PARKS TRYING HARD TO FIX AN LAPD THAT ISN'T BROKEN.

Byline: JOE GELMAN

ACCORDING to recently published FBI statistics, serious crimes in the Los Angeles area dropped 15.2 percent during the first six months of 1997. The dramatic decrease in Southern California crime rates was found to be more than triple the overall decline experienced nationally.

Clearly, something is going right.

When the FBI announces that homicides in Los Angeles fell 26.5 percent, rapes 9.5 percent, robberies 19.1 percent and aggravated assaults 6.9 percent, then it is obvious that we are experiencing something far more than a mere statistical aberration.

There could be many explanations for the remarkable decline: tougher sentencing requirements like the ``three strikes, you're out'' law, larger prisons that accommodate more violent criminals for longer periods of time, enhanced community policing methods, city and county governments that emphasize crime control over criminals' rights, a decline in youth population, and a massive buildup of the Los Angeles Police Department.

But in the end, much of the credit must go to the men and women of the LAPD who patrol our streets day and night. The same rank-and-file officers who do the all-too-often unpleasant work that most of us would prefer to avoid. The same officers who have been the subject of sweeping, frequently unfair criticism for their roles in incidents ranging from those involving Rodney King to O.J. Simpson.

In reality, violent crime has been on the wane in Southern California for the past five years. What made the recently released FBI stats especially interesting is that they reflect an exceptionally dramatic decline during the immediate six months preceding the swearing-in of our new LAPD chief, Bernard Parks.

Surely, Parks can see the irony in the new figures. Violent-crime statistics, the No. 1 measure of the effectiveness of any police department, dropped dramatically, well before he was brought in to ``clean house.''

If the strongly positive statistics tell us anything, it's that the LAPD, as an organization, is producing the desired results and might not be in need of the kind of radical housecleaning and new leadership style that Parks' appointment is supposed to represent. As the old saying goes, don't try to fix what ain't broke.

To be viewed as a success, Parks will need to improve on the already greatly improved statistics, and he will need to do it without greatly expanding the department, as occurred over the previous four years. The expansion, for the most part, has already taken place. He will have to work with what's already there.

Parks will also need the enthusiastic support of the LAPD rank and file, and to do that he will need to earn their respect. In a poll of its membership just before the new chief was selected, the Los Angeles Police Protective League found that Parks' candidacy had the support of a mere 12 percent of the rank and file.

The overwhelming sentiment of the cop on the beat was for Assistant Chief Mark Kroeker, who received a vote of confidence from a whopping 75 percent of the force.

Parks started his tenure with a confidence gap between himself and the rank and file, and his No. 1 objective should be to close that gap as soon as possible. Instead, he has made a number of rash moves that are widening the confidence gap.

In one of his more controversial steps, Parks has put forth a proposal to radically change the city's community policing programs. He is proposing that senior lead officers, the officers whose full-time job it is to work with various community organizations, such as Neighborhood Watch and homeowners associations, be put back on patrol and their jobs be handled by precinct desk sergeants.

Senior lead officers are the crucial link between the community and the police. They know the communities where they work intimately. They are the ones people call when graffiti starts appearing in the neighborhood, when someone is casing the area, when a house is suspected of being used to sell drugs.

People know to call their senior lead officer, who is available and ready to respond, who knows the crime history of the neighborhood and knows many of the residents personally. Nobody wants to go back to the days when the only options were to call 911 or an unfamiliar, overworked and often out-of-touch precinct sergeant.

As one senior lead officer in the west San Fernando Valley put it, ``If I could get a single message to Chief Parks, this is what it would be: `Don't give up a resource that you will want and need to be successful.' ''

In another troubling move, the new chief has set out to strip all LAPD deputy chiefs of their civil service status. His plan is to make them more accountable to him. By taking away their civil service status, deputy chiefs could be easily removed by Parks and replaced with more ``loyal'' underlings.

Whether he will succeed in doing this is unclear, but one thing is clear: The last thing this city needs is a police chief surrounded by yes-men. The civil service was created to depoliticize the system, and to avoid precisely what Parks is now attempting to do.

He is also proposing a new resident complaint policy, where any complaint against an officer, regardless of merit, will be placed in the officer's file. This leaves officers vulnerable to every Tom, Dick and Harry with a minor grievance or chip on his shoulder. Hardly a morale-boosting policy.

There are a number of other significant changes Parks is proposing. Some are positive, while others are of questionable value and could negatively affect overall morale.

Instead of making radical changes in a department that is clearly on a roll, the new chief would be better advised to spend more of his time earning the respect of the rank and file. Successful leadership and respect cannot be imposed all at once from above; they have to be gradually earned.