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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release October 21, 1999

                           PRESIDENT CLINTON:
               HONORING OUR COMMITMENT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
                            October 21, 1999

Today, President Clinton will commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Administration's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program by honoring this year's recipients of the "Top Cops" awards. The awards are given annually by the National Association of Police Organizations to law enforcement officers for outstanding service to their communities.

At today's event, the President will urge Congress to provide full funding for the COPS program, which has funded over 100,000 community police officers to date and spread community policing to thousands of police departments nationwide. He will also endorse legislation by Sen. Joseph Biden to extend the successful COPS program for five more years.

RECOGNIZING OUTSTANDING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS. The "Top Cop" awards given by NAPO pay tribute to law enforcement officers from across the country for their exceptional service during the preceding year. "Top Cops" are nominated by their fellow officers and are selected from hundreds of nominations. This year, 32 officers from 9 states and the District of Columbia will receive the distinguished Top Cops award, including 5 officers that are funded through the COPS program.

FIGHTING FOR RESOURCES TO KEEP OUR STREETS SAFE. This week, the FBI announced that serious crime fell in 1998 for the seventh year in a row -- the longest continuous decline in crime on record. The murder rate has dropped to its lowest point in 31 years. The President will point out today that community policing has been a key part of the Administration strategy to turn the tide on crime -- and he will call on Republicans not to undermine the future of community policing and the COPS program.

Clinton Administration budget: Protecting law enforcement priorities. The President today will call on Congress to fully fund his $1.27 billion COPS initiative for FY 2000 that will: help put an additional 30,000-50,000 officers on the street; provide law enforcement with the latest crime-fighting technologies; help fund new community prosecutors; and target funds to engage the entire community in preventing crime.
Republican spending bill threatens progress on community crime fighting. The Republican spending bill would cut COPS by nearly $1 billion. The Republican FY 2000 Commerce, Justice, State appropriations bill reduces funding for COPS to just $325 million. Compared to the President's budget, the Republican proposal means 3,000 fewer police officers for our streets in the next year alone. It fails to provide technology that law enforcement needs, and it provides no funding for new community prosecutors, or for community crime prevention.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP ON COMMUNITY POLICING. The COPS Program, created in the historic 1994 Crime Act, expires next year by statute. Today, the President will endorse bipartisan legislation to be introduced by Senator Biden with the support of 45 co-sponsors to extend COPS through the year 2005.

Senator Biden's legislation, modeled after the President's 21st Century Policing Initiative, will invest more than $5.5 billion over five years to provide communities with resources to put more officers on the street and give them the tools they need to make those streets safe. Specifically, the legislation provides: (1) $600 million to hire, redeploy, and retain police officers; (2) $350 million to fund law enforcement technologies such as crime mapping and DNA analysis; and (3) $200 million to hire community prosecutors to work with community police and neighborhood residents to prevent and combat crime.

A RECORD OF PARTNERSHIP WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT. The Clinton Administration has built the COPS program with the strong support of mayors and police chiefs from across the country, NAPO, and every major national law enforcement organization in America. In addition to COPS, the Clinton Administration has helped to dramatically expand resources for state and local law enforcement.

Boosting assistance for state and local law enforcement by 500 percent since FY 1994. Over the past seven years, the Clinton Administration has provided direct new resources for state and local crime fighting and prevention efforts, increasing state and local assistance by over 500 percent -- from $849 million in FY 1994 to $5.1 billion in FY 1999. State and local law enforcement agencies have used this funding to strengthen their forces; buy new equipment, patrol cars, computers and crime-fighting technologies; build new prisons; and deploy new strategies to reduce crime.

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