Under fire in Compton

THE RISING VIOLENCE IN Los Angeles-area cities and unincorporated areas patrolled by the county Sheriff’s Department is disturbing. The department is struggling to hire more deputies for its county responsibilities, but in cities that contract with the department for protection, it comes down to this: You get what you can pay for.

Compton is the most acutely plagued example, with 68 killings as of Dec. 8 in a city of just under 100,000 people. The number for all of 2004 was 42. If Los Angeles, with 40 times the population, had the same homicide rate as Compton, it would have recorded about 2,700 killings this year instead of the 468 on the books. The statistics don’t reveal all the associated damage, including the daily anxiety of living in a city overwhelmed by gangs.

The 70-plus sheriff’s deputies patrolling the city are simply not enough, although Compton’s troubles also stem from such things as community reluctance to give evidence against gang members and long-standing disarray in city government.

Compton Mayor Eric Perrodin has announced plans to ask for federal anti-gang and drug enforcement assistance -- a finger in the dike but worth pursuing. The Sheriff’s Department should examine its own problems, including steep cuts in its anti-gang unit. And Compton has to accept the pain of finding the money to increase its deputy count.

Five years ago, Compton had its own police force, with more than 100 patrol officers, until the then-mayor disbanded it amid a bitter political feud with the police union. Compton’s own force had cost $19 million to $20 million a year to run, and the policing contract with the county was about $7 million cheaper.

Since then, Compton has gone from being under-policed to severely under-policed. The city accuses the deputies of knowing and caring too little about Compton. Yet few Los Angeles police live in Los Angeles either.

Perrodin is a deputy district attorney for L.A. County and a former police officer who was elected in 2001 on a reform platform. He inherited a nastily divided government famous for cronyism and corruption, and a school system just emerging from a fiscal meltdown and subsequent state takeover. Compton’s population has shifted to majority Latino and heavily immigrant, while its voting majority remains African American. Perrodin’s burdens are heavy, but making the city safer is the necessary condition for other improvements.

The part-time mayor and City Council could start their search for funds by trimming their own compensation. They could shift from a costly city Fire Department to a county contract (which actually makes more sense than contract policing). County supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department could show good faith by restoring gang-suppression officers, which would benefit the whole county.

Economic development shuns crime. Perrodin has high ambitions for Compton but can’t fulfill them until the tide of violence is reversed.