Clinton Calls for Expansion of Community-Based Policing

With a block of renovated row houses as a backdrop, Bill Clinton on Tuesday called for an expansion of community-based policing programs and denounced the Bush Administration for cutting aid to local law enforcement.

Clinton, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination one week before the Pennsylvania primary, toured the city’s Spring Garden neighborhood, where volunteer groups’ anti-drug efforts and street policing helped shut down what was the city’s second-worst open-air drug market. Such programs, intended to fight street crime with foot patrol officers who know residents, have long been a favorite idea of his, Clinton said.

“Let’s have a national initiative for community policing,” said Clinton, who was joined in his tour by Mayor Ed Rendell. “If this block can get rid of crack houses, then every block in America can.”

Rendell endorsed the Arkansas governor, saying: “I am for Bill Clinton because he’s the best choice to turn American cities around.”

The Philadelphia police commissioner, Willie L. Williams, is a strong proponent of community-based policing, typified by the effort in the Spring Garden neighborhood. Williams has been hired to take over the Los Angeles Police Department this summer.

In the center of the neighborhood is a storefront police substation that is headquarters for the local patrol. The officers’ efforts in battling the drug trade are helped by volunteers who have often stayed up through the night patrolling the streets.

Clinton called for increased federal aid to local law enforcement. He criticized the Bush Administration for using its support of an expanded death penalty as a screen to distract attention from the way it has cut aid to police, he said.