By the end of 1997, COPS awarded 18,138 grants to 10,537 police agencies. In the national COPS evaluation, the number and dollar amounts of grant awards and their distribution pattern are given:

• An estimated $4.27 billion was awarded in hiring grants.
• The Mid-Atlantic region received the most awards.
• Many of the large awards went to core city jurisdictions.
• Most COPS grants went to municipal or county police agencies.
• COPS funds were directed to jurisdictions that suffer disproportionately from serious crime.
• Repeat grantees received increasingly large hiring awards and MORE awards.

An estimated $4.27 billion was awarded in hiring grants and another $1.017 billion in MORE grants.

• Of the $3.47 billion awarded by the end of 1997, 84 percent were to hiring grants and nearly 16 percent to MORE.
• By May 1999, another $1.9 billion was awarded, 74 percent of which went to hiring grants and 26 percent to MORE.

The Mid-Atlantic region received the most awards, but regional patterns varied depending on what was measured: Percentage of eligible agencies receiving grants, dollar awards per capita, or COPS dollars per crime.

• The Pacific region, for instance, ranked first in the percentage of eligible agencies receiving grants (or agency participation), but ranked lower in terms of amount.
• The Mid-Atlantic region ranked first in the number and amount of awards received.

Many of the large awards went to core city jurisdictions, home to 27 percent of the U.S. population. Of all agencies selected for awards by the end of 1997, 4 percent served core city jurisdictions.

• Core cities received 40 percent of COPS dollar awards for all programs combined and 62 percent of all MORE funds.
• On average nationwide, core cities received substantially larger awards per 10,000 residents ($151,631) than did the rest of the country ($86,504). However, their average award per 1,000 index crimes ($184,980) was less than two-thirds the average for the rest of the country ($299,963).

Most COPS grants went to municipal or county police agencies, which received 75 percent of hiring and MORE funds. Sheriffs and State police agencies received 15 percent of COPS grants; the remainder was awarded to tribal and special-jurisdiction agencies.

COPS funds were directed to jurisdictions that suffer disproportionately from serious crime.

• The 1 percent of grantee jurisdictions with the highest murder counts received 31 percent of all COPS funds awarded through 1997. They reported 54 percent of all U.S. murders.
• The 10 percent with the highest murder counts received 50 percent of total COPS awards.
• A similar award pattern applied with regard to robbery.
• These grantees received multiple grants.

Repeat grantees received increasingly large hiring awards and MORE awards, because they were jurisdictions suffering from serious crime:

• Between 1995 and 1997, COPS grant funds were concentrated among multigrant agencies.
• Through 1997, $1.42 billion (47 percent of all funds designated for award) was allocated to agencies with four or more hiring or MORE grants.

More on allocation of COPS funds:

The COPS Program After 4 Years—National Evaluation, Research in Brief, September 2000.

"Chapter 3: The Flow of COPS funds" from the National Evaluation of the COPS Program: Title I of the 1994 Crime Act, Research Report, September 2000.