Government resources increasingly have been thrown into the fight against terrorism, and that endangers community policing, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton declared at a public forum yesterday.
Community policing caused a downward trend in crime nationally in the 1990s, but crime is beginning to rebound because less money and attention is being devoted to community policing in this decade, he said.
Many of those resources have been siphoned to prevent terrorism, and there has been a general disinvestment in policing, he said.
In the previous decade, 100,000 additional police were hired and $3 billion was spent on research, including the application of DNA evidence, and on the equipping of police forces.
Bratton called for a balancing of the expenditures so that both policing and terrorism are addressed.
Link: http://www.projo.com/metro/content/projo_20060302_bratton2.17fb15c8.html