EDITORIAL LAPD'S ALBATROSS CONSENT DECREE BURDENS POLICE, BUT IT'S NOT GOING AWAY ANYTIME SOON.

A hastily approved, poorly negotiated federal consent decree plagues the Los Angeles Police Department and keeps the people of the city from having the public safety services they deserve. And from the looks of things, the city will be stuck with this albatross for a long, long time.

The decree, which then-City Attorney James Hahn negotiated during the height of the Rampart scandal-induced hysteria of 2001, comes at a steep price. Hahn did it to cover up his 20-year record of indifference to the LAPD's excesses, and his ambition left the short-handed department forced to dedicate hundreds of cops to oversee its provisions. The LAPD also has to spend upward of $50 million a year enforcing the decree. These are cops and dollars that could be put toward fighting crime; instead they are channeled into bureaucracy.

Worse yet, the decree's provisions inhibit the LAPD from keeping the city's streets safe. The latest report from the well-compensated, court-appointed firm overseeing the decree faults the LAPD for being out of compliance on various grounds, including its use of confidential informants.

But this gripe is really about a matter of policing strategy. The department had loosened its policy in order to gain some leeway in combating gangsters. Now, under the pressure of the consent decree, it will likely need to rescind the policy change. In other words, far-off judges and monitors - not the LAPD and its civilian overseers - will decide key matters of local law enforcement that effectively leave hoodlums in control of our streets and neighborhoods.

This is what city leaders brought on when they surrendered authority of the department by signing on to the decree after years of failing to reform the LAPD. By abdicating local control, they greatly limited their own ability to create a department that's flexible, responsive to local needs and accountable to the public.

In total, the monitor finds the LAPD out of compliance on 10 out of 50 sections of the decree. That's a 20 percent noncompliance rate. The list of grievances includes the department's longtime failure to set up a comprehensive misconduct-tracking system, as well its handling of personnel complaints.

Seeing that the LAPD needs to be in full compliance by June 15 for the consent decree to end, it's a safe bet that this policing nightmare isn't going away anytime soon. It almost seems as if the bureaucratic hurdles were set impossibly high so as to keep the LAPD perpetually leashed.

Even if the decree's reign of terror were to come to an end eventually, the department would probably still be required to preserve its bureaucratic apparatus.

Moral of the story: Bad political decisions can have long, even permanent, consequences.