting. Trying to pay off student loan debt may also leave many
unable to pay for utilities, food, and clothing. In the end, there is
simply no solution to the impending financial disaster except a move to
the private sector.
Following are just some of the comments from New York prosecutors
made during a student loan survey conducted by the Office of the Queens
County District Attorney's Office, Information Services (March
2001),\3\ illustrating their dire financial situations:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ A Survey of Assistant District Attorney Student Loan
Indebtedness in 16 New York State Counties, The Office of the Queens
County District Attorney, Information Services, March 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``My wife and I live paycheck to paycheck . . .''
``I can only afford to pay $400 a month ? this
payment does not cover the interest. Therefore my balance keeps
going up!''
``I currently have all of my loans in forbearance
because of an inability to pay due to inadequate earnings.
Forbearance will cause my total indebtedness to increase as
interest accrues.''
``I have had to obtain a waitressing job on the
weekends to supplement my income.''
``. . . I am forced to choose between paying rent or
paying off my loans. I cannot afford to live in an area where I
feel safe and pay off my loans at the same time.''
``I had to obtain part-time employment in an effort
to make sufficient money to remain an ADA.''
``Please make sure this bill is passed. I?m currently
living in poverty.''
``Nearly half of my take home pay goes towards my
loans.''0
``. . . I am treading water until I can make more
money.''
a proven and sound loan repayment assistance program
The ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' is
modeled after a similar program currently used effectively by many
federal agencies as a recruitment and retention tool. The program would
allow the repayment of up to $10,000 of student loan debt per year for
state and local prosecutors and public defenders with a limit of
$60,000 imposed. Because the program requires that a recipient commit
to employment for at least three years, the problems with attrition and
inexperience will certainly be alleviated. As a career prosecutor and
on behalf of the nation's prosecutors, I strongly believe that the
``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act'' is a wise
and urgently needed investment in the integrity of the criminal justice
system.
conclusion
I deeply appreciate this opportunity to discuss these important
issues with the Committee. I thank you for your time and attention, and
I welcome any questions from the Committee.
TESTIMONY OF MARK EPLEY, MARK EPLEY, SENIOR COUNSEL, OFFICE OF
THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Epley. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Forbes, distinguished members of the panel. My name is Mark
Epley. I work for the deputy attorney general of the United
States Department of Justice, and I am glad for the opportunity
to speak to you today about violent crime in America and what
the department is doing to assist our State and local partners
with the prevention and control of crime.
Due in large part to the hard work of State and local law
enforcement, in 2005, the crime rate remained near historic
lows, according to National Crime Victimization Survey and the
FBI's Uniform Crime Report. After rising to an alarming peak in
the early to mid-1990's, violent crime in America has fallen
precipitously ever since.
Although in 2005, we do observe an increase in violent
crime as to murder, robbery, to some extent aggravated
assault--rape actually went down--it is important to note that
the rate of crime measured in 2005 is the second-lowest ever
recorded or reported by the UCR. The lowest recorded was in
2004.
When we look at the crime data, there is no obvious
nationwide trend. Rather, what we observe is an increase in
certain crimes in certain communities. In general, for example,
while the United States experienced a 2.4 percent increase in
the rate of homicide, in New England, that increase was 5.3
percent. In the South, it was 0.8 percent. In the West, it was
1.7 percent.
In addition to regional variation, we also see that cities
have experienced crime based on their size. Those cities that
were a million persons or more barely registered a change at
all. As Mr. Forbes mentioned, Los Angeles and New York saw a
decrease. Small cites, those 10,000 to 25,000, saw a decrease.
But those cities 100,000 to 250,000 saw a measurable increase
in violent crime.
What is also not obvious when we look at the data is what
the cause or causes of the regional or the localized increases
on crime that are observed. To better understand the situation,
the Department of Justice visited a number of communities
across the country, those both experiencing an increase in
crime and those that have seen a decrease, and from these
meetings, the department sought to learn from local leaders
what works and what their law enforcement challenges are.
One consistent theme we heard is the importance of Federal-
local partnership. A specific example that arose was Project
Safe Neighborhoods. Through Project Safe Neighborhoods, local
law enforcement and prosecutors are able to refer gun crimes to
the Federal system for prosecution, and through this
partnership, we have doubled the number of gun crime
prosecutions over the last 6 years when compared to the
preceding 6 years.
Another form of partnership in action is law enforcement
task force activity. Some examples of those led by Federal law
enforcement include the FBI's Safe Streets Task Forces, the
ATF's Violent Crime Impact Teams and the U.S. Marshals'
Regional Fugitive Apprehension Task Forces.
Whether partnerships through prosecution or operations, we
want to continue to find ways to shore up our relationship with
State and local law enforcement. But we appreciate that
sometimes cooperation on their part takes resources.
The President's fiscal year 2008 budget request reflects
that concern. It seeks $200 million for the Violent Crime
Reduction Partnership Initiative. This initiative will make
money available to State and local law enforcement task forces
to address violent crime in those communities that are having a
challenging time, and they are able to fashion a law
enforcement solution that is well suited to the problem that
they see.
In addition, the department has begun to consolidate
certain grant programs in order to ensure effectiveness. The
Byrne Public Safety and Protection Program in the President's
fiscal year 2008 budget will consolidate the department's most
successful State and local law enforcement assistance programs
into a single, flexible, competitive grant program. This new
approach will help State, local, tribal governments develop
programs appropriate to the particular needs of their
jurisdictions.
And training will continue to be an important part of
helping our State and local partners grow capacity in the face
of emerging crime trends.
The Department of Justice is committed to helping our State
and local partners prevent and control crime, but we must
understand that crime is not evenly distributed across the
United States. Rather, some regions, some counties, cities and
towns experience more crime than others. One-size-fits-all
solutions are not well suited to the crime challenges as we
observe them in the field.
By better understanding emerging crime trends and the
nature of crime in the United States, we can more effectively
partner and more effectively target resources to where they are
most needed and we are committed to doing that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Epley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Epley
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Monaghan?
TESTIMONY OF JOHN MONAGHAN, CONSULTANT,
NEW YORK CITY LAW DEPARTMENT, NEW YORK
Mr. Monaghan. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes,
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here
today to testify.
As has been mentioned, the FBI crime reports show a 3.7
percent increase in violent crime. In contrast, the city of New
York has a 3.1 percent decline in violent crime. In fact,
overall crime is down in New York for that time frame 7
percent.
When you realize that the NYPD is the same size roughly as
the United States Coast Guard and we police a city of over 8
million people, yet have kept crime down under the national
average, we need to look at the management innovations as well
as technological ones that have helped us do that.
But, first, before we examine those innovations, I would
like to put to rest the notion that there is some overarching
socioeconomic shift in society that has caused this sustained
decrease in crime. It is policing. It is better policing.
You know, we would be hard-pressed 30 years ago to find a
college or an institution that offered criminal justice
degrees. Today, you could hardly find one that does not. The
entire profession itself has really taken steps forward in
recent years. You know, just the criminal justice program at
Harvard's Kennedy School is only 25 years old.
In order to sustain this particular innovation in policing,
we must continue to respect the profession by duly crediting it
with the overall reduction in crime nationwide.
So why is New York ahead of the curve? CompStat, in a word.
But there is a lot more to it.
Back in 1988 was the first time a police department in New
York City had educational mandates for promotion. We needed 64
credits to become a sergeant, 96 to become a lieutenant, and a
bachelor's degree to become an executive officer and the rank
of captain.
This laid the groundwork and filled the middle ranks with
educated people. For the mid-1990's, there was actually a
management revolution within the NYPD. Never before, mid-level
managers promoted to the top of the agency. We had one-star
chiefs become four-star chiefs overnight. It energized a more
educated department, and, you know, CompStat was really just
the first manifestation of that revolution.
From that time forward now, CompStat and all the
innovations at NYPD have been managed. We have one-star chiefs
now with less than 20 years on the job. I mean, that is unheard
of in policing. The entire, not just the demographics of the
NYPD have changed dramatically, but the attitude of the entire
agency. It has become a mantra in government in New York lately
that we are going to do more with less, and they really have
been in New York. We have less cops now than we had in the
past.
So let's talk about CompStat. It really is the greatest
innovation in policing in our generation. It has run a course,
it has been very successful, but it does have limitations, and
New York does recognize that.
Recently, they started the Real Time Crime Center in order
to combat crime while it is occurring.
I will say less about CompStat before the red light goes
off, okay.
