Overview:
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The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) is an agency within the Department of Justice, created by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that responded to a rash of violent crime. COPS promotes a community-based approach to law enforcement that encourages preventing crime rather than responding once crime has been committed. The aim of COPS is to improve public safety by addressing both the roots of crime and the culture of fear created by crime, a culture which perpetuates criminal activity. The concept of acting locally and addressing the roots of crime is carried out by community policing officers, who work within their own communities to develop relationships and build trust with community members. COPS provides funding and training for community policing programs.
History:
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COPS is a product of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VCCLEA) of 1994, the largest crime bill in U.S. history. The bill provided for 100,000 new police officers, as well as $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs such as COPS. VCCLEA came as a response to an outbreak of high-profile violent crimes, such as the 101 California Street shootings that left eight people dead in a San Francisco office building. Meant to crack down on violent crime, the bill toughened gun laws and instituted new statutes relating to hate crimes, sex crimes, and gang-related crime.
Since 1995, COPS has invested $12.4 billion to promote community policing, $11.4 billion of which was grant monies awarded to agencies nationwide. These funds have enabled more than 13,000 state, local, and tribal agencies to hire more than 117,000 police officers.
VCCLEA (fLibrary of Congress)
101 California Street shootings (Z Publishing)
What it Does:
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COPS carries out its mission of acting locally to prevent crime by providing funding and training materials to law enforcement agencies interested in a community-based approach to crime. The following are examples of programs that COPS has funded or otherwise participated in:
Salt Lake City: Methamphetamine Initiative
The Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) requested and was awarded funding for an initiative to combat the growing occurrence of methamphetamine (meth) labs and increased meth use in Salt Lake City. With the awarded grant monies, SLCPD created an Intelligence Unit under the COPS Meth Initiative, which assigns an intelligence analyst to assist in investigations, and conduct and present research. The analyst is also involved in the drug hotline, taking and responding to calls and leads. This involvement has helped to decrease the hotline response time by 400%.
In addition, funding has helped to increase tracking of crystallized iodine sales, a substance used to make meth. Funding was also used to train the SLCPD Narcotics Unit to become a certified clandestine lab team. Cross-training for law enforcement and other partners allows participants multi-agency, multi-disciplinary perspectives on meth. Money was also spent to increase community awareness of the drug hotline and developing presentations for other forms of community outreach.
School Campus Police Officers
The late 1990s brought a series of violent acts committed on school grounds, on students, by students, such as the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Growing school-based violence has led to a corresponding increase in police presence on school campuses. COPS has helped to pay many of these officers, distributing $763 million between 1998 and 2006 to underwrite the presence of 6,453 officers nationwide. New York State received a hefty portion of this funding, $40.9 million that supported 334 officers. According to various officials within the New York school system, this police presence has been invaluable, not only as a preventative measure and cerebral soother, but also because some of these officers have become trusted chaperones for school trips and counselors to many students.
Policing the Students Is a Full-Time Job (by Carin Rubenstein, New York Times)
Officer-Next-Door
Alexandria, Virginia, is a model for the “officer-next-door program” that moves a step beyond officers patrolling within their own general areas. Officer-next-door programs move police officers into neighborhoods that have a high crime risk, such as public housing communities and federally subsidized Section 8 communities to become officers in residence. Officers within these communities become friends and neighbors to residents. Officers are often relied upon for mediating arguments, counseling community youth, and acting as a liaison between the community and the city.
Home Is Where the Officer Is (by Elaine Rivera, Washington Post)
Armed for Terrorists, in Case Kindness Doesn’t Work
In Northern California, the concept of “killing them with kindness” is a relic from the old days of law enforcement in Berkeley, California. But in 2004, shadowed by the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, Sheriff Charles C. Plummer of Alameda County set a different tone for law enforcement in the San Francisco Bay area. Sheriff Plummer constructed an anti-terrorist unit to protect the Bay area. The new unit was trained to operate two German-made machine guns mounted on the bow and stern of a patrol boat, ready to blow terrorists out of the water, in case killing them with kindness didn’t work. To cover the marine unit’s cost for its first year, Sheriff Plummer utilized a portion of a $500,000 COPS grant awarded to Alameda County for community-oriented policing services.
