THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President

               VICE PRESIDENT GORE ANNOUNCES $93 MILLION 
                   FOR TECHNOLOGY AND CIVILIAN HIRES
               TO PUT MORE OFFICERS IN COMMUNITY POLICING

             Announces New Crime Mapping Training Available 
                       for All Police Departments

Washington, D.C. -- Vice President Gore today announced $93 million in grants to law enforcement agencies in 531 jurisdictions to upgrade their technology and equipment and to help put more police on the streets to fight crime.

"We know that today's crime fighters need not only the confidence of their communities, but also tools that are more advanced than criminals," Vice President Gore said. "These COPS MORE grants will help us build stronger, safer communities for the future."

The COPS MORE '98 (Making Officer Redeployment Effective) program, run by the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS), provides departments with one-year grants to acquire equipment or hire civilian support staff to perform administrative tasks. This allows officers that typically spend time typing reports and conducting other tasks in the station house to devote more time to community policing. To receive a grant, applicants must demonstrate how new technology, equipment, or civilian support staff will result in substantial time savings.

Some examples of how these grants will be used include:

     In Guilford County, North Carolina, they will fund a
     computer-aided dispatch system to map crime, deploy 
     officers more quickly, and help officers fill out reports 
     on the spot.

     In New Haven, Connecticut, these funds will help create 
     an automatic vehicle location system, so dispatchers know 
     exactly how long it will take for police to arrive on the 
     scene.

     In Davenport, Bettendorf, and Scott County, Iowa, these 
     grants will enable law-enforcement to perform instant 
     background checks without returning to headquarters -- 
     saving critical minutes on the job.

     COPS MORE '98 is authorized under the 1994 Crime Act as part of the

Clinton/Gore Administration's 100,000 cops on the beat initiative. Some $230 million in grants were announced on October 1, 1998, and additional grants are expected to be announced in early 1999.

The Vice President also announced that the Justice Department will provide crime mapping training to any interested law enforcement agency in the country. The training materials, developed for law enforcement officers, researchers, and crime analysts, will be available electronically as well as through the Justice Department's thirty-three Regional Community Policing Institutes and five National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers.

The Vice President also highlighted the newly released Crime Mapping Case Studies Report, published by the Justice Department's Crime Mapping Research Center and the Police Executive Research Forum, which showcases successful crime mapping efforts across the nation.

For more information on grant recipients, please contact the Vice President's press office.

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