Before the crime center, cops in the field would get
information from witnesses and victims. They would have to go
back to the station-house, run the information through whatever
database they felt was pertinent to the investigation. This
could take days or weeks. It now happens in moments.
In policing, the term rapid deployment had always meant
lights and sirens. But now with the crime center, we rapidly
deploy information to the field. It is staffed with about two
dozen investigators, and it processes in puts from the field
and runs them through billions of records.
Just a few months after the center opened, Bronx detectives
responded to the abduction of a 4-year-old child that was
perpetrated by a babysitter who had been fired. Using only the
information available, which was a State identification number,
the Real Time Crime Center produced seven names with seven
different addresses, three dates of birth and six Social
Security numbers, for that one ID number.
Can you imagine how long it would take for human detectives
to plow through that information? The Real Time Crime Center
did it in moments. The common denominator was found, the child
was recovered and the perpetrator arrested in a timely fashion.
The Real Time Crime Center was an $11 million investment.
It was funded mostly by the mayor's executive budget, with $1.8
million coming from Federal funds and $1.3 million coming from
the New York Police Foundation. Most of America's 10 largest
cities have supporting, non-profit foundations that provide
funding not found in their city budgets.
But again, with the second largest police department in the
country being one-tenth the size of the NYPD, it is unfair to
compare resources really. The New York Police Foundation has
funded over 400 programs to the tune of $70 million since its
inception in 1971.
Another innovation in policing that did not cost local
government any funding at all had to do with some high-profile
homicides that we had in New York related to some of our
trendier nightclubs in past months. You may have heard of them.
Since then, the New York City Council has enacted a law that
mandates video surveillance in such cabarets as a licensing
requirement, and, of course, the police have access to those
videos if we need them for investigative purposes.
I am over. Okay. You know what? It is the people. It is the
people that man these machines. Otherwise, it is just an
electronic tiger.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Monaghan follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Monaghan
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Forbes, Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me here to testify today.
As I'm sure we're all aware the FBI crime reports for the first
half of 2006 show a nationwide increase in violent crime of 3.7
percent. In contrast, the City of New York has recorded a 3.1 percent
decline in violent crime for that same period. In fact New York City's
overall crime rate, which includes property crimes along with violent
crimes, has declined 7.2% in that period.
When you realize that the New York City Police Department is
roughly the same size as the United States Coast Guard and they police
a city of over eight million and have kept crime down under the
national average making New York the safest big city in America, you
have to look at their innovations in management and technology.
But first, before we examine those innovations, I'd like to put to
rest the notion that some overarching socioeconomic shift is
responsible for this sustained decrease in crime. It's better policing.
In his new book, ``The Great American Crime Decline,'' Franklin Zimring
at UC Berkeley's School of Law attests to the fact that better policing
is the real explanation for New York City's success. In fact if there's
any demographic-like shift in our society that may account, in part,
for the overall brighter picture in crime trends nationwide, it's the
evolution of the profession of policing itself. Thirty or more years
ago, there were not many colleges or universities that offered classes
or degrees in Police Science or Criminal Justice. Today, we'd be hard
pressed to find an educational institution that doesn't offer such
programs. Even the Criminal Justice Program at Harvard's Kennedy School
is only 25 years old.
So, why is New York ahead of the curve? We all know that New York
City was the birthplace of CompStat but that was just the beginning.
CompStat was merely the first recognizable product of an internal
management revolution that took place in the NYPD in the mid-nineties.
Never before in the history of that department had mid-level managers
been elevated directly to top management positions. Educational
mandates were put in place for promotion to Sergeant, Lieutenant and
Captain. In fact, the man who designed the CompStat system, the late
Jack Maple, was only a Lieutenant when he was promoted directly to
Deputy Commissioner to implement the CompStat system citywide. In the
wake of those changes the attitude and demographics of the entire
police department changed. The CompStat era was ushered in by a
younger, more educated generation. This all points to the first
management innovation that underlies the NYPD's unprecedented success;
a better-educated and highly motivated workforce.
In order to perpetuate this particular innovation, we must continue
to respect the profession by duly crediting it with the overall
reduction in crime nationwide.
CompStat is the greatest innovation in policing in our generation.
One issue you don't normally hear associated with CompStat however is
funding. It's a relatively inexpensive idea. The CompStat process has
evolved however and has found its limitations. It does achieve
accountability of command level managers, directs deployment of
resources with pinpoint accuracy and has become a clearinghouse for
effective tactics. However, crime statistics by their nature tell of
crimes that occurred in the past. In an effort to prevent crime before
it occurs or address it while it's occurring, the New York City Police
Department has created the Real Time Crime Center. This data warehouse
combines cutting-edge technology with good old-fashioned police work.
Before the Crime Center opened, officers in the field used to
record facts, bring them back to the station house and manually run
them through whichever databases their experience told them were
pertinent. This haphazard process that took days or even weeks, is now
streamlined and can happen in moments.
In policing, the term rapid deployment has always meant lights and
sirens. The Real Time Crime Center now rapidly deploys information at
blinding speed. Staffed with about two dozen investigators the center
processes inputs from the field and runs them through billions of
records. Not only does it access information from 120 million New York
City criminal complaints, arrests, and 911 calls, it immediately
accesses five million parole and probation files from the State and
more than 30 million national crime records. The reconciliation engine
that runs the data is an emerging, sophisticated technology that
understands the meaning and relationship of terms used in policing and
so is not limited to the commands input by the user. The system
delivers information in context.
A few months after the center opened, Bronx detectives responded to
the abduction of a four-year-old child perpetrated by a former
babysitter who had been fired. Using the only information available, a
New York State Identification number, the RTCC produced seven names
with seven different addresses, three dates of birth and six social
security numbers. Each one of these pieces of information produced
additional names, addresses and some phone numbers. The RTCC quickly
found the common denominator and the child was recovered in a timely
fashion and the perpetrator arrested.
That same month detectives responding to a gunpoint robbery
received only a generic clothing description along with the description
of a tattoo on the gunman's neck. Using only the description of the
tattoo, investigators in the RTCC identified a man with a similar
tattoo who had been arrested numerous times in two different
jurisdictions within New York State. The detectives received a
photograph of the suspected gunman who was then positively identified
by the victim through a photo array. This man's criminal records showed
several addresses in two different boroughs within New York City. Good
old-fashioned detective work combined with this new technology put that
gunman in jail within a week.
The Real Time Crime Center was an $11 million dollar investment
funded mostly by the Mayor's Executive Budget with $1.8 million coming
from federal funds and $1.3 million coming from the New York Police
Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization. Most of America's
ten largest cities have supporting, non-profit foundations that enhance
their effectiveness by providing resources not covered in their city
budgets. But again, with the second largest police department in the
country being about one-tenth the size of the NYPD, it's difficult to
compare resources. The New York Police Foundation, founded in 1971 has
funded over 400 programs to the tune of $70 million dollars.
Another innovation in policing New York City not funded by the
government has to do with a recent rash of high-profile homicides
related to some of the city's trendier nightclubs. The New York City
Council just enacted a new law requiring nightclubs operating under
certain conditions to install video surveillance equipment as a
licensing requirement.
The list of technological advances being applied to policing in New
York City goes on and on. From license plate scanning cameras deployed
in radio cars to allowing 911 callers to transmit photos taken with
their cell phones, policing in New York is keeping pace with technology
and streamlining its management style with every new innovation.
All this technology however is just an electronic tiger without a
dedicated workforce behind it. It has become a mantra of late in New
York City that the government is being called upon `to do more with
less.'
The dedicated men and women in law enforcement in New York City
have answered that call. I thank you again for the opportunity to
testify here today and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, and I thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Harris, I cut you off before you got to say much about
the loan program.
Ms. Harris. Basically, what we are looking at as State and
local prosecutors is that we handle approximately 95 percent of
all criminal cases in the country, and we are having a
difficult time, frankly, recruiting and retaining eligible and
qualified and really, frankly, the best and the brightest
attorneys.
It is simply because we cannot pay them enough, and we
cannot pay them enough so that they can sustain a quality of
life where they can actually afford to rent an apartment and
maybe get married and have children and buy a house one day.
We are losing lawyers, and I believe that the John R.
Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act will help us
attract and retain these great lawyers and will help public
defenders around the country do the same. The National DA's
Association, who I represent on this bill, believes that it is
urgent, in fact, that it is passed.
Mr. Scott. How much debt do the lawyers show up with?
