LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
MM.dd.yy
Cutbacks
and Cops
Y NOW, THE script is
painfully familiar: facing budget shortfalls,
municipal governments find themselves underequipped to deal with the multiple crises they face. Politicians
exhort the need to make “tough
choices.” And communities are
struck with a double blow, losing not only services, but jobs—
which in turn further reduces
local revenues, leading to more
deficits, leading to more cuts, and
the cycle starts again.
This week, John Rudolf profiles one community for which
that vicious cycle is more vicious
than most. “Newark’s cops do not
work at an ordinary job, like the
rest of us,” he writes. The dangers they routinely face, coupled
with years of catastrophic budget
cuts, make the men and wom-
ART STREIBER
B
en of the Newark PD more like
“soldiers on the front lines of a
ceaseless, low-intensity war.”
With compelling interviews
with Newark’s finest and a steady
barrage of devastating statistics,
John paints a picture of a community in crisis. Newark has
about as many cops on the streets
today as it did in the 1970s. Well
over a third of children live in
poverty, and the city’s heavily
minority population suffers disproportionately from the effects
of the jobs crisis.
A wave of police layoffs in 2010
coincided with sweeping state
cuts in education. To look closely
at the situation in Newark is to
come face to face with a tragic
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