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But federal funding cuts could end the successes of the last few years in community law enforcement.
By Dacus Thompson, League staff
The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, of all the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act's provisions, has had perhaps the most tangible impact on communities around the country, including Arkansas. Passed in the Clinton Administration, the Act was the largest crime bill in history. It put more than 100,000 police officers on the street in 10 years, and money for 1,314 police officers went to Arkansas cities and towns. President Bush's proposed 2005 budget slashes the COPS program by 96 percent, from $499 million in fiscal year 2004 to $22 million in FY2005. With police officers deployed with their National Guard units in Iraq and increased demand on police to beef up homeland security on already tight city budgets, the federal slash in COPS could devastate a law enforcement program that has a proven success rate in Arkansas. Prosecuting Attorney Tim Williamson of Mena told KUAR public radio in Little Rock that police initiatives, such as drug task forces, will suffer tremendously and that "... basically, all of Arkansas's efforts over the past four or five years will be wasted" if the proposed budget passes and the COPS program is put on its last leg.
Police under COPS viewed "more as human beings." COPS was created to promote a new philosophy of policing, one that works closely with the community to personalize police officers and narrow the chasm between the police and the public. "The public perception of the police officer has changed," said Sgt. Kirk Redwine of the Fort Smith COPS bicycle unit. "It used to be, or at least it felt from the police standpoint, that there was a kind of us-versus-them mentality. And now, because of the openness the COPS program has brought, people really view us more as human beings rather than robots." The program sprang out of the positive reaction bicycle policing received in Seattle, Wash., in the 1980s, and the philosophy that preventive policing-educating and establishing relationships with the public-would, in time, result in a decrease in criminal activity. The first two Arkansas police departments to benefit from COPS were Fort Smith and North Little Rock, which were the only two Arkansas cities to be a part of the Accelerated Hiring, Education and Deployment (AHEAD) branch of COPS. Funding for three officers in Fort Smith and four in North Little Rock was matched by the cities, and in October 1995, the first officers of the COPS program hit the streets as bicycle cops. COPS in Schools, COPSMETH (funding to combat methamphetamine labs), Funding Accelerated for Smaller Towns (FAST) and Troops, which encouraged hiring newly discharged military veterans, were other COPS programs. But after 9/11, COPS programs plunged almost to obsolescence as law enforcement focus and budgets shifted more to homeland security and counter-terrorism programs.
Two COPS programs 'thrive' on and off bikes. Yet, the two original Arkansas COPS programs thrive, thanks to their cities' support. "The city of Fort Smith has bent over backwards in trying to keep us," said Cpl. Kevin Chitwood, who has bike-patrolled the same area in Fort Smith for five years. "This is a great program that our people and community want and need." The Fort Smith Police Department (FSPD), with one of the strongest COPS programs in the state, faces challenges. Two years ago, the program shrunk to four officers, after peaking at 22. And with 10 percent of the FSPD force deployed in the military and the added requirements of homeland security-two officers were peeled off the COPS unit to guard the Fort Smith Regional Airport, the number of officers to allot to preventive programs dwindled. "We had to streamline the COPS program to keep our emergency services up," David Overton, captain of FSPD Patrol Operations, said. "When it got small, it got a little tense, but now I think we have a good unit." That good unit emerged from a concerted effort by the city to bring the program back to its feet. It now has 14 active officers and one sergeant; one officer is on active duty in Iraq. Bicycle cops work with multiple community-related programs and respond to emergencies in their areas, make arrests and investigate crimes as do patrol officers. They cannot transport prisoners, however. But as detectives, narcotics officers or other officers in special units, bike officers must serve three years as a patrol officer. Free of the heavy call loads, COPS officers can take the time to see an investigation run its course. "Generally, we are afforded more time to a proper investigation and a proper follow up," Redwine said. "Patrolmen are just too busy to do that." The bicycle officers operate out of nine substations located where there are large concentrations of people-downtown, apartment complexes, schools and high-crime areas. The main substation on the Fort Smith Northside High School campus is home-base to three officers. Sgt. Redwine is one. "There are people who think the problems at