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JAN07.TXT
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1990-02-23
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January 1990
TOMORROW'S AMERICA:
LAW ENFORCEMENT'S COMING CHALLENGE
By
Rob McCord
and
Elaine Wicker
Powerful economic and social indicators point to stiff
challenges for law enforcement policymakers. During the next
decade, law enforcement officials will be forced to wrestle with
disruptive social, demographic, and technological changes. And
struggles to confront many of the troublesome trends facing the
Nation will be played out against a backdrop of financial
cutbacks from Federal, State, and local governments.
Many analysts point to difficult issues and conflicting
trends: While cost-cutting throughout government is forcing
cutbacks in services, public pressure for more effective service
is growing. Jobs increasingly require skilled personnel; yet, the
pool of qualified young workers is shrinking, especially the pool
supplying law enforcement's traditional recruits young, white
males. Information about economic and demographic trends is
available, but useful interpretation is complicated by the widely
varying ways national trends play out in diverse geographic
areas.
Looming challenges and expected cutbacks are certain to
force more reliance on information and information technologies.
The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reports
that information technologies will reshape virtually every
product, service, and job in the United States during the next
decade. Effective law enforcement may hinge, to a large degree,
on effective use of information technologies, and successful law
enforcement will certainly demand accurate anticipation of local
and national emerging trends and issues.
With the challenge of foresight in mind, this article
briefly outlines a number of significant demographic and economic
trends and their probable implications for law enforcement.
TRENDS
The U.S. population is aging. In 1996 the first wave of
``baby boomers'' will turn 50, marking the start of a ``senior
boom'' in the United States. By 2010 one in every four Americans
will be 55 or older. (1)
The age difference in population composition is especially
evident when comparing 1950 to the year 2000. In 1950 there were
12.3 million people aged 65 and older, or 8.2 percent of a
population of 150.7 million. By the year 2000, an estimated 34.9
million elderly will constitute 13 percent of the population, and
by the year 2015, Americans aged over 65 will make up fully 20
percent of the U.S. population. (2)
Over the next decade, more than 90 percent of new entrants
into the workforce will be women, minorities, and immigrants, but
almost two-thirds will be women. In 1960 only 11 percent of
women with children under the age of 6 were employed; today, 52
percent work outside the home. (3)
The minority population is increasing rapidly, and by 1990,
20 percent of American children will be black or Asian. By the
year 2000, this figure will grow to 21 percent and then increase
to 23 percent by 2010. When projections for white Hispanic
children are added, the figures increase dramatically to 31
percent, 34 percent, and 38 percent, respectively. By 2010, 25
percent of the children in 19 States will be black, Hispanic,
Asian, or some other minority. In the District of Columbia and
six States, more than 50 percent of children will be minority
group members. Minorities will constitute the majority of
children in New Mexico (77 percent), California (57 percent),
Texas (57 percent), New York (53 percent), Florida (53 percent),
and Louisiana (50 percent). (4)
Immigrants account for an ever-increasing share of the U.S.
population and workforce. Legal immigration during the 1980s has
accounted for an average of 570,000 people per year, which is 30
percent higher than the average for the 1970s and significantly
more than in any year from 1924 to 1978. (5)
The 10 metropolitan areas with the highest number of
immigrants in rank order are New York, Los Angeles-Long Beach,
Chicago, Miami-Hialeah, San Francisco, Washington, DC (including
the Maryland and Virginia suburbs), Anaheim-Santa Ana, San Jose,
Oakland, and San Diego. These cities and 28 others all receive
approximately 2,000 immigrants each year from 16 or more
different countries.
In 1980 there were somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 million
illegal aliens in the United States. One estimate holds that
illegal aliens are growing in number at a rate of 100,000 to
300,000 a year, while several hundred aliens with nonimmigrant
status also live illegally in the United States. (6)
The labor force growth is slowing, and the number of
``entry-level'' workers is decreasing. Between 1986 and the year
2000, the overall growth of the labor force is projected to be
1.2 percentthe slowest rate since the 1930s and about one-half
the rate of U.S. labor force growth experienced between 1972 and
1986. And in the 1990s the number of traditional entry-level
workers--those aged 16-34 will actually shrink. (7)
The number of single parent households is likely to
increase. More than 25 million women head their own households,
or 28 percent of the Nation's 91 million households. Seven
percent of these are female-headed, single-parent families with
children under the age of 18. Women who live alone account for
52 percent of female-headed households; over one-half of these
women are 65 years of age or older. (8)
In terms of race and ethnic origin, dramatic differences
emerge. Two-thirds of black and Hispanic households are headed
by women, as compared with 36 percent of white households headed
by females. By the year 2000, women will head 29 percent of
households. (9) And if present trends continue, one-half of the
marriages that take place today will end in divorce a decade
from now.
Jobs that are declining in number are those that could be
filled by those with fewer skills. The fastest-growing jobs are
those that require more language, math, and reasoning skills. For
the next decade, 9 out of 10 new jobs will be in the service
sector, in fields that generally require high levels of education
and skill. Ten years ago, 77 percent of jobs required some type
of generating, processing, retrieving, or distributing
information. By the year 2000, heavily computerized information
processing will encompass 95 percent of the jobs. (10) Some
projections about employment trends suggest that by the 1990s,
anyone who reads below a 12th-grade level will be excluded from
employment possibilities.
Statistics indicate the United States is becoming a
bifurcated society with more wealth, more poverty, and a
shrinking middle class. The gap between the ``haves'' and the
``have nots'' is widening. The percentage of the population
earning middle-class wages, between $15,000 and $49,000 per year,
has dropped over the past decade. (11) More than 32 million of the
Nation's approximately 240 million citizens have incomes below
the poverty level. At the same time, the number of households
headed by persons in the 35-50 age group with incomes of $50,000
or more is expected to almost triple by 2000. (12)
An underclass of Americans those who a