The number of full-time state and local law enforcement officers increased by more than 19 percent between 1992 and 1996, with a larger percentage of uniformed officers patrolling the nation's streets, the Justice Department said Sunday.
According to a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of law enforcement officers grew during that four-year period by more than 68,000 to reach 423,000.Of those officers, 64 percent were uniformed personnel whose regular duties included responding to calls for service, compared with 59 percent who filled that job in 1993.
Proponents of community policing applauded the numbers as evidence that a crime bill to put more police on the streets and in partnership with neighborhoods is working.
"Not only has there been a huge increase in the number of men and women working in law enforcement, but local agencies are committing a larger percentage of sworn officers to patrol functions and community policing activities," said Joseph E. Brann, director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The COPS program, since it began in 1994, has funded more than 75,000 additional officers and deputies.
Rep. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., sponsor of the crime bill which produced the COPS program, linked increases in police officers on the streets with decreases in recorded violent crimes. In November, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that violent crimes against Americans had fallen 10 percent in 1996 from the previous year, hitting the lowest level since the survey began 23 years earlier.
"There has been a lot of debate about why crime has dropped so far, so fast, and now the answer is clear - there are more police then ever on the street catching criminals," said Schumer. "More cops on the beat means that all Americans can feel safer where the live, work, play and go to school."
The report also found that the total number of full-time state and local officers with arrest powers increased by 59,000 since 1992 to total 663,535 in 1996. Of the full-time sworn officers, 15 percent were assigned to investigative duties.