Police Job Freeze Sparks Crime Fear : Budget: Officers and community activists warn that criminal activity may increase.

When Hubert Williams was police chief in Newark, N.J., during the early 1980s, city officials imposed a hiring freeze, announced layoffs and eliminated almost a third of his uniformed officers.

In retaliation, the police union picketed City Hall. Out-of-work officers mounted a “Fear City” campaign and distributed bulletins warning visitors not to shop in Newark lest they be robbed or mugged. Other officers stayed home with the “blue flu.” And the windows of 90 radio cars were shattered in the police parking lot.

“That was pure unadulterated hell,” the chief recalled.

In Los Angeles, where a similar budget crisis is looming, Mayor Tom Bradley this week ordered an emergency, seven-month hiring freeze--in the midst of one of the city’s most violent years in history. The city may face a $120-million budget deficit over the next 18 months if cost-cutting steps aren’t taken.

But his announcement drew immediate cries of doom of another kind. Some police and community leaders Thursday warned that the city’s crime rate might worsen if the police drop their guard.

Some police officials predicted fewer officers on the beat, slower police response times, less time for crime prevention work and sinking morale among the LAPD’s 8,400 sworn officers. Community activists also worried that the hiring freeze would signal a field day for crooks, who already outnumber police in parts of the inner city.

On Thursday, the day after the mayor ordered the halt on police hiring, City Council member Joy Picus pledged to introduce a resolution to overturn the freeze.

“I will not stand still and let the number of officers be reduced,” she said at a news conference on the lawn of the LAPD’s patrol station in Reseda. “You can’t turn recruitment on and off like a switch and expect it to be successful.”

Police officials said they lose about 400 officers each year through attrition, with most of those positions being filled by graduates from the Police Academy. They said that the seven-month freeze would translate into a loss of about 200 officers and that some recruitment and academy personnel might have to be reassigned.

But they also said that 300 recruits enrolled in the academy will graduate in the months ahead. The real crunch, they said, won’t come until late spring or early summer.

Cmdr. William Booth, the department’s chief spokesman, said there will be no new classes started after December. He said the department is hoping that the freeze is only temporary.

“If it goes very long, then we’ll get into a hole that is very difficult to get out of,” he said.

A short-term freeze, on the other hand, might “turn out to be nothing more than an uncomfortable hiccup,” he said.

Chief Daryl F. Gates said the city’s “roller coaster” style of management is to blame for the budget crisis. He said that for years he has asked for a contingency fee in his budget to pay for equipment and other costs but that “that has gone on deaf ears.”

Other police departments have been down this road.

In Houston, a cutback resulted in a 3% reduction in police salaries, he said. In New York, he added, the mayor is requiring a 1% cut in salaries for all police managers. He said New Orleans for a while put their police officers on a reduced, four-day workweek.

Two weeks ago, a panel of Washington civic leaders concluded that its Police Department was poorly organized, with one out of five officers not working in the field. The group, brushing away contentions that there is a link between crime and police manpower, called for a 27% reduction in the Police Department’s 6,024 uniformed and civilian positions.

Their premise is not supported by all law enforcement experts. Many believe that an increased police presence on the street goes a long way to stemming crime.

“It’s common sense that when you’re speeding and you pass a cop, you slow down,” said Jerry Needles, director of police organizational services for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police in Washington.

“Or, if you’re going to pull a burglary or rape somebody and you see a cop on the block, what would you do? Well, you’d change your mind real fast. It’s that simple.”

Police experts and citizen groups also worry about what effect the freeze will have on crime prevention. They believe that successful programs like the DARE drug education effort in the schools help reduce future crime rates.

Ralph Sutton, a spokesman for the Brotherhood Crusade in Los Angeles, said that if police crime prevention suffers, community groups like his will have to step in.

“It would signal an opportunity for us, at a time of adversity, to take control of our situation and help the police, who would be undermanned to do their job,” he said. “We’ll need more people in the community involved in sending notices to the criminal element that we will drive them out.”