Police chiefs from around the coun­try are express­ing fears that crime rates will increase as law enforce­ment resources are cut dur­ing the eco­nom­ic down­turn. In Sacramento, California, homi­cides are up 43% and assaults on police offi­cers are up 13%, while the depart­ment was forced to elim­i­nate its vice unit. In Phoenix, Arizona, a lack of funds is caus­ing police vacan­cies to go unfilled. Similar con­cerns were expressed by police chiefs in Maryland and Virginia. Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said, ​“For the longest time, peo­ple thought that the police did­n’t mat­ter, did­n’t affect the crime rate. Now we’ve seen that’s not true.” The Research Forum said that law enforce­ment agen­cies expe­ri­enced an aver­age cut of 7% this year. In the past, improved polic­ing led to dra­mat­ic drops in homi­cides in such places as New York City and Washington, D.C. Now those gains are in jeop­ardy. Budget reduc­tions in Sacramento forced the city to cut impor­tant gov­ern­ment pro­grams and ser­vices, such as men­tal health ser­vices and job train­ing pro­grams for inmates being released from prison. Support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are also in decline. 

(T. Jackman, ​“Police fear crime increase as reces­sion saps forces,” Washington Post, September 29, 2010). Meanwhile, many of these same states are spend­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars on the death penal­ty. A report released by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice found that the state was spend­ing $137 mil­lion a year on the death penal­ty. More recent­ly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger bor­rowed $64 mil­lion from state funds to begin con­struc­tion of a new death row. The new facil­i­ty is expect­ed to cost tax­pay­ers near­ly $500 mil­lion. Read DPIC’s recent report Smart on Crime, con­tain­ing the results of a nation­al poll of police chiefs on the death penal­ty. The chiefs said the death penal­ty was inef­fec­tive and inef­fi­cient in reduc­ing crime, and they put it last in a list of pri­or­i­ties for fight­ing crime. See Costs and Deterrence. On Oct. 13, DPIC is spon­sor­ing a pub­lic forum at the National Press Club in Washington with police chiefs from the U.S. and Europe to dis­cuss whether the death penal­ty is need­ed to fight crime. See Media Advisory.

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