Police layoffs

"Since January, Tulsa has laid off 89 police officers, 11% of its force. That has pushed the city to the forefront of a national movement, spurred by hard times, to revamp long-held policing strategies," an article in this morning's Wall Street Journal begins.

"In the crosshairs: community-policing initiatives created over the past two decades, such as having officers work in troubled schools, attend neighborhood-watch meetings and help small-business owners address nuisance crimes like graffiti. Such efforts are popular, and some experts credit them with contributing to the steady drop in the national crime rate since 1991."

Cuts have swept communities from Stockton, Calif., to Naperville, Ill., depleting some departments to 1980s-era staff levels, the article said, "the strain in New York and communities nationwide reminding William Bratton, a former police chief in both New York and Los Angeles, of the 1970s and 1980s. Then, departments lacked resources to focus on crime prevention and community partnerships, or deal with crimes such as drug dealing and prostitution… 'You'd think we would have learned our lessons from the past,' Bratton, who now runs Altegrity Security Consulting, said. 'Policing still requires boots on the ground.'"

While not advocating vigilantism, the same situation in Ashtabula County, Ohio, where the number of deputy sheriffs had been halved because of budget restraints there, led one of their common pleas court judges to advise residents, two weeks ago to be vigilant, organize anti-crime block-watch groups, and to arm themselves. ( Here )