The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 11

l)p urlinijt0tt The American police officer was canght in the middle of Judicial tocial revolution. This seriei explores bow the new officer copet with the uew city la the 80i PARTI Part II Appears Next Sunday David Broder mb mm America's police in 1983 are vastly different from the men in blue who faced an America in turmoil some 15 years ago. It was a time of temper that terrified the nation and rattled its faith in law and order. ioaay police are Better educated on the average, less experienced perhaps, and definitely shorter than the 6-footers who rode the riot- ravaged streets of the '60s. But those changes are superficial 'compared to the revolution in the jobs CMS 15 4 rum do.

Police Work 1983 is tougher -man it was a decade or two ago. Today the courts frequently rede Tho Allocated Praii Miami officer Brian Glaccum visits at a food stand on his beat. Being on foot patrol gives police personal contact with the neighborhood people they are protecting. fine police power and officers have to the law. Cities have cut police -budgets and departments are leaner.

IThe courts have ordered police to "redress their ranks to mirror the mi nority mix of the communities they serve and some white officers have quit rather than face the dilution of ordinarily meager chances for promotion. Today, to equalize standards, po have had to teach veteran officers not to pull a trigger, or even draw a gun as freely as they might have two decades ago. Still, some cities, notably New Orleans, Chicago and St. Louis, have undergone more than 30 federal investigations each last year on charges that their police violated the civil rights of citizens, usually by excessive use of force. How society polices itself, how it insures the domestic tranquillity, how it guards its property and yet refrains from encroaching on the rights of any citizen has always been an uneasy balance.

Today's police are asked to do all of that, and in addition to nabbing burglars, chasing down robbers, freeing hostages and catching killers, they are asked to pacify the community, to give each citizen the perception of security. All of this in the face of a crime rate that rose monotonously over the last 20 years, of persistent street crime in big cities especially, and of a pervasive drug market that reached into suburbs and small towns as well. There was some encouraging news in early September, however. The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics disclosed that the number of victims of crime dropped 4 percent in a year, one of the most dramatic lice have to teach English to Hispan-Ucs, teach ghetto-raised black youths liow to swim, city-bred whites how to 4rive and women how to increase their -hand and wrist strength so they can Squeeze a trigger. At the same time, to combat com munity fears of police violence, they Mondale Or Glenn? It's A Dilemma NEW YORK CITY Many Democrats face a dilemma in choosing between Walter F.

Mondale, the old friend with whom they have waged frequent battles for liberal programs in the past, and John Glenn, the newcomer whose policies are unclear but whose voter appeal is obvious. Few Democrats feel that perplexity more acutely than Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, the bright new star of the party and likely convention keynoter. His endorsement will help determine the 285 votes of the second-largest delegation. Cuomo bought some time for reflection by arranging a series of autumn "issues forums" around the state for the seven presidential hopefuls.

But the last of those forums will be held on Oct. 6. And some time in November, Cuomo knows, he will have to make his choice. Mondale could make it easy for him and for others around the country who share Cuomo's commitment to the Democratic Party as the instrumeut of social justice and economic opportunity. If only he would speak and act like a bold leader, not a front-runner nervously sitting on a lead, the endorsement decision would not be in doubt.

But when a person whose insights mean much to Cuomo says, after watching Mondale in a television interview, that he seems a man already weary of the struggle, meek of manner and of voice, and such men cannot win the White House, it gives the governor real concern. It reinforces the doubts Cuomo nurtures despite his efforts to put them aside about Mondale's equivocation in Cuomo's 1982 gubernatorial primary with New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Mondale had every reason of principle and political loyalty to back Cuomo, the liberal in the race and the strongest ally of the Carter-Mondale administration in New York state politics. But Koch was the strong early favorite, and if Mondale did not implicitly ally himself with Koch, as some suggest, he certainly did nothing to aid Cuomo. Yet Cuomo won that fight and won it by sticking to his principled opposition to the death penalty, when even his own mother thought it would cost him victory.

Is there not some issue that means as much to Mondale, some principle he would defend even at the risk of affronting an important constituency? And if there is not, what does it say about the man? Glenn is something else. His public appeal is obvious, even before he speaks. Cuomo has seen supposedly sophisticated New Yorkers immune to ordinary political glamour press close for Glenn's autograph or his touch. He is a classic American a Marine hero, an astronaut, a man who plainly commands his own mind and emotions and will. And yet that strong streak of independence and self-reliance must be at least a bit disturbing to a governor who saw close-up how much the inability to work closely with other politicians cost another loner, Jimmy Carter, in the presidency.

There are disturbing signs about Glenn: conversations where the senator appears not to listen to others speaking, not to grasp what they are saying, not to incorporate their ideas into his own or show how their separate approaches can be merged. Such men, even when they are right on an issue, have difficulty building majority coalitions. And senators Cuomo knows have told him Glenn has exactly that kind of difficulty in the Senate. And what does Glenn really believe? In 1979, he opposed tne SALT II treaty. In 1981, he supported Reagan's tax package.

