Police: Car 54, Where Are You?

The law's most serious slowdown is not always delay in the courts— the months or years it can take a case to come to trial. Too often the problem is delay in the law's enforcement—the interminable minutes it can take to reach the police. In an age of computers and digit dialing, it may be easier to phone "Hiya" to a pal in Addis Ababa than to call "Help" to a cop a few blocks away.

The citizen who has just been mugged on Staten Island in New York City is likely to get a second unpleasant...

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