Be very careful, Dorothy, Washington ain't Kansas

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 4, 1997 | by Thomas Berson

Because each of the 28 federal police agencies--from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Police to the National Zoological Park Police--would negotiate its own agreement with the MPD, there is no way to say what the price tag would be, federal police officials say Capitol Police incurred no added cost in 1992 because their extended authority was on an already well-traveled area between parts of their existing patrol jurisdiction.

On the other hand, in 1994 an extensive nine-month U.S. Park Police program that dedicated 50 full-time officers to one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Washington cost $2.4 million. Park Police helped make more than 1,000 arrests in that time but the program was discontinued when questions arose about how to pay for it. If cost isn't a cause for concern, then the principle is, says Libertarian Party spokesman Bill Winter. Washington is "already losing control to the federal government," he says, pointing to a nationwide trend of federal police expansion. "I don't think that's the American sense of law enforcement," he tells Insight.

Dan Rosenblatt, executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, dismisses those concerns, calling the national trend one of cooperation between federal and local police. "It's a positive thing. Most of the chiefs of federal police departments are former local law-enforcement officers who know what local law enforcement is all about."

With the MPD shakeup under way, Congress taking up district bailout legislation this month and Gingrich having challenged the president to act against crime in the nation's capital, we soon will know if an army of federal police officers will hit the streets against the robbers, muggers, rapists and murderers in the nation's capital.