Ms. Harris. On average, we are showing that they have
between $50,000 and $80,000 of debt.
Mr. Scott. Do you know what the monthly payments are on
those stats?
Ms. Harris. I do not have that information offhand, no.
Mr. Scott. But if they have that kind of debt to start off
with, then the lowest salaries become problematic.
Ms. Harris. That is correct. And the average salary that we
are showing is $44,000 a year for prosecutors in this country
versus, for example, in private firms in Los Angeles, they are
starting their attorneys at $160,000 a year.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Now, on the witness intimidation, we have laws against
witness intimidation. Why are they insufficient?
Ms. Harris. Well, we have laws against murder, and those
are not sufficient. The reality is that we have people who have
learned that they can actually benefit from threatening
witnesses.
There are the circumstances in the cases that all of these
communities will know about when witnesses have been killed,
and they will tell that story over and over again as not only
justification, but as the reason why they will be reluctant or
uncooperative with law enforcement in terms of testifying in a
murder case.
Mr. Scott. And if the criminal laws are insufficient, then
we need to protect. How much does it cost to protect a witness
from this kind of intimidation?
Ms. Harris. What we do in San Francisco, which is what I
believe is being done around the country, is that we relocate
witnesses. So, once law enforcement, once the police officer
and the homicide detective become aware of the existence of a
witness, we talk with them. We find out and do an assessment in
terms of their threat situation and their safety, and it is a
voluntary program, and they will agree that it is best that
they leave the dangerous place and be relocated to a safe place
far away from their original home.
Often, we relocate witnesses with their families. Many of
our witnesses have young children, and we do not want to have
the situation where they are removed from those children for
what could be 12 months or 18 months pending the prosecution of
the case.
Mr. Scott. Now has the witness protection been successful?
Ms. Harris. It is successful when the witness cooperates,
and that means when the witness who is there voluntarily stays
in a safe place, which is why this legislation is significant,
because it will give us the ability to put more resources into
making that witness feel comfortable in the new place, become
situated in the new place, and monitored and supported so that
they will not go back to the dangerous place.
Many of the witnesses in these cases have never been
outside of the 10-square-block radius of the place where the
crime occurred and the place where they grew up, and to then
relocate them to a safe suburb, in many cases, is scarier for
them than being in a high violence community. So what we have
to do is we have to recognize that they have to be
transitioned.
Chairman, you could imagine if I said to you that, ``You
have now witnessed a crime, and I am going to relocate you
tomorrow and take you to the middle of''--we do not have Kansas
represented here--``Kansas, and you cannot call your old
friends, and you are going to have to sit there for 12 months,
18 months while we prosecute that case''--it is more than just
relocating them. We need to support them.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Epley, you have indicated that you have doubled the
number of gun prosecutions. Is that double the number of
Federal prosecutions or double the number overall?
Mr. Epley. Double the number of Federal gun prosecutions.
Mr. Scott. Okay. You indicated there was no national trend,
but that trends are going different places. Have you noticed
any trends within those trends? What were they doing in the
areas where this crime was going down? What were they not doing
where the crime was going up? Did you do any studies along
those lines?
Mr. Epley. Mr. Chairman, the department visited, in
addition to talk to social scientists and others,
criminologists and so on, 18 cities across the country, as I
mentioned, some of which were observing increases in violent
crime and others that were seeing decreases, and the experience
was almost as varied as the number of cities visited.
In some communities, we saw an increase in aggravated
assaults, but a decrease in homicide, so a number of difficult-
to-explain combinations of violent crime statistics coming
back. Part of the explanation that statisticians that we
consulted with and that worked with the department suggested is
that it is difficult to measure changes over a single-year
period.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
I noticed 1 year they noticed a precipitous decline in
murders in the Richmond, Virginia, area, and they, after close
study, determined that it was because the medical college of
Virginia had a new trauma unit--the same number of shootings,
just fewer people were dying.
Mr. Forbes?
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me again just thank all of you for taking time to be
here. I appreciate your expertise. I wish I could sit down with
each of you for a period of time and pick your brains.
Unfortunately, in the setting we get, it is impossible. There
are six of you here; I have 5 minutes. So I have to be curt and
short, you know, as much as I can.
Mr. Scott. We will have another round.
Mr. Forbes. Okay. The Chairman said we might be able to
have another round.
Ms. Robinson, two questions about this violence increase
that you talked about. One, have you charted out the crime-
prone age population for the last 15 years and have you looked
at that as to how that correlates with any of the increases in
crime that you were seeing?
Ms. Robinson. Certainly, my colleagues at Penn have looked
at that.
Mr. Forbes. Have you looked at that?
Ms. Robinson. I am not personally a statistician, but my
colleagues who are have looked at that, and it would definitely
be the 18-to 25-year-old range.
Mr. Forbes. Well, again, forgive me for being short. I
would normally like to say please take all the time you want.
Ms. Robinson. Of course.
Mr. Forbes. But one of the things that we have tracked over
the years is we tried to watch when that crime age population
bounces up and down. Sometimes those trends go right with it.
My question that I would like to get at--and get back with
us if you can or talk to some of your friends about it--is
whether or not there has been any tick up in the crime-prone
age population in the last few years or whether it has been
decreased. Because sometimes that gives us a snapshot of crime.
The other thing is testimony that we have had before this
Subcommittee before has almost been across the board saying
that the increase in violent crime has been related to gang
activity, an increase in gang activity.
The mayor talked about gang activity, and all of Ms.
Harris's testimony, which I have read--all of your analogies
and examples were gang activity.
Would you agree with that, that one of the big increases
that we have has been in relationship to gang activity across
the country?
Ms. Robinson. I would agree with Mark Epley that it
actually varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In
some jurisdictions, yes, it is related to gangs, but, in many
jurisdictions, it is not.
For example, in Philadelphia, which I am very familiar
with, it is not related to gangs. It is related to very young
teenagers or mid-teenagers, and it is frequently youth involved
in revenge-type violence.
Mr. Forbes. And let me talk about revenge-type violence.
I want to get to Ms. Harris before my time runs out.
Chief, are you here today in your capacity as individually
or on behalf of chiefs across the country?
Mr. Monaghan. I am here today for IACP, representing the
chiefs across the country.
Mr. Forbes. Have you looked, then, at the areas where you
have seen this uptick in violent crime, and can you tell me the
situations on any of those areas where there has been this
uptick in crime, has there been a decrease in the number of
police officers on the streets?
I am talking about just money coming from Federal
Government. Has there been a decrease in police officers?
Chief Mosca. I cannot make that correlation exactly, but I
would like to say that crime necessarily is not from gangs.
Most of the departments in this country are smaller
departments, departments of under 25 people. And while we talk
about effective law enforcement programs from some of the
larger cities, and my colleague talked about CrimeStat, some of
his New York colleagues have gone across the country, used
CrimeStat, and they have really displaced crime to a number of
the smaller, less well-equipped communities to deal with. So we
have seen an increase in violent and major crime, while some of
those urban areas may have seen a decrease.
Mr. Forbes. I think his testimony is that it has been smart
policing and effective policing that has been very effective in
New York, not necessarily always in the quantity, but in how
they do it.
Ms. Harris, my time is almost out. I want to, first of all,
brag about you. As I look at your bio, since you have been in,
there has been a 26 percent increase in felony trial conviction
rates, 40 percent increase in the number of violent offenders
sent to prison, all of which I compliment you on--also, double
the trial conviction rate for felonies.
The reason I say that is because in your testimony, you
also say, ``The witness relocation protection programs are law
enforcement's primary tool to respond to witness intimidate.''
As I mentioned at the outset, when we were in New Orleans, we
heard a whole different story, not that witness relocation was
not important.
But I would ask you, first of all, to think about and give
me when I get back a few minutes from now, how many people, if
we could give you a blank check, would you relocate in a given
year if you had that opportunity?
And then I come back to what they told us in New Orleans.
They said the thing that was problematic for them were two
situations. One is that because they had such a low conviction
rate and because the judges were not doing anything to these
criminals, they were going back out on the street.
We had a minister that came in from one of the local
churches, Mr. Rafael, and he said, ``How can I get my community
to come in and testify, how can I get my police officers to
come in and arrest these people and testify, when they know
that those criminals are going to be back on the street before
they get home from the courthouse?''
