NCJ Number
137248
Date Published
1991
Length
21 pages
Annotation
In 1989, the Los Angeles Police Department combined technological advancement with a renewed emphasis on traditional concepts of neighborhood and community policing.
Abstract
While in 1989, department officers responded to 26 percent more dispatched emergency calls for service, the response time was reduced from 1988 figures. This improvement was largely due to the successful implementation of PATROL PLAN, a computer model that determines an efficient way of calculating the number of patrol units to deploy at any given time anywhere in Los Angeles. The department, striving to recruit larger numbers of minority officers, instituted several new recruit training programs including the Will to Survive program and the Recruit Challenge. The Police Assistance Community Enhancement (PACE) program emerged as the focus of the department's community based policing efforts. This program uses departmental resources to coordinate the efforts of residents, police, and other municipal agencies to alleviate adverse community conditions and to reduce fear. While drug traffickers and street gangs remain the two primary crime problems in Los Angeles, officers working in the Gang Related Active Trafficker Suppression (GRATS) program shut down 461 rock houses, arrested nearly 4200 gang members, and reduced gang hot spots from 210 to 136. Finally, September 1989 marked the sixth anniversary of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program which has grown from a Los Angeles Police Department concept to an international drug prevention program.