AT THE SAME TIME that many cities struggle to balance budgets, they are faced with increased demands by citizens to spend more money to fight crime. This demand follows a surge in violent crime during recent years. Fear and concern about crime in America has become a national epidemic. A poll released early in 1994 by the New York Times and CBS News, found that crime and violence rivaled the economy as the issue that Americans were most concerned about.

According to U.S. News & World Report, more than 1.9 million violent crimes were reported nationwide in 1993. Violent crimes include murder, assault, armed robbery, and rape. In the past thirty years violent crime has risen nationwide from an average rate of 161 violent crimes per hundred thousand persons to an average of 758 violent crimes per hundred thousand persons, a 371 percent increase. These figures...