But the second thing he talked about was something that I
think really is important in our country, and I do not know how
we get our hands around it, but he said one of the big things
in witnesses was a culture. He said he did not know how to
break through it, but he said he was trying. He said if he were
shot in his neighborhood by a White policeman, he said
witnesses would come out of the woodwork. He said, but if he
was shot by somebody in the community to him, he said they
could not get witnesses to come out.
And a lot of the people in that neighborhood do not want to
relocate somewhere else, you know, but they are not coming
forward and testifying because they do not see anything
happening to the people they are testifying against.
And so, if I get a chance in just a minute when I come
back--oh, do you mind? Okay.
The question I would ask for you is this: Have you had any
impact based on the conviction rate that you have increased, in
terms of people being more willing then to come in and testify
because you have been very successful in putting people behind
bars?
Ms. Harris. It is a great question, and I think it begs the
point that we have to look at these issues not through a plate-
glass window but through a prism, because there are many
aspects that really need to be addressed all at once.
I think the COPS legislation, for example, addresses some
of the point that you are raising, which is underlying the
intimidation and reluctance issue, in addition to fear, is also
this trust of law enforcement by many of these communities, and
so we have to, as law enforcement, also do a better job,
frankly, in being present in those communities in a way that
they trust us and that they will report crime believing they
will be treated with dignity and respect and due process.
I think it is also a matter of showing the community that
there are consequences when they do come forward, which means
conviction, and that is a function also of having the local
press and the communications chains get that information to
communities that consequences are occurring.
It is also the issue of rallying the natural partners of
law enforcement in the community. For example, in San
Francisco, when that witness was killed, I rallied our faith-
based community, brought them together in an interfaith
community, and basically said, ``Listen, I need your help. In
the church or the synagogue or wherever it is you pray, I need
you to talk with your congregation about the fact that we need
to support these folks who come forward and participate with
law enforcement,'' and we have to do it from the community as
well as from law enforcement.
So I think there are many ways that we can address this,
but they will have to be coordinated and worked through a
collaborative perspective, understanding that it is not just
one area that is the problem.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Weiner?
Mr. Weiner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for
permitting the gentleman from Virginia to go a little bit
longer. I would not have any objection if we wanted to do a
couple more rounds because these are important witnesses who
have waited for a while.
Mr. Epley, I am curious about something you did continually
through your testimony. You kept referring to 2005. Are you
aware that 2006 FBI data is available?
Mr. Epley. Congressman, the preliminary UCR data for 2006
that covers the period January to June is available, yes.
Mr. Weiner. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
Does that show violent crime up?
Mr. Epley. Well, as you know, the preliminary data measures
the absolute number of violent crimes reported by those
agencies reporting.
Mr. Weiner. I understand. The data you referred to in 2005
was that same data set, was it not, just for a different year?
Mr. Epley. No, the 2005 that I referred to refers to all
police departments that report.
Mr. Weiner. Well, actually, let me just say the FBI data,
the agency that you are here representing, shows that violent
crime was up in 2006, and I do not want the impression to be
left that there was some ambiguity because you referred to data
from 2005.
There is an organization, as you know, I am sure you are
familiar with, that did a study of the change in crime, violent
crime, in America for the period 2005 and 2006. I am going to
tell you what they found in the 56 reporting jurisdictions. You
are familiar with the organization, I am sure. It is the Police
Executive Research Forum, a very respected, bipartisan, non-
partisan organization.
Mr. Epley. Yes, I am.
Mr. Weiner. This is what they reported as going on between
2005 and 2006. Twenty-eight out of 56 departments experienced
an increase in homicide. Forty-two out of 56 departments, 75
percent, saw an increase in robbery. Aggravated assault with a
firearm is up in 45 percent of the different precincts. In the
number of police departments with an increase in violent crime
overall, homicide was up in 71 percent in the years 2004 and
2006.
Mr. Mayor, does that reflect your experience that crime is
creeping back up?
Mayor Palmer. Absolutely, and it is something that all of
us are involved with.
It is not a cookie-cutter approach. Different cities have
different things that are going on. Like the professor said, in
Philadelphia, I do not even know how high the homicide rate
would be if they had actual gangs there because we found that
you have more homicides when you have gangs involved, and so
that is something that is very troubling.
As well, something was mentioned about the aging. There is
no cookie-cutter approach to age either. We have done surveys,
and it depends on where a person is when they are incarcerated.
In Newark, for example, when they surveyed individuals who were
getting shot, who were getting murdered, they found that these
individuals were older.
They were older because when they did more research, these
individuals had just gotten out of jail after being in jail 5
of 6 years. They were older. They have come back to the
neighborhoods where they once ruled and see younger people in
their spot, and then you have those kinds of things.
Mr. Weiner. Well, let me just say, you know, one of the
ways that we have had arguments about the efficacy of the COPS
program--and this goes back to testimony in this Committee in
2004--was people throw up the dust and say, ``There are so many
variables, we cannot possibly help with this problem.''
So a couple of organizations have actually looked at this
exact question, which is what contributes to the reduction in
crime that we have seen, and the GAO was one of them. The GAO
came back with a report that said that the COPS program
contributed to about 7 percent of the 32 percent decline in
violent crime from 1993 to 2000.
The University of Nebraska did a study that went into even
more detail, and here is what they found. They found in cities
with populations greater than 10,000, an increase of $1 of
hiring grants, what we are talking about on the COPS program--
the hiring grants, Mr. Epley, that your administration has
eliminated, made zero--per resident contributes to a
corresponding decline of 11 violent crimes and 28 property
crimes per 100,000 residents.
What they essentially did is they went back and, as an
academic institution, they took out variables and tried to
figure out where you put money for hiring, whether it
contributes to a reduction in crime. One of the things that is
good about the COPS program is that the COPS program has been
about as democratic--with a small D--program as you can
imagine, if you look at the distribution of police around
Democratic areas, Republican places.
Oklahoma got 10,054 cops under the COPS program. Let me
show you what they got last year under the Bush
administration's hiring proposal. This is an easier one to
read. You do not need to look that hard for Oklahoma. It is
right here, O as in Oklahoma.
I would ask: Are there any members of the panel, any of
you--and you can answer with a show of hands--that believe the
residents of Oklahoma are safer because they have 1,000 fewer
cops from the Federal Government on the payroll? Does anyone
think that they are safer because of that?
Mr. Epley, do you want to take a stab at that? Do you think
they are safer?
Mr. Epley. Congressman, the department has not thrown up
its hands in the face of the disparate effect that we are
observing of crime across the country.
Mr. Weiner. Disparate effect? Is that your way of
describing a violent crime rate that has risen about 4 percent
in 2006? Is that the disparate effect you are talking about?
Mr. Epley. Congressman, the 2006 data is not a crime rate.
The 2005 data that I referred to is a crime rate. What it does
is it adjusts for population.
Mr. Weiner. Mr. Epley, let me ask you another question. One
of the things that you referred to was how you have taken block
grant programs, and I think you said to make them more
efficient, you have combined them into one.
When you take the aggregate amount of those grant programs,
what was the amount and the combined efficient grant amount
that was in the last budget proposal that you suggested?
Tell me what the amount was when you aggregate all the
different ones and you make it more efficient and put it into
one grant program. Can you tell me what the overall numbers
were when you went from one method to another?
Mr. Epley. I think that last year, the President's budget
request for State and local law enforcement and criminal
justice assistance was approximately $1.2 billion, and this
year, fiscal year 2008, the number is about the same.
Mr. Weiner. What I am asking you is not just the JAG
program. I am saying when you combine Byrne, the Byrne
discretionary, the Byrne formula, the criminal justice block
grant--you say you have combined them into one block grant
program--isn't it true that you reduced the overall amount by
about 20 percent?
Mr. Epley. The Byrne Public Safety and Protection program
that I mentioned requested by the President's 2008 budget--what
it actually does--combines some of the most successful programs
the department's administered, for example, Weed and Seed.
Mr. Weiner. Understood. I am saying it combines them, and I
am asking you a mathematical question now.
Mr. Epley. Right.
Mr. Weiner. When you combined the various programs into one
program, isn't it true that you reduced the overall pot of
funding going to the agencies that these folks represent?
Mr. Epley. I think in the aggregate, like I mentioned, the
President's request in 2007 is just about the same as it is in
2008.
Mr. Weiner. Can I ask you one final question? And perhaps I
will have a second round.
You are here on behalf of the Administration. This bill has
been out there kicking around for some years now. It was part
of the reauthorization of your agency that was passed, I think,
2 years ago in a bipartisan support.
