"Since law enforcement agencies began partnering with citizens through community policing, we have seen a significant drop in crime rates." US. Attorney General, John Ashcroft, July 15, 2002, Washington D.C.
One of Bush's own puppets made this comment. But Bush is still proposing significant budget cuts to COPS, Community Oriented Policing Services.
COPS provides grants and other assistance to help communities hire, train, and retain police officers and improve law enforcement technologies. The budget slashes the COPS program, providing only $97 million, a $659 million (87.0 percent) cut below the 2004 enacted level, and a $655 million cut (87.0 percent) cut below the amount needed to maintain purchasing power at the 2004 level.
The COPS Office was created as a result of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. As a component of the Justice Department, the mission of the COPS Office is to advance community policing in jurisdictions of all sizes across the country. Community policing represents a shift from more traditional law enforcement in that it focuses on prevention of crime and the fear of crime on a very local basis. Community policing puts law enforcement professionals on the streets and assigns them a beat, so they can build mutually beneficial relationships with the people they serve.
By earning the trust of the members of their communities and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety, community policing makes law enforcement safer and more efficient, and makes America safer.
Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder through the delivery of police services that includes aspects of traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving, community engagement, and partnerships. The community policing model balances reactive responses to calls for service with proactive problem-solving centered on the causes of crime and disorder. Community policing requires police and citizens to join together as partners in the course of both identifying and effectively addressing these issues.
The COPS Program has facilitated the funding of over 100,000 police officers for community policing initiatives across the nation since 1994. Bush claims he wants to protect our country but he is spending all of our money and our children's money in Iraq. It is getting out of control.