STIMULUS PLAN HAS $1 BILLION TO HIRE MORE LOCAL POLICE

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's economic stimulus plan includes about
$1 billion to help local governments hire more police officers, which
would resurrect a Clinton administration program that had been largely
shelved by President George W. Bush.

The so-called COPS Program, for Community Oriented Policing Services,
aimed to add 100,000 police officers to local departments in eight
years. Whether it met that goal is the subject of heated debate in law
enforcement and public policy circles.

Mr. Bush, reflecting a Republican philosophical objection to having
the federal government pay for local police salaries, all but
eliminated the program.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, said money to hire police officers was an
appropriate part of the stimulus bill because it would aid the economy
"as fast as, or faster than, other spending."

"In police hiring, nearly 100 percent of the money goes to creating
jobs," Mr. Leahy said. "This is particularly important in the current
economic crisis, since many police departments are already reporting
increases in crime and cuts in their budgets and their forces."

A senior analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, David B.
Muhlhausen, who has written about the COPS program, disagreed, saying
there was "no evidence that funding for these kinds of programs will
stimulate the economy."

Mr. Muhlhausen said that nonetheless, he expected the program to be
enacted either as part of the stimulus package or by itself because
"most politicians don't want to be on the record as against a law
enforcement program, and everybody likes the idea of bringing home
some federal grants."

Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research
Forum, an independent nonprofit group focused on improving police
tactics, said that "from an economic stimulus standpoint, if you can
use new police to stabilize a neighborhood, consolidate
crime-reduction gains, then you can have a considerable impact on the
local economy."

Michael E. Schirling, the police chief in Burlington, Vt., a city of
40,000, said in an interview that while he expected crime to rise
because of the troubled economy, it had not done so yet. But Chief
Schirling said that "the wave of economic troubles surely has the
potential to drive not only crime but the stresses that drive people
to alcohol and drug abuse, and that increases the volume of calls to
law enforcement agencies."

Unlike the Clinton administration program, which provided 75 percent
of salaries for new police officers, the current proposal would pay
their full salaries.

Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who was involved
in changing the pay formula, said "localities like New York and
Chicago were hamstrung in using the funds because they had difficulty
in coming up with the 25 percent match." Such cities were also hurt,
he said, because the old program limited them to spending $75,000 per
officer over three years.

Mr. Weiner estimated that New York City would be able to add 400 or
more officers if the program was enacted as currently written.

The stimulus package also includes about $2.6 billion for other law
enforcement needs, like overtime for police departments, help with
rural drug enforcement and assistance to crime victims.