REPORT SHOWS MORE COPS INVOLVED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

WASHINGTON - In greater numbers and in more places than ever, police are
succumbing to the temptations posed by huge sums of cash from illegal
drugs.

Official corruption, which has raged for years in the nation's big cities,
is spreading to the hinterlands. So rampant has it become that the number
of federal, state and local officials in federal prisons has grown fivefold
over the last four years, increasing from 107 in 1994 to 548 today,
according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Although only a tiny fraction of the nation's law-enforcement officials are
behind bars, the increase in their numbers reflects a harsh reality:
Despite the government's "war on drugs," the problem is defying concerted
efforts to stamp it out.

"It's a big problem across the country, in big towns and small towns, and
it's not getting any better," said Michael Hoke, superintendent for
internal affairs of the Chicago Police Department. "Dope dealing is
probably the only growth industry in Chicago's inner city," he said, and
some police officers can't resist the temptation to siphon off a share for
themselves.

Hoke was head of the force's narcotics unit until three years ago, when
officials, suspecting that some officers were deeply involved in the drug
rackets, put him in charge of internal affairs to begin an investigation
that is still under way.

"So far, we've sent 15 police to the penitentiary," Hoke said. "And we're
not done yet."

Hoke and police officials of 51 other major cities are meeting in Sun
Valley, Idaho, this weekend to review a new report, "Misconduct to
Corruption," compiled by officials from 15 cities with assistance from the
FBI.

The authors of the report sent questionnaires to all 52 cities. Of the 37
that responded, all acknowledged continuing problems with general
corruption and misconduct in 1997.

Altogether, they reported 187 felony arrests of officers and 265
misdemeanor arrests. Eighty-five officers were charged with illicit use of
drugs, 118 with theft, 148 with domestic violence and nine with driving
under the influence of alcohol.

The report cited several cases of officers' robbing drug dealers. In
Indianapolis, one of two officers charged with murdering a drug dealer
during a robbery admitted that they had been robbing drug dealers for four
years.

A big-city police chief, the report concluded, "can expect, on average, to
have 10 officers charged per year with abuse of police authority, five
arrested for a felony, seven for a misdemeanor, three for theft and four
for domestic violence. By any estimation, these numbers are unacceptable."

Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans and
Savannah, Ga., are among cities that have experienced major law-enforcement
scandals involving illegal drugs in recent years. And many smaller
communities, especially in the South and Southwest, have been hit by
drug-related corruption in police or sheriff's departments.

"You can't just look at the numbers" in measuring the effect on the
community of "a police officer abusing citizens through corruption," said
Neil Gallagher, deputy assistant director of the FBI's criminal
investigative division. "Corruption erodes public confidence in
government."

Gallagher, as special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI office several
years ago, directed an investigation that led to convictions of 11 officers
and a sweeping overhaul of the city's police department. Underlying causes
of corruption there, he said, ranged from "severely underpaying officers to
lack of training, poor selection of officers and very little command and
control."

New Orleans is widely recognized today for its reforms - a sharp increase
in hiring standards, pay increases of up to 25 percent and a reorganization
and restaffing of the internal affairs unit.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)