EYEING CRIME RATE, POLICE TO WORK OVERTIME ON DRUG ARRESTS

In An Effort To Stop The Crime Rate From Creeping Up, The Police Department
Plans To Spend About $20 Million In Overtime To Put More Than 400
Additional Narcotics Officers On The Streets And Increase The Number Of
Daily Drug Arrests, Several Police And City Officials Said Yesterday.

In an effort to stop the crime rate from creeping up, the Police Department
plans to spend about $20 million in overtime to put more than 400 additional
narcotics officers on the streets and increase the number of daily drug
arrests, several police and city officials said yesterday.

The plan was developed after the 1999 year-end crime statistics showed that
the murder rate, which had been declining since 1992, had begun to rise.
There were 667 homicides last year, a 6 percent increase from the 629 in
1998. The narcotics effort is rooted in a belief among top city and police
officials that crime drops as low-level drug arrests increase, a theory they
contend is borne out by the dramatic drops in overall reported crime from
1993 to 1998, when the number of misdemeanor drug arrests nearly quadrupled.
Felony and misdemeanor drug arrests declined last year by 12.6 percent, to
78,426 -- an average of 215 a day -- from 89,712 in 1998.

The police hope that the plan will yield an additional 200 to 300 drug
arrests a day, and have told court officials to be prepared to handle the
additional arraignments once the program is in place, court and law
enforcement officials said. One senior law enforcement official said most of
the arrests under the new program are expected to be for misdemeanor drug
violations.

A city official and the law enforcement official said the plan was proposed
by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani last Friday during his weekly meeting at City
Hall with Police Commissioner Howard Safir. A spokesman for the mayor did
not respond to questions about the program last night. (p)

The plan's expenses will be included in the mayor's proposed budget, to be
released later this month, said a city official with knowledge of the
program's financing. In recent years, the Police Department's annual
overtime budget has ranged from $96 million to $147 million. Under the plan,
called Operation Condor, an additional 52 narcotics teams, consisting of a
police sergeant, five investigators and two undercover officers, will work
each day, focusing on low-level street sales and buy-and-bust operations,
several officials said. They will be supported by other narcotics officers
and detectives.

"They're going to be low-level street arrests, mostly misdemeanors," the law
enforcement official said. "It's just to try and cut down on the increase in
crime and reduce it, if that's possible."

The plan will not involve assigning additional officers to narcotics
details, but will instead involve overtime work by officers on their days
off, the official said.

The plan is to focus on areas in the city where crime, and homicides in
particular, is increasing.

A city official said the extra officers would focus on southeast Queens,
northern Manhattan, Harlem, the Lower East Side and the South Bronx, among
other areas.

Another law enforcement official said 4 teams would be devoted to the
southern half of Manhattan and 10 to the northern half.