In the Summer P olicy Review Bret Schundler, the Republican mayor of Jersey City, complains that union regulations prohibit him from assigning more cops to street duty or reducing wages so that more police can be hired. Rather than getting more money from the federal government, Schundler says, he could do a better job improving police assistance if he had more freedom to push officers out from behind their desks and into squad cars and hire new officers at more reasonable wages. In the March Governing , Penelope Lemov reports on another useful reform that was recently adopted by the North Carolina legislature. In North Carolina, like many states, the cost of running and building prisons has soared, while irresponsible politicians ranted about imposing ever-stiffer sentences. So a bill was passed that requires any North Carolina legislator who introduces a bill lengthening a sentence for a particular crime to report how much the longer sentence will cost the state.
Journalists can also do a better job informing the readers about what police actually do.
Teachers are very articulate about the problems they face in their classrooms, and some social workers and sociologists have done a good job in describing the mind- numbing life of the welfare caseworker. Long-term, local, incremental efforts will most likely do more to fight crime than any national effort.