Police Drawn by the Lure of Free Stations : Protection: In a trend so new that no studies of it have been made, private entities are attracting law enforcement help by providing free facilities.

After two murders, a shootout outside its movie complex and a $25-million fire in the past three years, MCA Inc., the owner of Universal Studios, had had enough. The company wanted police protection.

So in August--while Los Angeles County communities that suffer from as much crime in a single day as Universal does in a year waited for more police officers--Universal Studios supplied a trailer and got its own eight-member force, courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Likewise, Disneyland, after years of relying solely on its own security personnel, recently began reimbursing the city of Anaheim for the salary and related expenses of stationing one off-duty Anaheim police officer at its 210-acre facility in Orange County.

And this summer, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams suggested that neighborhoods donate money to supply the LAPD with buildings, furnishings and utilities so the department could provide them better service.

In a time of high crime and widespread fear--as well as unprecedented budget cuts and a general reluctance to pay higher taxes--the age of pay-as-you-go law enforcement has arrived.

The new trend in policing has ranged from wealthy private entities paying for added police protection to shopping centers and mini-malls with money or building space to spare donating facilities to encourage law enforcement agencies to locate there.

In the Los Angeles area, police substations are relatively common and have existed since at least the early 1980s, when a storefront station was donated to the LAPD in Koreatown, and the Glendale Police Department began operating a rent-free post in the Glendale Galleria.

Two years ago, a plan by homeowners in the Naples section of Long Beach to pay the cost of adding five police officers to the city’s force to patrol their enclave of million-dollar homes was abandoned because of fears by some residents and community leaders that they would be perceived as elitist.

Nationally, some communities hungry for more police protection have begun tapping into corporate largess. Earlier this year, residents of a crime-plagued area of North Camden, N. J., who had long clamored for a substation got their wish when Campbell Soup provided a $25,000 grant to help pay for one.

Police departments tend to like such arrangements because they reduce policing costs. Businesses like them because they say they provide a safer environment.

Law enforcement experts say that because the trend is new, no studies are known to have been done on it.

“It’s an interesting and maybe inevitable development,” said Jerome H. Skolnick, a UC Berkeley law professor and president-elect of the American Society of Criminologists. “It’s really cutting-edge stuff that scholars are just now looking into.”

It has become commonplace for police departments to allow their officers--on an overtime basis--to work as security guards for private firms that reimburse the department for the officers’ salaries.

But it is only recently that police have begun allowing neighborhoods and private corporations to provide free accommodations for officers working their regular shifts.

“In the past few years, as the public has refused to pay for more police, individuals or communities have either directly privatized by hiring their own security forces or have hired off-duty officers to patrol their stores or whatever else,” said Sam Pillsbury, a visiting scholar in criminal justice at the State University of New York at Albany.

“But with sworn peace officers being paid for by private entities, the line has become blurred even further,” he added.

Some law enforcement officials say the trend is a perfect fit for the times.

“It’s a more direct way of paying for police protection,” said Capt. Roger Baker, operations division commander of the Anaheim Police Department. “The public is ready to accept paying certain fees for services rather than paying more taxes. You’re going to see more and more of this as we move into the 1990s.”

Although neighborhood substations are one of the linchpins of the community-based policing model that is being adopted in various forms by police departments from New York City to Seattle, critics say the system has inherent conflict-of-interest problems, and they are concerned that it may tilt police protection toward wealthy areas.

“As a matter of public policy, it is a very dangerous move because whoever can afford to pay will get better service,” Pillsbury said. “Everyone will still have access (to the police), but like a political contribution, the money obviously buys something. In this case, it biases (police protection) toward certain entities.”

But police department representatives across the country deny that the location of substations or the assignment of officers is based on anything other than need. Staffing substations, they say, does not pull officers away from other areas.

In Philadelphia, most of the 30 “mini-stations” that Williams established as chief of police were given to the Police Department by businesses that either paid the rent or donated building space to the police, said Bob Young, public affairs officer for the Philadelphia Police Department.

The mini-stations are sprinkled throughout the city, including seven that are located in public housing projects.

The officers’ roles differ according to their location. At the Glendale Galleria, for instance, officers use the mini-station as a base and spend their time patrolling the mall. At the Koreatown substation, Korean-speaking volunteers help officers function as neighborhood liaisons, accepting crime reports and working with residents to solve neighborhood problems.