the school must be so enormous that they have to house the police station there," he said. "It's not like that. The substation is an additional satellite police office. It's not manned 24 hours a day. It's a place to have lunch, do paperwork or whatever." The substations have an open-door policy for the public. This openness is the main advantage to being on a bike, said Chitwood. "If you're in a patrol car cruising by at 15 mph with the windows up and air conditioner on, people aren't going to talk to you," Chitwood said. "But with me riding by 8-10 mph on a bicycle, it's nothing for someone to yell out to talk to me because there are no barriers between me and them. We're more approachable because we're not in cars and they see us on a regular basis." Chitwood's substation is a converted apartment in public housing with 170 apartments, and he patrols a half-mile square radius near the apartments-but he goes slightly beyond that. Each week, he visits three schools, attending awards banquets, teaching safety classes and talking to everyone he sees. "I just go out and talk to people all day," Chitwood said. "If someone's out raking leaves, I'll stop and talk to them." "There are eyes out there, and I don't live in all these neighborhoods that I ride in. I don't see things on a daily basis," Chitwood continued, "but they're there all the time and if they see things out of the norm, they let me know." The philosophy of the police department and public perception of the police officer have changed. "When you foster positive relationships, you get people who wouldn't call the police-they may have been afraid or didn't trust the police before-who are now calling because they know some people at the department," Redwine said. "We used to think we knew how to handle everything, but golly gee whiz, the public knows a lot about this stuff. A lot of times, they know a lot more than we do. And before [COPS], we weren't sharing a lot of our information." This approach has impacted the entire department. "Of course, community policing is not a unit, it is a philosophy. Our whole department is working towards community policing," Overton said. "But it also takes a long time to change attitudes in police departments." At the North Little Rock Police Department (NLRPD), it took seven years for the department's structure and the attitude to change. "We've integrated the COPS program into our whole patrol department," said Sgt. Terry Kuykendall, the public information officer for the NLRPD. "We believe that part of being a good police officer is to be people-oriented, interacting with the public and solving problems." The North Little Rock COPS program developed similarly to Fort Smith's: every COPS officer was put on bike patrol; different substations were set up around the city; and the officers worked with schools, churches and crime-watch groups. Initially, the COPS program worked wonderfully, Kuykendall said. "The criminals began seeing the saturation of officers in [the substation] areas combating what was going on," Kuykendall said. "It kind of spider-webbed out and the crime rate definitely decreased." Although the bicycle cops communication with the public went well, the relay of information between the regular patrol and the bicycle patrol suffered. "The information didn't get exchanged back and forth," Kuykendall said. "Patrol officers would respond to calls in a COPS-designated area and the COPS officer wouldn't be around." The North Little Rock COPS program in 2001 dissolved as an independent branch. The following year, the patrol division was integrated with the community-oriented philosophy and broke into four independent stations-Levy, Rose City, Lakewood and Argenta-downtown. The stations operate with the same community mindedness of the COPS substations, except with the personnel and resources that accompany a full-functioning station. "We think it was a great way to combine the COPS philosophy and patrol and try to integrate all the officers," Kuykendall said. "We believe a good police officer is going to be able to solve problems and do the COPS-types of things, like be responsive to the community, and that's what we want all of our officers to do."
Cities strain to maintain COPS. COPS has had an impact not only on larger cities but also on small communities around the state. Aid to cities and towns that previously couldn't afford to place police officers in schools or didn't have the funding to adequately fight the battle on methamphetamines or other criminal behavior was provided by the COPS program; with the money being cut, COPS likely will falter. Larger municipalities, such as Fort Smith, population 80,268, and North Little Rock, population 60,433, have kept their programs afloat, but even cities as large as Conway, population 43,167, have been unable to sustain their COPS programs due to lack of funding and the personnel pinch due to military call-ups and homeland security requirements.
COPS has worked-changed perceptions, reduced crime
As tremors jiggle northeast Arkansas, sporadic preparations continue for the big one
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