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There is little doubt that the police need help, particularly at a time when the fiscal crisis has caused manpower cutbacks. "Police officers feel embattled," says Sergeant Jim Moad, a 16-year veteran of the Los Angeles force. "We're getting it from all sides. The attitude is 'It's me and my partner against the world.' All every cop is trying to do is survive until he can retire." Detective Myron Ludvick of New York's harassed force admits that it is difficult to forget about his own survival. "You have to be able to tune that out. But it's there. It's there when you're at a funeral for one of your former colleagues." (Nine New York police officers were killed by criminals in 1980.)
Who are the increasingly brutal marauders responsible for random assaults and murders? Streetwise cops have no difficulty sizing up the psychology of their enemies. "They are mean, antisocial people with macho complexes," says Memphis Police Director E. Winslow Chapman. Observes New York's Ludvick: "They're people who are playing 'Can you top this?' They sit around and say, 'You stuck a guy up? Big deal. I got the bread, then to show him I wasn't just kidding around, I shot him three times.' And the guy next to him says, 'Well, you think that's bad? I took a shot and blew the dude's head off.' " Adds Atlanta Police Chief Napper: "There are a lot of young guys who just don't care, who go out and blow people away just for the hell of it." Chief Gates of Los Angeles takes a somewhat broader view. "We've lost a whole generation," he says. "Totally lost. No selfdiscipline. Total indulgence. Drugs. Lack of respect for the law. Lack of respect for values. A whole generation thumbed its nose at everything that was held sacred in this country. America has to take a look at its heart and its soul."
Criminologists agree that drugs contribute heavily to violent crime; some claim that nearly half of all street crimes are drug related. Drug users either rob and mug to get money to support their habit, or lash out irrationally under the influence of their narcotics.
There can be no blinking away the fact that blacks are disproportionately involved in violent crime-both as offenders and victims. Although blacks constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, they make up 48% of the prison population. Civil rights groups insist that the judicial system is racially biased, but the evidence is not convincing. In violent crimes committed by a single person, the victims in a quarter of the cases claim that the attacker was black. Most crimes involve victims and criminals of the same race. That is true of 83% of all assaults and 70% of all single-offender rapes and robberies.