Armed for Terrorists, in Case Kindness Doesn't Work (by Dean E. Murphy, New York Times)
COPS and FEMA Collaborate to Communicate
COPS was given the responsibility of overseeing the Justice Department’s participation in a large-scale communications grant program, a collaboration between the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. The grant program was funded to distribute $79.6 million to 17 local governments. The money was given to local governments in order to improve communication capabilities among fire, law enforcement and emergency medical service communities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ran the grant process for Homeland Security. The following communities were awarded grants, with a maximum award of $6 million:
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Conway, AR
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$2,000,000
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Rehoboth Beach, DE
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$2,400,000
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St. Clair County, IL
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$6,000,000
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Woodbury County, IA
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$5,900,000
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Worcester County, MD
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$5,600,000
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Monroe County, MI
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$6,000,000
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Ramsey County, MN
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$6,000,000
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Independence, MO
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$5,400,000
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Lewis and Clark County, MT
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$4,400,000
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Grafton County, NH
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$2,100,000
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Erie County, NY
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$6,000,000
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Tulsa, OK
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$846,000
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Westmoreland County, PA
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$5,900,000
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Narragansett, RI
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$3,000,000
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Charlottesville/Albermarle County/University of Virginia, VA
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$6,000,000
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Clallam County, WA
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$5,700,000
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Harrison County, WV
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$5,600,000
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Homeland Security hands out communications grants (by William Welsh, Washington Technology)
In order to create, implement and fund programs and projects such as those listed above, the agency is organized into nine divisions:
- Grant Administration Division (GAD) - The primary responsibilities of GAD include innovating grant programs, reviewing grant applications, and awarding winning applicants. GAD is also responsible for hiring and redeployment within the agency.
- Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Division - TTA provides training and technical assistance to participating agencies, officers, and communities. TTA creates and encourages partnerships between law enforcement, educational institutions, business groups, and community groups.
- Administrative Division - The Administrative Division supports the COPS Office through human resource management, fiscal resource management, facilities management, and information technology resource management.
- General Counsel - The Legal Division of COPS is headed by the General Council. The Division provides legal advice for the assurance of compliance with legal requirements relevant to all COPS activities. The Division also works with grantees to ensure compliance with COPS grant requirements.
- External Affairs Division - The External Affairs Division is in charge of informing and communicating with the Congress and the public of COPS programs and activities. It responds to media inquiries and public events. The Division also provides input to program design and policy formulation.
- Communications Division - The Communications Division provides information about COPS programs to grantees and the public. It’s responsible for the production of COPS publications and other materials.
- Program/Policy Support and Evaluation Division (PPSE) - The PPSE Division designs programs and provides policy support and assessment.
- Grant Monitoring Division (GMD) - GMD conducts reviews of grantee’s programs and activities to ensure that they are meeting their commitments and obligations. This division also gathers information on effective community policing programs and strategies, and determines if grantees need any special assistance from COPS.
- Audit Division - The Audit Division assists grantees in handling audit issues. It also works with the Office of the Comptroller and the Office of the Inspector General to ensure grantee program compliance.
Expect More - Budget (White House)
Where Does the Money Go:
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Communities and society at large are potential beneficiaries of effective law enforcement programs. In addition to decreased crime rates corresponding to heightened quality of life, as well as lives saved from violent crime, a drop in crime rates also has overarching economic and social benefits. In 2008, more than one in 100 adults was in jail or prison, costing state governments almost $50 billion and the federal government an additional $5 billion annually (Washington Post). Effective crime prevention programs can reduce these numbers, saving taxpayers billions every year.
New High in U.S. Prison Numbers (by N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post)
Debate:
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Although there is a general consensus on the benefits of community policing, there is some debate as to whether the COPS Office is the most effective form of encouraging local, community, and preventative approaches to law enforcement. There has been bipartisan criticism of COPS’ effectiveness in reaching its goals, and whether the agency is cost effective.
Pro
Supporters of COPS see the agency and its programs as one of the most successful approaches to crime fighting. They point to decreased crime levels in various regions and the uncontestable fact that COPS has facilitated tens of thousands of new officer hires, although the numbers are inexact. Supporters believe the agency and its programs have been successful in improving relationships between law enforcement and communities, a major goal of the agency.
Con
Detractors point to the difficulty in tracking COPS benchmarks, such as putting 100,000 officers on the streets between 1995 and 2000. Figures such as these are difficult to quantify because it is often impossible to track and attribute to one program the hiring of additional officers. In addition, critics of COPS believe that funding allotted to the COPS Office would be used more effectively if simply distributed through a much smaller-scale grant program, which doesn’t necessitate the level of administration costs that an agency such as COPS does.
Expect More (fWhite House)
10 years and $10B later, COPS drawing scrutiny (by Peter Eisler and Kevin Johnson, USA Today)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
- Comments
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Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)
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