NCJ Number
185426
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 27 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2000 Pages: 26-32
Date Published
October 2000
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article presents the findings and implications of the Urban Institute's assessment of the Federal COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program.
Abstract
Established in 1994, the COPS program already has distributed $8.8 billion dollars in Federal grants to help fight crime in high-risk areas. In September 2000, The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization, released the results of a national Institute of Justice-funded study of the COPS program. Researchers found COPS not only provided significant support for the adoption of community policing efforts around the country, but also made progress toward many of its other goals, including grants to hire thousands of additional police officers. The urban Institute report praised COPS for making significant progress in crime prevention and problem solving, as well as in instituting new management techniques; however, the report also found that community policing partnerships that involved sharing power and decision making with the community were rare. The report credits the COPS program with energizing a developing national community policing movement, providing training and technical assistance for community policing, and distributing funds that allow local police executives to add community policing without cutting back on other activities. This article describes the San Antonio Fear Free Environment (SAFFE) unit as a good example of the types of programs that COPS funding has helped start. SAFFE officers spend the bulk of their time working with community-involvement programs to help solve crime problems.