The Puzzle of Plummeting Arrests : Confusion surrounds Los Angeles Police Department report

The precipitous drop in arrests by the Los Angeles Police Department raises troubling questions for Chief Willie L. Williams and the top command of the beleaguered force. There are more cops in the department now, yet the number of arrests in 1994-95 is 100,000 lower than five years earlier. The taxpayers are owed an explanation.

Is this huge reduction part of the fallout from the 1991 police beating of Rodney King? Did the subsequent federal civil rights conviction of two officers in that disgraceful incident or the resulting civil suit make officers leery of being indicted or sued? That unforgettable display of excessive force led to tremendous public scrutiny of the department.

A falling arrest rate is not necessarily bad, especially if it indicates police are making better arrests and fewer questionable ones. However, the depth of this decline, a 35% drop, is worrisome. Poor morale may be a factor. It has been diminishing for years.

Police officers also issued 232,000 fewer traffic citations during the last fiscal year as compared with the corresponding period five years ago. Anyone who drives in Los Angeles would find it hard to believe that more people are obeying traffic laws. Are some officers ignoring infractions?

A change in style in the top leadership certainly could account for some of the decline. The far lower number of arrests poses challenges for the Police Commission, which should determine whether something structural, perhaps a new policy, is a factor. No less a challenge faces the department’s entire chain of command, which is responsible for fielding an effective police force. Chief Williams says he emphasizes community-based policing, problem-solving and preventive strategies. Williams does not advocate in-your-face police tactics such as routine gang sweeps, the use of battering rams and frequent “prone-outs” during traffic stops, which were hallmarks of the tenure of former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Williams is right to discourage those tactics; the question is has he adequately replaced them with positive ones that lead to more effective policing? One thing that surely cannot produce more effective policing: confusion about arrest statistics. Requests from The Times for arrest statistics for the last five years produced four different sets of numbers, none of which jibed with the others or with the numbers submitted in the department’s latest budget. How can a police department that can’t keep track of something so basic do a smart law enforcement job?