PERF has released a new report in the Critical Issues in Policing series, “Policing and the Economic Downturn: Striving for Efficiency Is the New Normal.” This report provides details about PERF’s 2012 survey of law enforcement agencies, which found that 41 percent of responding departments were planning budget cuts for their next fiscal year. This was an improvement over a PERF survey two years earlier, which found that 61 percent of those same agencies were planning budget cuts. The report also includes a number of case studies of law enforcement agencies that have developed innovative strategies for dealing with significant budget cuts, including the departments in Corpus Christi, TX; Camden, NJ; Lane County, OR; and Manchester, England.
