As reported by Bob Braun on nj.com, within months after more than 160 of its police officers were laid off, Newark erupted into a spasm of violence, including the killing of a policeman and one day when 13 people were shot, one fatally. But did the layoffs lead to the violence? And what does the future hold for a densely urbanized state where police face cuts in local, state, and federal funding?

The answer is: no one really knows. But the future looks scary. And complicated. “There is no data linking crime rates with police layoffs because this has never happened before,” says Dennis Kenney, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice and editor of Police Quarterly. Kenney, with a doctorate at Rutgers, believes police services will be “greatly eroded and degraded” because of cuts in public spending. “Even though no one can now prove a correlation between crime and police layoffs, it’s hard to argue that anything else could occur.”

Richard Weinblatt, a former New Jersey resident and national consultant on police issues, says police escaped cuts in the past. No politician, he says, “wanted to be seen as soft on crime.” But now, even cops are not immune. “No one seems interested in public safety issues-it’s just the economy, an obsession with how people are going to survive.”

The level of public discourse can be incendiary. Consider the warnings from State Senate President Stephen Sweeney who said people would “die” because of cuts to services, including police, in Governor Chris Christie’s budget. Christie has called pay and benefits to police in New Jersey “obscene.” All that erodes support for police-and all agencies that rely on tax dollars.

According to Braun, Kenney and others are right. The historical data does not exist to show laying off police officers leads to increased crime. But, the logic is also inescapable. “It certainly would be beneficial to get the cops we lost back,” says Samuel DeMaio, Newark’s acting police director.

Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage managed to hire three of those laid off cops; he freed up funds by persuading senior officers to retire. But it was a trade-off he said, “You can learn only so much from the academy, learning the streets means working with veterans.”

Moreover, he’s not optimistic. Caps on spending, loss of state aid will catch up to the city. “We need visible police presence-the guns, the drugs, and the gangs are not going away.”

To read Braun’s full article, click on the nj.com link above.

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DONALD C. BARBATI, JR.

Donald C. Barbati is a shareholder of Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C. His primary practice revolves around the representation of numerous public employee labor unions in various capacities to include contract negotiation, unfair labor practice litigation, contract grievance arbitration, and other diverse issues…

Donald C. Barbati is a shareholder of Crivelli, Barbati & DeRose, L.L.C. His primary practice revolves around the representation of numerous public employee labor unions in various capacities to include contract negotiation, unfair labor practice litigation, contract grievance arbitration, and other diverse issues litigated before the courts and administrative tribunals throughout the State of New Jersey. In addition, Mr. Barbati also routinely represents individuals in various types of public pension appeals, real estate transactions, and general litigation matters. He is a frequent contributor to the New Jersey Public Safety Officers Law Blog, a free legal publication designed to keep New Jersey public safety officers up-to-date and informed about legal issues pertinent to their profession. During his years of practice, Mr. Barbati has established a reputation for achieving favorable results for his clients in a cost-efficient manner.

Mr. Barbati has also handled numerous novel legal issues while representing New Jersey Public Safety Officers. Most notably, he served as lead counsel for the Appellants in the published case In re Rodriguez, 423 N.J. Super. 440 (App. Div. 2011). In that case, Mr. Barbati successfully argued on behalf of the Appellants, thereby overturning the Attorney General’s denial of counsel to two prison guards in a civil rights suit arising from an inmate assault.  In the process, the Court clarified the standard to be utilized by the Attorney General in assessing whether a public employee is entitled to legal representation and mandated that reliance must be placed on up-to-date information.

Prior to becoming a practicing attorney, Mr. Barbati served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Linda R. Feinberg, Assignment Judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer Vicinage. During his clerkship Mr. Barbati handled numerous complex and novel substantive and procedural issues arising from complaints in lieu of prerogative writs, orders to show cause, and motion practice. These include appeals from decisions by planning and zoning boards and local government bodies, bidding challenges under the Local Public Contract Law, Open Public Records Act requests, the taking of private property under the eminent domain statute, and election law disputes. In addition, Mr. Barbati, as a certified mediator, mediated many small claims disputes in the Special Civil Part.

Mr. Barbati received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history, magna cum laude, from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Upon graduating, Mr. Barbati attended Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. In 2007, he received his juris doctorate, magna cum laude, graduating in the top five percent of his class. During law school, Mr. Barbati interned for the Honorable Joseph E. Irenas, Senior United States District Court Judge for the District of New Jersey in Camden, New Jersey, assisting on various constitutional, employment, and Third Circuit Court of Appeals litigation, including numerous civil rights, social security, and immigration cases.