Unlikely Words

The New York Times has an interesting article this morning on the Providence Police Department. Like many cities, Providence was raking in federal counter-terrorism money. On its own, this is a good thing. The problem is, terrorism isn’t really the biggest law-enforcement issue in Providence: crime is. Unfortunately, federal money for “conventional” crime fighting has been drying up.

][P]olice officials here express doubts about whether the imperative to protect domestic security has blinded federal authorities to other priorities. The department is battling homicides, robberies and gang shootings that the police in a number of cities say are as serious a threat as terrorism.

The Providence police chief, Col. Dean M. Esserman, said the federal government seemed unable to balance antiterror efforts and crime fighting.

“Our nation, that I love, is like a great giant that can deal with a problem when it focuses on it,” said Colonel Esserman, who became chief in 2003 when he was hired by Mayor David N. Cicilline. “But it seems like that giant of a nation is like a Cyclops, with but one eye, that can focus only on one problem at a time.”

I’m inclined to think that a lot of the money spent on counter-terrorism is wasted, especially here in Providence, but that’s a debatable point. What often gets lost is that the counter-terrorism funding inevitably comes at the expense of other law-enforcement priorities, and this trade-off is rarely part of the national debate.

Should cities be able to use their counter-terror grant money for other purposes? On the one hand, this may be an issue where local officials will be better able to set crime-fighting priorities than the federal government. On the other hand, Secretary Chertoff is absolutely right when he says, “If you are pursuing street crime, I don’t think all the organs of national security should be involved in that.” Too many crimes are already being painted with the over-broad brush of “terrorism” as is.

Parenthetically, it seems there are a few instances were the federal government doesn’t mind creative uses of anti-terrorism money.

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