Data Show Police Working Harder, Parks Says

In what he billed as a dramatic increase in police productivity, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said Tuesday that officers are working harder and with more focus now than they were just a year ago.

Despite significant drops in crime, Parks said, the LAPD’s most current statistics for this year show that officers have arrested 10.9% more suspects, conducted 7.6% more field interviews and taken action on 41.8% more traffic violations compared to the same period last year.

“We are making a substantial dent in crime,” the chief said during his weekly meeting with the Los Angeles Police Commission. Parks’ comments were aimed at countering critics who have suggested that his new discipline and complaint policies are making officers reluctant to engage in so-called proactive police work.

But although Parks touted the increase in productivity as “year-to-date” statistics to the Police Commission and in a letter to The Times, the figures actually reflect only activity in January. February statistics were not available Tuesday, LAPD officials said. A spokesman for the chief said Parks was not intentionally’ trying to overstate the statistics.

The new statistics contrast sharply with those released in January 1997, when a top LAPD official publicly acknowledged that the number of arrests had been declining over recent years, in part because officers were afraid of confronting suspects--a fear some officers said resulted in a policing philosophy derisively called “driving and waving.”

At that time, however, police officials also attributed part of the drop in arrests--a key measure of police productivity--to the LAPD’s move to a more community-oriented style of policing, which forced officers to focus on solving community problems.

LAPD officials said Tuesday that the upswing in productivity measures did not mean the department is moving away from community policing, or that such efforts are suffering.

“The statistics are up now because people are working harder and smarter and are being held more accountable for the work they do,” said Cmdr. Dave Kalish, spokesman for the chief. “We are getting more direction and leadership from the chief of police.”

Kalish said another reason is that staffing increases have--for the first time in many years--freed patrol officers from constantly “chasing radio calls” and given them more time--up to 40% of their shifts--to do “proactive policing.”

That type of proactive police work, LAPD officials said, is helping to drive down crime in the city. As of Feb. 21, Parks said, violent crimes have dropped 17% from last year, which also saw a significant decrease in crime.

But some neighborhood leaders expressed concern Tuesday over the new statistics and questioned the chief’s commitment to community policing, which started taking hold under his predecessor, Willie L. Williams. They noted that Parks has reassigned community liaison officers to patrol and is adopting a New York style of policing that utilizes crime statistics to identify problem areas and focus department resources. Department officials said such concerns are unfounded.

Attorney Carol Watson, a member of a community watchdog organization called Police Watch, said the surge in some LAPD productivity measures will probably “undermine community policing efforts.”

She said she is most upset by the LAPD’s focus on field interviews in which officers stop and question residents. “It’s a blatant violation of people’s constitutional rights,” she said. “They generally question only young men, usually minorities. This accounts for the alienation of young people [from] police.”

Moreover, Watson questioned whether the increase in arrests reflected “good” arrests that would lead to convictions, or simply arrests that are “intended to boost their numbers” and are never prosecuted.

Although a breakdown on the arrests and the number that have been referred for criminal prosecutions were not immediately available Tuesday, Kalish said “clearly there’s been no change in the quality of our arrests.” He also said that field interviews are a valuable tool for officers when they witness suspicious behavior.

A representative of the union that represents most LAPD officers said he was uncertain what to make of the new statistics.

“I’m skeptical of statistics,” said Dave Hepburn, president the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “Not that long ago, the department was trying to say the decline in arrests and other areas showed how effective we were being in community policing. . . . No matter what the statistics are, they have a good answer for what they mean.”

The issue of officer productivity was one of the key areas commissioners evaluated when they decided not to renew then-Chief Williams’ contract for another five-year term. Some commissioners and Mayor Richard Riordan expressed concern that arrests, field interviews and other measures were dropping, and they did not totally buy into the theory from Williams’ staff that the downward spiral was due to successful community-policing efforts.