CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 12TH DISTRICT : Candidates Battle to See Who Pulls Rank in the War on Crime : Bernson: The incumbent points to his record as a staunch ally of the LAPD, though criminal activity in his region increased.

Since his election to the Los Angeles City Council 12 years ago, Hal Bernson has cultivated the image of a staunch crime-fighter and unshakeable ally of the Los Angeles Police Department.

He has voted repeatedly to add more police officers to the department. He pushed for a $6-million computerized fingerprint system for the department. And when Police Chief Daryl Gates came under intense political pressure following the Rodney King beating, Bernson was one of his most visible and vocal supporters, appearing at pro-Gates events and speaking out strongly in the chief’s defense.

But Bernson’s support of the police is not unlimited.

In 1985, he signed a ballot argument opposing a citywide initiative to hire 1,000 more officers. Last week, he voted against a 10% city entertainment tax despite arguments that without the new revenues, the city would lose 400 police officer positions to attrition.

“I traditionally vote against taxes because I think we need to live within our budgets,” said the conservative Republican, who nonetheless proclaims himself “probably the leading council member in support of the Police Department.”

Bernson said he is concerned about the increase in serious crime in his northwest San Fernando Valley district and is working to add more officers to the department’s Devonshire Division, which covers almost all of it.

“We’ve been relatively sheltered out here in the San Fernando Valley, particularly this end of the Valley, but we seem to be getting an increase in these types of crime,” he said. “We’ve managed to keep a pretty tight rein on the repressible-type crimes like burglaries.”

According to department statistics, the number of burglaries in Devonshire was virtually unchanged during Bernson’s council tenure, rising from 2,989 in 1979 to 3,000 last year. However, burglaries citywide dropped 30% during the same period, from 74,501 to 51,492.

In addition, the Devonshire Division posted sharp increases in some types of violent crime. For instance, murders rose from four in 1979 to 21 in 1990, and aggravated assaults soared from 405 to 1,511 during the same period, according to police figures.

Overall, there was a 54% increase in crime in Devonshire since Bernson was elected, with the number of so-called Part 1 crimes--which cover 10 categories ranging from murder to thefts from cars--climbing from 10,123 to 15,577. Citywide, Part 1 crimes were up 26% during the same period.

Bernson said a major reason for the minuscule increase in burglaries is the large and active Neighborhood Watch group in his 12th Council District--an organization he has worked assiduously to build up over the years and recently tried to mobilize on behalf of his reelection campaign.

The group, which meets regularly with police to discuss ways to reduce neighborhood crime, is coordinated by a Bernson deputy who works with it full time. Bernson has published newsletters and printed home-alert stickers for watch participants, and his office maintains a list of 5,000 residents who have attended its meetings.

Bernson sought to turn that list to political advantage in January as he battled five challengers, including school board member Julie Korenstein, who subsequently forced him into a June 4 runoff election. He mailed campaign brochures to the people on the watch list, urging them to support him because of his anti-crime efforts.

Although the list was partially developed with public funds, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office said it was not improper to use it for campaign purposes.

Bernson said adequate law enforcement is needed to suppress crime but added that part of the problem is beyond the jurisdiction of the City Council.

“We have a problem the City Council just can’t solve, and that is the criminal justice system,” he said.

“Until we do something about the criminal justice system . . . as far as getting criminals off the street or rehabilitating them to the point where they don’t go back to a life of crime, right now you have people committing serious crimes but because of a shortage of prison space, they are back on the streets in a few days.”

He cited as his biggest anti-crime achievement his efforts to secure a computerized fingerprint-comparison system for the department. Under the previous system, officers had to compare suspects’ fingerprints by hand; the new system does it automatically in a tiny fraction of the time.

The councilman said the Devonshire Division is doing an excellent job despite having “the least amount of staff of any division in the city.”

Ideally, Bernson said, the 200-officer division should have another 100 officers. He said he has spoken with Gates and other department officials about getting more, but “they’re not too hot” to increase the division’s personnel.

Bernson said he saw the videotaped beating of Rodney King on television and was “just absolutely sickened and outraged by it.”

But he reiterated his support for Gates, saying he should not resign in the wake of the King beating.

“I think this could have happened anywhere to any police department, and it has,” he said. “The real question is what he does about it.”

Bernson accused Mayor Tom Bradley of contributing to anxiety and polarization in Los Angeles by attempting to “get the chief” using the King incident.

“If this incident hadn’t happened, the way the Police Commission is being stacked--with Melanie Lomax and then . . . the other fellow, from the ACLU, Sheinbaum--they would have been looking for another incident,” he said. “They would have tried to get rid of him another way.”

Bernson said city officials should “do everything in our power” to prevent the recurrence of incidents like the King beating.

“There’s a mentality that when people shoot at you that you’re going to be defensive, and sometime an officer might tend to overreact,” he said. “We’ve got to try to prevent those overreactions.”

The Police Department, he said, should re-evaluate the way it trains officers to use force and conduct more frequent reviews of brutality complaints. He also suggested that the department hold “discussion periods” among officers to assess their behavior whenever they have subdued a suspect by force.