What is the Administration's position on the
reauthorization of the COPS program and a reinvigoration of the
COPS hiring component? Are you all for it or against it?
Mr. Epley. Congressman, the department does not have formal
views on this bill.
Mr. Weiner. I see.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from North Carolina, former Chairman of the
Subcommittee, Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my
delay in arrival, Mr. Chairman. I had two other meetings I had
to attend.
I appreciate you all being here.
Mr. Epley, is there a direct correlation between decreased
funding of Federal law enforcement programs and the increase in
violent crime in the first 6 months of last year?
Mr. Epley. Congressman, when you look back over not just
the last 6 months, but even the last 10 years, it is difficult
to see a powerful correlation between Federal spending on
police protection and the crime rate.
When we look back over time, we see that in the years 1999
and 2003, the Federal contribution to police protection
amounted to about 4.5 percent of all money spent on police
protection in America. Right now, that number is approximately
2.5 percent, 2.3 percent. Over the same time, the same period
of time, we saw the violent crime rate steadily going down.
All I mean to suggest is that when you look at both the
spending numbers, the Federal contribution to police protection
and the crime rate, you do not see a powerful correlation. At
the same time, Congressman, what we see is that State and local
police protection spending has gone up over time every year for
which we have collected that data, the most recent year being
2004.
Mr. Coble. Well, I am going to have to move along, if you
could wrap up, because I have two other questions I want to put
out.
Mr. Epley. My only point being that State and localities
have spent money on police protection to keep pace with the
crime challenges they have faced in large measure.
Mr. Coble. I thank you, sir.
Mr. Mayor, let me ask you this question to extend that line
of thought. If you know, are cities appropriating fewer dollars
for law enforcement in expectation of Federal monies
forthcoming?
Mayor Palmer. No, sir. We cannot afford to do that. Our
citizens need safety. We have to spend whatever we have to
spend, stretching our budgets, taking monies from other places
because we are not going to sacrifice the safety of our
residents. So we have to spend what we have to spend.
Mr. Coble. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Professor, I agree with you that we need to be investing in
evidence-based approaches that can actually help reduce crime
and stop funding programs that simply do not work, even when
they may have great popular appeal. Let me put a two-pronged
question to you, Professor.
How can the Federal Government help identify the programs
that do, in fact, work, A; and B, does the COPS program
currently assess the effectiveness of a program prior to
issuing a grant, if you know?
Ms. Robinson. Those are good questions.
On the first, Congressman, Congress needs to be investing
more money in evaluation of programs. Right now, the National
Institute of Justice, which is the research arm of the Justice
Department, has had a stagnant-level budget for 10 years. It
spends about $12 million a year on research and evaluation.
That is a drop in the bucket, as you know, in the Federal
budget.
That number needs to be increased, and my recommendation
would be that it be a percentage off the top of OJP and COPS
budgets, 1 percent, for example, which is something you could
do in an authorization bill, to assess, evaluate the program.
And in answer to your second question, back when the COPS
program was established, when the COPS crime bill was passed in
1994, the appropriators allowed the Justice Department to take
a percentage informally off the top of the program to transfer
to NIJ for that purpose.
Once that informal arrangement passed, I do not think that
the COPS program has had the ability to take money to do that
kind of evaluation. I would strongly recommend amending your
legislation to allow for that kind of evaluation.
Mr. Coble. I thank you, Professor.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, Mr.
Chairman, before the red light appeared. [Laughter.]
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Coble. You are the only one.
We are scheduled to have a markup immediately after this
hearing, so, as people are gathering, we will have another
round.
I was going to ask Ms. Robinson what research there has
been so far on the COPS program. You said there had not been
enough, but has there been any research to show that it works?
Ms. Robinson. The congressman over here had cited some of
that. There has been some other research that has looked at the
overall program, but there certainly have been a number of
studies that have looked at specific innovations, for example
problem-oriented policing.
This morning, we had a symposium, in fact, that looked at a
number of studies that have evaluated and found very promising
and effective some of those programs. But it is very difficult
to evaluate a large multi-program initiative of that kind, but,
yes, there have been others.
Mr. Scott. Mayor Palmer, you indicated that you get results
from the COPS program. Can you talk about some of the results
that you have seen?
Mayor Palmer. Absolutely. Referring to the congressman's
question, mayors are spending what they have to spend, but,
quite frankly, it is taking away from other efforts that we are
doing, and it certainly is hurting us.
With additional police officers, even with the great
technology and education that we are doing and with CompStat,
we still see that when you have more police officers that are
used in a targeted way, it helps reduce crime. It puts more
eyes in your community, and it helps us also deal with domestic
terrorism as well.
Mr. Scott. Chief Mosca, when you hire police with the COPS
money, there was an expectation that they would stay on board
after they have been hired. What happens after they have been
hired with Federal money? Do they kind of drift away after the
money dries up?
Chief Mosca. In our experience, our programs were extremely
successful, and they actually sold themselves to the community,
and they were continued. As you may know, Congressman, there
was a percentage decrease in the amount of money yearly, and
the municipality provided for those funds and we kept the
police officers. We have extremely effective programs within
our school system simply because of the COPS program.
Our community would not have been in a position to fund an
experimental program, if you would, for several years to see if
it was going to work because that amount of money would have
been extremely important because in a small community, just
like the mayor's, they are dealing with highways and recreation
and education and all the other things that a municipality has
to deal with.
So, while money may have been going up for law enforcement,
it was money just to keep pace with what we needed because of
salary increases and so forth. But our COPS program was fully
kept by our community.
If I may, one of the suggestions I might have, should this
be reauthorized and personnel actually come out of it, is that
Congress look at a mechanism to assist the community in keeping
a police officer for more than the 3 years.
In other words, you have funded it for 3 years. I would say
you might look at 5 or 6 years with decreasing amounts of money
because municipalities, faced with all their other problems,
are reluctant to get into a new program knowing they are going
to have to buy it in 3 years.
So I think you could assist us, if you are able to do that,
and that would be a great help to us.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes?
Mr. Forbes. Chief, and I do not ask you this to catch you
in it, but I ask you seriously: Have you read the legislation
on this bill that is before us today, just looked over it?
Chief Mosca. I have not read it personally.
Mr. Forbes. That is okay. Let me just tell you something.
If there was a provision in there that said the money could be
used for technology instead of hiring more police officers,
would you be opposed to that?
Chief Mosca. I would obviously take the technology. But I
am saying, given a choice between technology and personnel, I
would take the personnel. I would hope to be able to get both.
Mr. Forbes. Okay. Well, everybody does even when we come in
here.
But, Mr. Monaghan, that is not what New York did. I mean,
as I understand reading your testimony, they said it is not
sheer numbers, it is not just education, but we need to be
smarter about what we do and how we do it.
How did you determine, how did you select the programs that
you need? How did you come up with the things that have
apparently worked? And the proof is in the pudding in New York
compared to other cities. How did you come up with that mix?
Mr. Monaghan. Well, one issue you do not normally hear
associated with CompStat is funding. It is a relatively
inexpensive idea. You used the word ``culture'' earlier. It is
just an overall management idea.
Where it came from was a basement office underneath the New
York City subway system. Many years ago, there was a man named
Jack Maple. It goes in line with the educational and the
advancement changes in NYPD. Jack Maple was a lieutenant in a
little office underneath the subway in the transit police.
Years before, when Commissioner Bratton first came to New
York, he came as the commissioner of the transit police
department first, made a lot of changes there, left and then
came back as the police commissioner for New York City.
One thing he was very astute at, Mr. Bratton, was personnel
assessment, and he had heard about this lieutenant down in this
office, and he went down and saw him, and his office was
covered with maps of the entire system, little pins, and this
is where CompStat started. This man had the entire city mapped
out and was concentrating on robberies crime by crime.
When Commissioner Bratton came back the second time to be
the commissioner for the entire city, he took that lieutenant
and made him a deputy commissioner in order to implement
CompStat citywide. So it all came from within.
And, you know, I cannot speak for the people of Oklahoma,
but we have less cops in New York now than we have had in
recent years, and I was just told today if we had COPS funding
the hiring of cops at least 5 years out--our head count is
lower now than it had been----
Mr. Forbes. Well, the reason I ask that question is because
I do not think the chief could tell us today the magical number
of cops you need to have in any particular locality in the
country.
And one of the things that I looked at in your testimony is
you emphasized the importance of the database that you had and
how important that database was. Can you tell us just very
quickly about the database?
