DeLauro Votes to Strengthen Successful COPS Program

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn. -3) voted to pass the COPS Improvement Act (H.R. 1139), which will reinvigorate the highly successful COPS program. This legislation calls for adding 50,000 additional police officers on the street over the next 5 years – authorizing $1.25 billion a year for COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) hiring grants. It also authorizes $350 million a year for COPS technology grants, and $200 million a year for hiring community prosecutors.

"Our communities have greatly benefited from the COPS program and I am pleased to support efforts to bolster it. Under the COPS program, our nation experienced a significant drop in crime rates and independent studies confirm that COPS hiring grants helped contribute to this reduced crime," said DeLauro. "And the recession has created an even greater need to strengthen the COPS program – with communities seeing a rise in certain types of crimes, while law enforcement is facing cuts in state and local funding."

A recent survey of more than 200 police departments by the Police Executive Research Forum highlights the effect of the recession and the need for this legislation. It found that 44% of police departments surveyed report increases in certain types of crime that they believe is a result of the economic downturn; more than a quarter of law enforcement agencies reported implementing a hiring freeze for sworn officers and more than half have frozen civilian positions; and a third of agencies said they have discontinued, reduced in size, or delayed classes for new police recruits.

Created in 1994 under the Clinton Administration, the enormously successful and popular COPS hiring grants program has helped local law enforcement agencies to hire more than 117,000 additional police officers, in every state in the union, from 1995 to 2005. However, the GOP-led Congress sharply reduced the funding for COPS hiring grants – reducing them from more than $1 billion a year in the late 1990s to $10 million in 2005 and zero funding in 2006 and 2007. In a first step to restart the program, in February, the Democratic-led Congress included $1 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The COPS Improvement Act enjoys the support of numerous organizations, including the National Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Police Organizations, National Sheriffs' Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Narcotics Officers' Associations Coalition, National District Attorneys Association, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the National League of Cities.