MORE COPS ON THE BEAT SOUNDS GOOD TO US

It may not turn out to be the prettiest sight, 1,000 Chicago police
officers taking leave of their desk jobs and hitting the street.

The months and years of indoor work have taken their toll on many of
the officers' conditioning, as symbolized by their beefy leader,
Police Supt. Phil Cline. But who's measuring waists when there's a
chance to seriously disrupt the urban drug trade?

The specific target of what might be called Project Get in the Way is
the open-air drug market that Mayor Daley has called "the major source
of income for street gangs." One week out of every five, each of the
desk officers will be required to make his presence felt in crowding,
dispersing and chasing suspected dealers from their street corners and
impeding the flow of money and information between them. This
continual visibility of extra officers promises not only to undermine
gang activity, but also to bring relief to Chicagoans who have been
forced to live in the shadow of the drug scene.

Cline recognizes that with the budget as tight as it is, police have
to use all the resources at their disposal. "If the Chicago Police
Department hopes to tackle the city's violent crime problem," said
Cline, "then it will take everyone who wears the uniform." We have to
admit we were a bit surprised to learn that out of the city's 12,000
cops, 1,000 of them are clerks or in administrative positions.

That's a lot of man hours being applied to jobs that require a lot of
sitting.

Rather than enter this new situation in a defensive posture, primed to
repel stale old fat jokes, the officers can use this as an opportunity
to hit the treadmill and punching bags (or intensify the "continuous
training" it is said that at least some of them get already) and get
in shape to take on their important new task. Not only will being in
better shape maximize their effectiveness -- they may, after all, be
required to do some running -- and allay those fears that some of
these officers might not be up to the crime-fighting job, it will
improve their image and fortify the positive message they are sending
into the neighborhoods.

Recruiting desk-bound officers for street duty is hardly the only
tactic the force is using.

Cline and company have had success deploying, variously, an elite unit
dispatched to hot crime spots and teams of rookie officers on foot in
threatened neighborhoods. Police also have set effective traps with
"Operation Double Play," by which officers arrest drug dealers in the
morning and, pretending to be those dealers in the afternoon, arrest
would-be drug buyers and seize vehicles driven in from the suburbs
with drug-buying in mind.

The new policy, which will see 200 police office workers on the street
each day, some for the first time in years, will be used for a limited
term. "We're looking for an immediate bang on our buck for this,"
Cline said. This is the kind of innovation needed by police in tough
budget times to cope with the toughest kind of crime.