Metropolitan Police Department: Hearing on Metropolitan Police Department Spending and Performance Review

Hearing on Metropolitan Police Department Spending and Performance Review (Cont.)

In addition to upgrading our physical and technical infrastructure, we continue to make improvements in our capacity to fight crime and practice community policing. We have put more officers on the street through a combination of better recruiting, innovative programs such as our lateral-hiring initiative and the Police Cadets, and changes in our shift schedules and deployment strategies. Our goal is straightforward: put more officers on the street during the critical evening and weekend hours, when crime and calls for service are at their highest.

We are providing our officers with better training. For example, we have doubled our annual firearms training from 8 to 16 hours, and expanded the course to focus on tactics and judgment, as well as marksmanship. We have created the MPDC's first mandatory 40-hour in-service training program for veteran officers, and offered a number of specialized courses for officers, detectives and officials.

We have enhanced the three prongs of our "Policing for Prevention" strategy: focused law enforcement, neighborhood partnerships and systemic prevention. In the area of focused law enforcement, we continue to support the Mobile Force, a voluntary overtime program that is putting dozens of additional officers in crime hot spots five nights a week. Last fiscal year, with the support of a special $1-million-dollar Congressional appropriation, we also created a new Narcotics Strike Force and equipped the unit with the latest in surveillance and tactical equipment. In just the last three months of calendar 2000, the Strike Force made more than 600 arrests, cleared 25 warrants, recovered 35 weapons, and seized 14 vehicles and close to $100,000 dollars in cash. This unit is having a noticeable impact on both open-air drug dealing and the violence that is often associated with it. We would certainly welcome additional funds in the current and future fiscal years to enhance the Strike Force and our other anti-drug efforts.

We continue to forge stronger partnerships with the community, in support of our community policing efforts. We have strengthened each of our 83 Police Service Areas, placing a lieutenant in charge of each PSA team and giving them new tools for documenting their problem-solving efforts and accessing other city services. We have also provided training to hundreds of police officers and community members through our innovative "Partnerships for Problem Solving" program.

Finally, we are making a renewed effort at systemic prevention - at addressing some of the underlying causes and conditions that lead to crime in our communities. For example, our Office of Youth Violence Prevention is spearheading a number of programs targeting at-risk young people. We are also teaming up with groups such as America's Promise and the East of the River Clergy Police Community Partnership to provide meaningful alternatives to young people in challenged communities. Just last week, we joined in announcing a new $30,000 dollar grant from America's Promise to support this partnership.

The results of these and other efforts have been impressive. Crime in the District is at its lowest level since the early 1970s, with the year 2000 marking the fifth consecutive annual decline. Homicides last year were at their lowest level since 1987, and they are down by one-third through the first quarter of this year. We have also seen dramatic reductions in the use of deadly force - police-involved shootings declined 78 percent between 1998 and 2000 - and in citizen complaints of excessive force - which were down 36 percent last year.

Challenges - major challenges - remain, of course. There are four immediate priorities that will require the continued support of our District and federal partners: 1) improving criminal investigations and increasing homicide closures; 2) controlling overtime spending; 3) improving customer service, and 4) healing the wounds and restoring the trust that has been damaged by the e-mail matter.