Law enforcement officials from Waukegan to East St. Louis are assailing what they say is a budget proposal by the Clinton administration that would eliminate almost $15 million in funding for 105 undercover police officers and 34 prosecutors assigned to drug enforcement units throughout the state.
Although the money is proposed to be redirected toward community policing efforts, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police has written U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno calling for a second look at a financial decision that would, “cause a very negative impact to the anti-drug efforts of law enforcement in Illinois.”
In Waukegan, Lake County State’s Atty. Michael Waller was more forceful in his condemnation of losing what totaled $219,645 for a drug prosecution program in his county during the current fiscal year.
“This is going to have a major impact on law enforcement in Illinois at a time when there is all this publicity about getting tough on crime,” Waller said. “The war on crime isn’t fought in Washington. It is fought on the local level where these funds are most helpful.”
Loss of the funds would seriously hamper the efforts of various drug task forces and Metropolitan Enforcement Group units across the state. These undercover groups are financed by local, state and federal funds and use teams of officers from local, county and state police agencies. Boosters of the units say they are particularly effective in aiding drug investigations in areas of smaller towns where departments would otherwise be overwhelmed by the scope of the problem.
To hammer home their message, the president of the police chief’s group, Ronald Pavlock, sent Reno a list of the “adverse effects” the budget proposal would have on anti-drug law enforcement in Illinois.
He said an analysis by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, which administers federal law enforcement funds, showed that law enforcement efforts that would be hurt the most by the budget proposal include cutting:
– The 105 police officers working undercover in 82 counties across the state in MEG units. And about half those units units will shut down within a year without the federal funds.
– The 34 prosecutors whose assignments now include cases involving drug dealers and gang members.
– The work of community-based drug treatment programs in St. Clair, Du Page, Kane, Sangamon, Champaign, andMadison Counties.
“These (MEG and other similar task forces) units are the most important tools we have to combat drug dealing. And if these units are not doing their jobs, the public’s fear is going to rise,” said Dennis Nowicki, executive director of the criminal justice authority. “And justifiably so.”
Andrew Douvris, deputy director of MEG for Cook County, said if the cuts are approved, his 45-member unit here will be reduced by seven.
He said that would hamper crime-fighting efforts in several south suburban area departments including Riverdale, South Holland, Hazel Crest, Dolton, and possibly Glenwood.
At the Lake County MEG headquarters, the mood was similarly gloomy.
“This will have a tremendous impact on our unit and other MEG units across the state,” said Michael Maley, unit director. “We’ve used the money to target gang members who are involved in drugs, ” he said.
According to Maley, a state trooper, the Lake County MEG could lose two investigators if the funding cuts go through.
Capt. Carlos Hevia, a state police officer who is the commander of the Northeastern MEG unit, estimated his unit operating in the north and northwest suburbs would lose as many as one-fourth of its officers because of the proposed budget cuts.
The authority notes that much of the funding in the Clinton proposal has been redirected to community policing programs, but at the expense of funding for MEG units, prosecutors, probation programs, corrections and treatment programs.
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Nowicki concedes the need for the kind of preventive programs provided by community policing. But he said there should be a continuing emphasis on stanching the flow of drugs into the community until prevention programs have a chance to work.
“And the best tools we have are these units,” Nowicki emphasized.
Last year, the federal funds were used in East St. Louis and St. Clair County to pay the salaries of 13 police officers, two prosecutors, one assistant public defender, six probation officers, two deputy sheriffs, and five support staff assigned to an anti-drug program, according to the analysis by Candice Kane, an associate director of the authority.
Even though East St. Louis would receive $977,000 in funding to hire 18 new community policing officers under the Clinton administration proposal, Police Chief Isadore Chambers said the MEG cuts would have “a devastating effect” on his anti-drug efforts.
Chambers said that area’s MEG unit, which includes four of his officers, made 135 of the 448 drug-related arrests last year in East St. Louis.
“We can’t afford to lose that,” said Chambers. “My message to Miss Reno would be, that if at all possible, leave those funds there to finance these units.”