Mr. Monaghan. Oh, yes. You know, I said to you could you
imagine how long it would take two detectives to run down those
leads, six dates of birth, six Social Security numbers off of
one ID number. That would have taken a team of people a couple
of weeks to run down.
Mr. Forbes. So it would be better to have the database and
maybe even fewer officers because we have had some chiefs that
have come in here and said exactly the opposite of what the
chief said. They said, ``We do not need to hire more police
officers. What we need is more technology so that we can have a
smarter operation and more effective policing than what we have
today.'' Would you disagree with the request that they had made
at that particular time?
Mr. Monaghan. No, like you said--I was just talking to the
department's legislative representative here today--we have
less cops, we have more technology, and we are more efficient.
We have a lower crime rate.
Mr. Forbes. And you have a lower crime rate.
Mr. Monaghan. Yes.
Mr. Forbes. And yet, if that were the case, I could hold up
a chart here today that would say, ``You have zero more cops,
or you had less cops, actually''--I could put that chart up--
``but your crime rate is still falling because you have been
smart at how you have used the policing of the police officers
that you have.'' Fair statement?
Mr. Monaghan. Right.
Mr. Forbes. Good.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Scott. The gentleman from New York?
Mr. Weiner. Thank you.
There has been evidence today that the gentleman from
Virginia has not read the bill. Technology is permitted under
the COPS program only if it can be demonstrated to the COPS
Office that buying that technology allows you to take a police
officer----
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman?
Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Weiner. Certainly.
Mr. Forbes. Can you tell me what statement that I made that
suggested that I did not read the bill because you are prone
sometimes to kind of make those statements and accusations
against members?
Mr. Weiner. Certainly, you suggested----
Mr. Forbes. No, I asked a question as to whether or not----
Mr. Weiner. The gentleman asked a question on my time, and
now I am answering it.
Mr. Scott. The record will reflect that my colleague from
Virginia has read the bill, and we can proceed.
Mr. Weiner. Certainly.
The fact of the matter is, lest the record be left with the
impression that technology or manpower is a choice, that is not
the case. What the COPS program does is allow police
departments to invest in technology that they can show to the
COPS Office allows them to put an additional police officer out
on the beat.
That is part of the flexibility that is built into the bill
at the request of my colleagues at the other side who said,
``We wanted more flexibility.'' And it was a fair beef, it was
a fair concern, that there is more to policing than just
manpower.
For example, if you can put a Sprint terminal in a police
officer's car that allows them to do less time at their desk
and more time out patrolling the street, we give them credit
for hiring another police officer and we fund that under the
COPS program. It is one of the most successful elements of the
program. It is a very flexible bill. It is one of the things we
did to improve the bill.
And finally, I think the gentleman from North Carolina in
the context of the question--and the gentleman from Virginia
did something similar--implied that--and, frankly, the
gentleman from the Administration did this, too--it is so
mysterious. How did these crimes fall?
Well, it is not mysterious to GAO, it is not mysterious to
the University of Nebraska, it is not mysterious to the Urban
Institute, it is not mysterious to Yale University, and it is
not mysterious to the report done by the Police Executive
Research Forum, nor is it mysterious to the dozens of
organizations, including many in Virginia, who say the COPS
program has worked. This has been studied and studied and
studied and studied and studied.
This notion that if you just toss up all the variables that
go into the rise or reduction in crime, you can somehow then
argue against us doing anything comes back to a fundamental
binary misconception that some of my colleagues have. The real
choice is: Does the Federal Government help with local law
enforcement? That is the question.
If you believe the answer is yes, like so many Americans
believe, like so many police chiefs believe, then you support a
program like the COPS program. In fact, the Administration, who
testifies here today, and my colleagues who ran this
institution and this country for so many years, they had a
different argument. They said, ``What we are going to do is
keep zeroing out programs, renaming them and reducing the
aggregate amount.'' The final analysis is that COPS, in 1995,
put $1,056,980,000 into hiring; in 2006, zero.
Now if there is anyone in this room who believes that when
you take out the Federal role of over $1 billion in hiring
police officers and make it zero, you are safer, then I have to
tell you we are even more detached from reality here in
Washington than I thought. It is entirely intuitive to believe
that you could hire a police officer but do not train him or do
not have a court or do not have a prosecutor, it is not going
to have as good an impact. But, undoubtedly, the number of
police officers rising is a good thing. Every report that I
just quoted says it.
And I am a little bit concerned the final question might
have been misunderstood. The CompStat program was very
beneficial, but the fact of the matter is that people of the
city of New York decided to tax themselves in the mid-1990's to
hire additional police officers.
There is a direct correlation between that and the crime
coming down, and it is the ultimate in irony that the same
people who beat their chest on the floor saying, ``We need more
cops in Iraq to get this problem under control,'' now argue
that you need fewer cops on the beat in Virginia, in Maryland,
in New York, in Oregon, in California to do the same thing.
The COPS program has been a success. That is why police
departments throughout this country in tiny Republican towns,
big urban areas, have said, ``Please, Congress, do not
reauthorize this. Reverse the cuts the Bush administration has
done, and get us back in the business,'' and to hear my
colleagues state it, I can only assume they believe that law
enforcement at the end of the day, anti-terrorism at the end of
the day, everyone is on their own.
Well, some of us believe that is not right. Some of us
believe that Congress made an important step in 1994 when we
said we are going to get off the sidelines and we are going to
get into the game, and if any of you want a sense of deja vu,
just take a look at the transcript of the floor debate in 1994
when this was considered.
The names are a little bit changed. It is the exact same
stuff: ``You cannot believe what you read,'' ``The problem with
crime is that we are not doing enough in the homes,'' et
cetera, et cetera, and then the COPS program passed, crime went
down, and that is where we are today trying to reauthorize that
program.
I yield back my time.
Mr. Scott. I thank the gentleman.
Does the gentlelady from Texas have questions? The
gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Many times, one would say ditto, but there are too many
important witnesses here for me to ignore your expertise. First
of all, let me thank you for your presence here today.
And let me thank the Chairman.
There are multiple hearings and markups that are going on,
but I took rollerskates to try and make it here today because I
believe there are some important elements that need to be
raised.
First of all, let me immediately put a dash or a hammer on
any issue of cost on any of these programs. For the record, let
me acknowledge, though I do not advocate for it, there's $275
million being spent in Iraq today per day. That comes out to
about $11 million, Mayor, an hour. I do not know if you had $11
million, how much you could do for your fine city.
I come from Houston, Texas, where I had the opportunity to
work with the father of community-oriented policing, then Chief
Lee P. Brown, and I am gratified to have been one of his strong
supporters for him to become Mayor Lee P. Brown. What an
interesting time period that we lived in.
We could document the measurement of crime going down, one,
giving police officers a degree of flexibility, but, two,
getting them to know the guys and gals on the block, the bad
guys and the good guys. So you did not go into a neighborhood
completely blind, you already knew where the bad guys were.
For example, I was in my congressional district visiting an
elderly person; a bunch of folk across the street, loud
talking, phones going, profanity going, ``I will kill you.''
All of a sudden, they get in a car and speed off. I was looking
to see them on the late night news. Community-oriented policing
means that somebody knew what would be around or knew who those
guys were.
It is a disgrace what we have done to community-oriented
policing and the COPS program in particular, and so let me
focus my questions on the necessity of bringing back where we
were before.
My city is seeing an enormous increase in crime, and it is
not the blame of the Katrina survivors. I make it a habit of
stopping my law enforcement. I am a former member of the
Houston city council, so I am used to talking to the men and
women in blue or orange or whatever colors they are wearing,
and I am not talking about orange incarcerated jail uniforms.
We have a variety of colors in the State of Texas. But I asked
them. There is a frustration. There is not enough. They do not
have enough to be on the street. They are not on the beat.
So, Mayor, let me ask this question. The bell is ringing.
So let me ask you this question.
And I want to welcome Reverend Daniels and Mike, and I will
be with them in just a moment.
Let me ask you the question on just, if you could just stay
on this, Cops on the Beat. This latitude, this using of this
money so that cities can get to the core of their crime problem
by using more officers in a variety of ways, is that helpful
and constructive in what we are dealing with today?
Mayor Palmer. Absolutely. And mayors across the country
want flexibility. We want to be able to say how we can use the
money most effectively, whether it is in technology, whether it
is putting more police officers on the streets, but it is
definitely needed.