Just recently, he voted to resume nerve gas production. To some, he seems ambivalent about Israel. What does this tell a governor of New York, who wants no watered-down Reaga-nism in the Democratic Party, about the implications of a Glenn presidency? Why doesn't Mondale concede publicly that Glenn has it all over him in a personality contest, and demonstrate his own political courage by challenging Glenn directly on these issues? Why not confront the waverers in the Democratic electorate by asking them as Cuomo asked New York Democrats in the 1982 primary to vote not on the basis of polls or endorsements or "smart money" shrewdness, but on the basis of their deepest beliefs about what the Democratic Party should stand for in America? Why can't the choice be made clear? Mario Cuomo and many like him would like to know. declines in a decade. Too many variables are involved to allow pinpointing any one cause, but Dr.

Steven Schlesinger, bureau director on leave from Catholic University, says two salient reasons were police-organized neighborhood watches and targeted action to land career criminals in jail for a long time. So it appears that the criminal justice system which begins with the cop is beginning to work better. There are some 17,000 police departments out there from Los Angeles' Parker Center to New York's No. 1 Police Plaza. No two are alike.

There are scores of philosophies on how police officers should function, how much discretionary power they should have, even different notions on what weapons they should carry, what bullets they should fire, and whether they may lock an arm hold around a violent person's neck. There is no national standard, no norm, even precious few reliable national statistics to measure one department against another. Policing, perhaps becuase it affects each locality so deeply, has always been locally designed, responding to the political Structure of the community. That alone has made the police slow to respond to minority perceptions, to serve the ghetto. Patrick Murphy, once New York police commissioner and now head of the Police Foundation, remembers, "Our police until 30 or 40 years ago were in fact enforcing segregation in some states and de facto segregation in others." James Q.

Wilson, Harvard professor of government, vice chairman of the Police Foundation, and once chairman of a White House task force on crime, points out that until a reform movement of the 1930s, the police had fallen into sad ways, corruption was rife, and they "often used excessive force, especially on newer immigrants." A look backward only makes the changes in police work more graphic. The nation's first city police, dating from 1844, became known as the "finest" New York could field. The finest have endured many changes in the political weather, not always with good grace. The infant New York was a manufacturing city with a large Irish immigrant workforce. When the Irish Turn to JOB, Page 1 3A nip ri j.

1 i yr. Hurl iT ii VtJ ini efl ii h- Mugging victim Helen Kowalczyk lies on officer John Donovan and Elizabeth Kinney. Violent street crimes have become daily problems for police forces. the ground near her home in Boston as she is assisted by Bob McNally, left, police Candy Seller Sweetens Up Computer 1 Inside Vermont Alan Levi, who owns the Nutcracker Sweet candy store in South Burlington, has an idea in the fast-changing world of computer manufacturing, where a market miscalculation can send a company down the tubes. Levi is selling "milk chocolate eat-only diskettes," a candy version of the read-only computer peripheral memory device.

The novelty won a brief mention on the front page of Thursday's Wall Street Journal not a bad place to launch a business. 1 Levi, who opened and then sold Sweet Dreams in Burlington, concedes his idea is similar to the pet rocks of bygone Christmas seasons, but adds that a large New York City department store soon will decide whether to carry the item this year. He formed Sweetware a play on computer software, and is marketing the diskette under the slogan: "We make hightech appetizing." Most of the work went into designing an attractive package for the diskette which is a rather plain hunk of chocolate. Advertising starts next month in va- meeting early Thursday morning. To make sure no one would steal or damage the equipment, Hults slept on the floor all night.

The show the next morning was a smash. "There are just too many keys around here," Drekter said when asked why all the precautions. Courses Without Majors A recent advertisement by the University of Vermont lists communications as one of 12 course concentrations being offered in its continuing education program. "As society grows more complex, so do the ways we communicate," the ad says, adding that, "UVM offers a range of courses which enable students to develop skills in various media." The interest in communications may surprise some people, because the university officially dropped its Communication Department in 1981, and the last class of majors in the field is slated to graduate in May. lis of the Old North End Ward 3.

DeCarolis said last week he and the four Citizens Party board members Richard Musty of Ward 1, Terrill Bouricius and Zoe Breiner of Ward 2 and Peter Lackowski of Ward 3 no longer want to be referred to in press accounts as "Sanders supporters." They prefer to be called the "Progressive Coalition." DeCarolis said the new name for the group does not signify any rift with Sanders. Rather, "We want to show we have ideas of our own that are independent of Bernie's," DeCarolis said. On the Job Training David Drekter, owner of On-Site Productions Inc. of Warren took no chances last week. Drekter and his two assistants Keith Hults and Larry Solomon set up about $12,000 worth of computer-coordinated slide projection equipment in the Radisson Hotel Wednesday night.

They planned a show for the United Way kickoff campaign rious computer-freak magazines, he said. What happens when the diskette's novelty melts? The next product may be a chocolate chip, a candy replica of a silicon chip which has helped bring on the computer revolution. In Name Only What do you call the five aldermanic allies of Burlington Mayor Bernard Sanders? One of the five aldermen Who usually back Sanders Is independent Gary DeCaro- it FrM Prut Photo by ROB ELEV Alan Levi holds chocolate novelty..