Joe Biden: “Mr. President, with the New York City community policing, since they instituted community policing, murders have dropped…”

“Mr. President, with the New York City community policing, since they instituted community policing, murders have dropped 19 percent, robberies have dropped 16 percent, burglaries went down 11 percent, and auto thefts were reduced to 15 percent. In Tampa, FL, police committed themselves to moving crack dealers off the street corners and forged an unprecedented alliance with the citizens of the community to achieve that. Through a combination of standard buy-bust operations, new outreach to the community involvement of other city agencies and local media, the dealers have been driven off within a year and the streets within the targeted area returned to normal. In New Haven, CT, one of the most innovative police chiefs in the Nation, Nick Pastore, with his aggressive community policing effort, led to a 10-percent drop in serious crime in the year 1992, the last time we have the figures. Policing community techniques were introduced in the New York subway system 4 years ago, and the results have been phenomenal. Robberies have fallen by 52 percent. In the Inglewood section of Chicago, community policing is credited with a 6-percent decrease in violent crime last year. The new anticrime law enacted last year targets $8.8 billion in funds to State and local law enforcement to be used specifically to train and hire 100,000 community police officers across the Nation. Like community policing itself, this program works.”