And everything that your colleague from New York just said
and others, it is just ditto to that as well. We need more
resources, more police, and if we can make sure that we are
trying to put soldiers and police in Iraq, I do not know why we
cannot have it right here at home in the good old USA.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And the diminishing dollars did not help
you. The cuts were not helpful.
Mayor Palmer. They were hurtful, and you have to take from
other areas because you are going to have to do what you have
to do to make your city safe. It cuts across the board, and you
begin to take away from other vital services that also
increased--poverty, which increases, drugs, crime--and it is a
vicious cycle.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And there is something about knowledge, if
you know where the guys are, if you know where they are, if the
cops have the relationship.
Chief, would you quickly answer? Because I do want to get
to the district attorney. I welcome her, and I am not ignoring
others, but my time is moving quickly.
You are from a small city, and the one thing I liked about
Cops on the Beat--I was here starting in 1995. The past
Administration had this idea--is small cities are included as
well. Is it a vital part of your staffing issues?
Chief Mosca. Thank God you asked that question,
Congresswoman. Not to be lost in what the urban problems are
and the successes of CrimeStat, in reference to the
congressman's question, smarter policing does occur in small
communities, and we have a CompStat. We know our communities.
We have a department of 20-some-odd police officers. We know
what our crime rate is. We know what the crime is. We meet on
it. We react to it daily. It is no different than CrimeStat,
but they are dealing with 8 million people; we are dealing with
12,000.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You can make a difference.
Chief Mosca. And so it absolutely makes a difference. It
allows us an opportunity to try a program that has been
researched. We put it into play, and we can watch it be
successful. If, God forbid, it is a failure, we end it.
But those programs have all been successful. They have been
well thought out and the majority of law enforcement agencies
in this country, over 85 percent of them, are small
communities, small departments.
So you cannot get lost in your dialogue in discussing just
urban major cities. You have to think about the vast majority
of law enforcement throughout the country, which is community
policemen, community policing oriented. It always has been. We
just did not know it.
Mr. Scott. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The gentlelady from California?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I decided to serve on this Subcommittee because I truly
want to understand what can be done to reduce the crime in our
cities and in our towns. We are not talking about gangs today,
but the gang problem is an absolute serious problem all across
this country, and the crimes are being committed mostly by
these young people in our communities. So I am really
interested in solutions, and I know that lock-them-up-and-
throw-the-key-away does not work, but I do not know what does
work.
So I am very pleased that we have our district attorney
from California here today, District Attorney Kamala Harris,
talking about community policing and community prosecution. I
want to understand a little bit more about how it works.
I know that you have been discussing this phenomenon of
witnesses not coming forth and being called snitching and how
prominent that has gotten according to some of your testimony
here. They are wearing tee-shirts----
Ms. Harris. That is correct.
Ms. Waters [continuing]. Into courtrooms, and even mothers
of some of the children who may have committed crimes are
wearing tee-shirts to stop the snitching. That is really,
really, really scary and off the hook.
But I am glad that you are here. It is good to see you. And
I am appreciative for the leadership that you are providing.
Help me to understand a little bit about community
prosecution and policing.
Ms. Harris. Thank you, Congresswoman, and for your
leadership in California.
This issue is addressed in the COPS bill, which is that
there should be support for the idea that prosecutors have the
ability through engagement with the community and outreach to
do the work of not only, again, encouraging witnesses to come
forward, but having a presence in those communities to perhaps
prevent crime from happening in the first place.
So some of the work we are doing in San Francisco--and I
know is being done throughout California--involves creating,
for example, a DA liaison program. So I have lawyers in my
office who actually have volunteered to be representatives to
each of our police district stations and go out in the
community and be known to be the representative for that area
and to take information and attend community meetings. So that
is some of the work we have done.
Another effort that we have made is to work with community-
based organizations around, for example, domestic violence or
child abuse, and encourage them. when there are cases happening
in the courthouses, to attend and to be able to present and
vocal and, in that way, feel connected to what is happening in
our courts.
We have also worked with community leadership around
immediate response to crime when it happens. Often, when
violent crime happens, everyone in the neighborhood is there or
will turn out, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done
not only in terms of investigation of the crime, but also in
terms of de-escalation. Certainly, police officers make that
attempt and do a good job, but if we are doing it with also
partnership from prosecutors and community-based leaders, we
find that we are being more effective.
So that is some of the work that we have been doing that I
believe is making a difference in terms of, again, being
present in these communities. I often go out myself on Saturday
mornings into various communities and hold what we call
information fairs, and I invite the chief of police and others.
We give in the community center information about the work that
we can do not only protecting witnesses, but also giving
services in terms of counseling and support and helping them in
terms of other areas of their lives that are impacted by the
crime that happens in their community.
Ms. Waters. I was in the Tallahassee area just yesterday,
and I was in two little cities--one is Quincy, and the other
one is Havana--and I had someone trying to explain to me a
program that they have. It is like intervention where a young
person commits a crime, and I guess maybe it is a non-violent
crime, I do not know, but they like give them a ticket of some
kind, and then they have to report on an ongoing basis.
It is not probation. The first time I guess this person
interacts with the criminal justice system. They have something
that they do to have them report back, and I think they have
requirements that they have to meet, and this is designed to
deter them from the criminal justice system, not give them a
record. They do not get a record for that crime that they
committed. So it is probably a non-violent crime.
Have you heard of a program like that?
Ms. Harris. We have something similar which we call
community courts, and it is based on basically a village model,
the belief that crime that occurs in communities that is non-
violent crime that happens to be crime that is a nuisance to
that community can be handled often by the elders in that
community, the people who are the leaders in that community.
So we will refer cases to these community courts that are
set up as basically a tribunal of leadership from the various
neighborhoods, and they review the case, and then they mete out
the sentence that is appropriate and consistent with the mores
of that community.
So, for example, we have a number of cases that involve
small storeowners selling alcohol to minors, which, of course,
creates a big problem for those communities, and so the
sentence, if you will, may involve and include not only a fine,
but also that that offender be involved in activities that
involve the youth in that neighborhood.
So that is some of the work that is happening, community
courts.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much. It sounds good.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you.
And I would like to thank all of our witnesses for your
testimony.
Members who have additional questions may submit them in
writing. We will forward them to you and hopefully get answers
as promptly as you can to be made part of the record.
Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for
1 week for the submission of additional materials.
We have a markup scheduled right now. We will adjourn to go
vote and ask Members to come back promptly after the vote. It
is on the hate crimes legislation that is scheduled for markup
tomorrow, so we would like to mark it up in Subcommittee right
after the last vote.
So, without objection, the Committee now stands adjourned,
and we will reconvene immediately after the last vote.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman,
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
The Subcommittee will now come to order. I am pleased to welcome
you today to this hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism
and Homeland Security on H.R. 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act of
2007;'' H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders
Incentive Act of 2007;'' and H.R. 933, the ``Witness Security and
Protection Act of 2007.''
The first of the three bills, HR 1700, the ``COPS Improvements Act
of 2007,'' amends the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
1968 to expand the current authority of the Attorney General to make
grants for public safety and community policing, or the ``COPS''
program.
The COPS program was originally created in 1994, as part of the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Since its inception, the
mission of the program has been to advance community policing in all
jurisdictions across the U.S. The program achieves this objective by
awarding grants to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, so
they can hire and train law enforcement officers to participate in
community policing; purchase and deploy new crime-fighting
technologies; and develop and test new and innovative policing
strategies.
Since 1994, the program has awarded more than $11.4 billion to over
13,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S.; and at the end of
fiscal year 2004, the program had been credited with funding more than
118,000 community policing officers.
The second of the three bills, H.R. 916, the ``John R. Justice
Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007,'' also seeks to amend
the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. But, in the
case of this measure, the legislation specifically directs the Attorney
General to assume the obligation to repay student loans of any
individual who agrees to remain employed, for at least three years, as
either: (1) a state or local criminal prosecutor; or (2) a state,
local, or federal public defender in a criminal case.
The inherent difficulties associated with retaining qualified
public attorneys is not new. And, there are multiple reasons why an
attorney might choose the private sector over the public sector. The
most frequently discussed reason centers around the need for higher
paying jobs in the private sector to pay off any lingering student loan
debt.
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reports that the
median salary for a fifth year associate in private practice is $122,
500. In contrast, according to the NALP, the median salary for a fifth
year state prosecuting attorney is merely $55,177; while a fifth year
public defender makes even less at $54,672; and a fifth year local
prosecuting yet and still makes even less at just $54,500. With
significant pay disparities such as this, it's easy to understand how
public sector attorneys are easily lured away with the hope of
obtaining a larger salary that can often be found in the private
sector.