And beyond their specific duties, the officers’ presence acts to check illegal activity, officials say.

“It really gives a high-profile presence, which both deters crime and reassures people that there is protection,” said Sgt. Randy Tampa of the Glendale Police Department. “It has everything to do with public relations.”

There are no legal prohibitions against community substations, although it is against California law for private entities to pay the salaries of on-duty law enforcement officers except for “special events,” such as the Rose Parade. The law was created to ensure that police services are allocated equitably.

“The influence of such payments is as potentially corrupting on city or county officials deploying their police forces as it is on the actions of the individual officers,” former state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp wrote in a 1985 clarification of the law.

Eleanor Egan, Anaheim’s senior city attorney, said her city’s contract with Disneyland is legal because the officer will be working on overtime and will function as a police officer--not as a private security guard for Disneyland. Disneyland will reimburse the city for the officer’s salary each month, depending on the number of hours the officer works.

“This is someone who would usually be (at home) sleeping,” said Egan, who helped negotiate the contract. “The only difference is that instead of pulling an officer off patrol to respond to a call, we will have someone already stationed at Disneyland.”

Sheriff’s Capt. Clarence Chapman, who heads the West Hollywood station, said private companies such as MCA Inc. would rather employ police officers and sheriff’s deputies than private security guards because of the officers’ superior training, authority to make “suspicious cause” arrests, and the police agency’s ability to bring in equipment, such as helicopters, and additional personnel on a moment’s notice.

Chapman said the stationing of deputies at the entertainment complex does not dilute police strength in other areas because the West Hollywood sheriff’s station--which provides the officers--is already responsible for patrolling most of Universal City.

For their part, Universal and other corporations involved in the arrangements say they are simply ensuring better police service for themselves during a time of high crime and deep budget cutbacks, which are limiting or constricting the size of many police departments.

It is not a case of the rich buying police services while other areas go wanting, contends Tom Gilmore, MCA Development Co.’s director of leasing and operations. “The fact that we are a company doesn’t make it easier; it makes it harder because of all the questions it raises,” he said. “But simply put, we are under-protected.”

More than 20 private security guards work at the entertainment complex--which attracts 8 million visitors annually and brings in $300 million a year--but Gilmore said “events of the past have reinforced our determination (to get more deputies) to provide a safe environment for our guests.”

The high-profile crimes of recent years have been so bizarre that Gilmore conceded that additional deputies might not have prevented them. The 1990 fire, for example, was set by one of Universal’s own security guards. The slayings of two security guards the next year occurred when a deranged fan was denied permission to see actor Michael Landon.

Chapman, whose West Hollywood station staffs the facility at a cost of about $1 million a year, said Universal deserves the added patrols.

“It is a business that produces a lot of revenue and pays something like $9 million a year in property taxes, which is one of the biggest revenue sources for the county,” Chapman said. “We have to protect the institutions we have or their attendance might go down, and next year they might be paying only $6 million, then $3 million.”

Chapman added that the substation will help nearby areas by cutting down on officer response time.

But Skolnick said such talk clouds the real issue.

“Part of the reason the police hold a special place in our society is that we have an expectation that they will protect everyone on an equal basis,” Skolnick said. “When they put on those blue uniforms, there are expectations that come with it. This trend is blurring the line, and it looks like the well-heeled can reap benefits from the police that the poor can’t.”

The perception that community-based policing could allow wealthier neighborhoods to “buy” police substations has made some residents angry.

“Whether you live in a very rich or very poor community, you still pay taxes and deserve the same protection as everyone else,” said Gloria Chavez, a member of the East Los Angeles Home Owners Assn. and president of the City Terrace Coordinating Committee. “This community is a very poor one. We could never afford to pay out of pocket like that.”

A spokesman for the LAPD--which is considering plans for an extensive system of neighborhood substations based on Williams’ Philadelphia model--said that despite the lure of substations as a way of easing budget problems, the department will proceed cautiously.

“Clearly we don’t have any money,” said LAPD Cmdr. Robert Gil. “If and when it is put in place, we will make sure it is not skewed to a certain area. Wealthier places might not even want them, either because there is no need or because they don’t want the perceived blight.”