The final measure that we are considering today, H.R. 933, the
``Witness Security and Protection Act of 2007,'' seeks to amend title
28 of the United States Code to establish within the U.S. Marshals
Service a short term witness protection program for witnesses that are
involved in a state or local trial involving a homicide, serious
violent felony, or serious drug offense. To ensure the best possible
use of limited federal resources, the legislation also directs the U.S.
Marshals Service to give priority to those prosecutor's offices that
are located in a state with an average of at least 100 murders per year
during the five year period immediately preceding and application for
protection.
Witness intimidation reduces the likelihood that citizens will
engage in the criminal justice system, which could deprive police and
prosecutors of critical evidence. Moreover, it can also have the
unwanted effect of reducing public confidence in the criminal justice
system, and can create the perception that the criminal justice system
can not adequately protect its citizens.
I looking forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses on
these latter points, as well as their thoughts on the previous issues
mentioned with regard to the prior two bills.
With that said, it is now my pleasure to recognize the esteemed
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, my friend and colleague, the
Honorable, Randy J. Forbes, who represents Virginia's 4th Congressional
District.
Without objection, all Members may include opening statements in
the record at this point.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Gavin Newsom, Mayor, San Francisco, CA
Chairman Scott, I want to commend the Subcommittee for holding this
hearing today to focus on the recent increase in incidents of violent
crime and the need to determine how best, on the Federal level, to help
state and local law enforcement officials combat the rise in violent
crime. One critical legislative solution is bringing the COPS program
back as en effective tool to combat violent crime. I am very encouraged
by the introduction of H.R. 1700, the COPS Improvement Act of 2007, and
urge the Subcommittee to take immediate action on this important
measure.
The US Conference of Mayors reports that 2005 showed the largest
single year percent increase in violent crime in 15 years. This trend
continued in 2006 according to a Police Executive Research Forum
survey. A number of factors contribute to this increase in crime,
including a growing culture of violence among youth, gangs, a
proliferation of illegal guns, drug activity, and social problems
related to school truancy and lack of jobs.
COPS provides grants to tribal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies to hire and train community policing professionals, acquire
and deploy cutting-edge crime-fighting technologies, and develop and
test innovative policing strategies. COPS has invested $11.3 billion to
add community policing officers to the nation's streets and schools,
enhance crime fighting technology, support crime prevention
initiatives, and provide training and technical assistance to advance
community policing. Since its creation in 1994, COPS has funded over
118,000 community policing officers and deputies nationwide. Since
1995, COPS has funded 267 police officers in San Francisco.
As mayor I work hard every day to keep our community safe and have
been frustrated that the current Administration has slashed federal
funding for major Department of Justice law enforcement programs in
recent years. Of special concern is the COPS program, which was once
funded at almost $1.5 billion, and has now been eliminated in the
President's current budget.
Along with crime prevention, job training, and youth programs, our
cities need more police officers to walk the beat and keep our
residents safe. At a time when homeland security dominates federal
spending priorities, I urge Congress to re-prioritize the need for
hometown security and restore full funding to and enhance the COPS
program.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Prepared Statement of Martin S. Pinales, President, National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
Yesterday brought news of a significant milestone in the criminal
justice system: the 200th person exonerated through DNA evidence since
1989. According to the Innocence Project, these 200 exonerees served
2,475 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. While the
importance of DNA analysis for purposes of exonerating the innocent and
identifying the actual perpetrators cannot be denied, its usefulness as
a forensic tool is limited to a small percentage of cases and crimes.
As this Committee has recognized, ``DNA alone will not eliminate
wrongful convictions. . . . [B]iological evidence that can establish
guilt or innocence is available in fewer than 20 percent of violent
crimes.'' House Rpt. 108-711.
Nonetheless, studying these wrongful convictions and their causes
has helped to elucidate the problems in the criminal justice system
that can lead to errors. By taking advantage of this learning moment,
we can institute reforms that prevent future errors, thus enhancing
public safety.
Law student debt helps explain one piece of a serious problem in
our criminal justice system: the often-inadequate representation of
people who are accused of a crime but cannot afford an attorney. Most
public defenders are burdened with huge caseloads and a lack of basic
resources. Couple these systemic problems with constant staff turnover
caused by low salaries and high educational debt, and even the most
dedicated public defender organizations will find it hard to provide
quality representation. Such inequities guarantee that injustice will
be done and innocent persons will be wrongly convicted, leaving the
actual perpetrators at large.
The John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act (H.R.
916) represents a bipartisan effort to address this problem by
providing education debt relief to lawyers who serve as public
defenders and prosecutors for at least three years. The Act will help
solve the problem of errors by making it easier for prosecutor's
offices and public defender organizations to recruit and retain the
best and brightest attorneys.
With today's young lawyers often carrying $100,000 or more in
education debt upon graduation from law school, many simply cannot
afford to enter and continue employment as public defenders.
Consider the following figures:
Public defender salary (average):
$43,000
Monthly take-home pay (after tax):
$2,606
Cumulative education debt (private, average):
$78,763
Monthly loan payments:
$906 \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Assuming a 10-year repayment term and an interest rate of 6.8%.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amount left for living expenses:
$1,700
It is easy to see that housing, food, transportation and other
basic necessities will swallow up the remaining take-home pay--making
home ownership, parenthood, and retirement saving beyond the reach of
the average public defender. As a result, lawyers carrying even the
average education debt load are effectively priced out of public
service, and prosecutors' and public defenders' offices have serious
difficulty attracting the best-qualified candidates and retaining
experienced attorneys. Indeed, many offices have vacancies that they
cannot fill.
Student loan debt is consistently cited as the overwhelming reason
why attorneys decline or leave positions as prosecutors and public
defenders. According to a survey conducted by the National Association
for Law Placement, law school debt prevented two-thirds of law student
respondents from considering a public service career. The barrier
disproportionately affects minority attorneys, who often enter law
school with fewer resources and leave with greater debt.
The low salary makes it incredibly difficult for offices to retain
attorneys. Even attorneys willing to make the sacrifices necessary to
enter public service cannot continue to do so forever. As a result,
many attorneys leave these offices after only a few years. Recruiting
experienced attorneys to take their places is almost impossible because
of the salary. As a result, the justice system is left operating with a
dearth of experienced attorneys, and less experienced, less qualified
attorneys are forced to handle complicated cases, with the accused and
the community suffering the consequences.
Frequent staff turnover also creates inefficiency in the justice
system. Cases are frequently delayed because of turnover, and offices
must constantly expend precious resources recruiting and training new
staff. For this reason, the Department of Justice Office of Justice
Programs has concluded that loan forgiveness is ``an important means of
reducing staff turnover and avoiding related recruitment/training costs
and disruptions to the office and case processing.'' Improving Criminal
Justice System through Expanded Strategies and Innovative
Collaborations: Report of the National Symposium on Indigent Defense,
NCJ 181344, February 1999.
``Nowhere in public service is it more important to encourage the
recruitment of competent lawyers and the retention of experienced ones
than in the disciplines of prosecution and public defense, where
people's lives and liberty hang in the balance.'' Senate Rpt. 107-315.
A reliable, fair, and efficient justice system requires competent
attorneys representing the interests of government, protecting the
rights of individuals, and ensuring that mistakes are not made. Skilled
lawyers in the courtroom are the best safeguard against wrongful
convictions of innocent people, an unconscionable miscarriage of
justice in a system that is held out as a model for the world.
Competent, experienced defense lawyers and prosecutors are
essential to America's time-honored adversarial system of justice. A
revolving-door system, where new lawyers leave just as they begin to
hit their stride, wastes tax dollars and denies us the talents and
dedication of those attracted to a lifetime of public service. The John
R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act would help ensure
public safety and fundamental fairness, as well as increasing
efficiencies, by making it possible for the most qualified lawyers to
choose and continue these noble and essential legal careers.
__________
NACDL is the preeminent organization in the United States advancing
the mission of the nation's criminal defense lawyers to ensure justice
and due process for persons accused of crime or other misconduct. A
professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's 12,500 direct
members--and 80 state, local and international affiliate organizations
with another 35,000 members--include private criminal defense lawyers,
public defenders, active-duty U.S. military defense counsel, law
professors and judges committed to preserving fairness within America's
criminal justice system.
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