SPECIAL REPORT * With a sharp decline in crime despite having fewer police officers than L.A., Orange County is taking . . .

Orange County cities have half as many police officers per capita as the national average, yet still recorded some of the biggest declines in crime over the last decade, statistics show.

Despite President Clinton’s highly publicized program to add 100,000 new officers to the streets, the number of sworn personnel in Orange County has remained steady since 1990, with many local departments spending federal money instead on computers, state-of-the-art equipment and sophisticated software.

The county has 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents, compared with a national average of 2.4 and a state average of 2.3, according to a Times analysis of state records. The Los Angeles Police Department, long considered one of the nation’s most understaffed agencies, has hired more than 1,000 new officers in recent years and now has a ratio of 2.4.

Orange County’s figures highlight what experts say is a shift in the way some police departments operate, relying much more heavily on technology and lower-paid civilian employees to handle time-consuming tasks that officers once performed.

Officials and law enforcement researchers said the numbers also show that a heavy police presence on the streets is not always the most effective approach to fighting crime.

“If you doubled the number of cops, I’m willing to bet you it wouldn’t influence the crime rates,” said Gregory Russell, a police management expert from Washington State University. “The assumption--that if you put more cops on the street crime rates will go down--is wrong.”

Consider the Westminster Police Department.

The agency saw a slight decline in the number of officers per capita between 1990 and 1999. But the city invested heavily in crime-mapping software, fingerprint scanners and other equipment. It even created its own computerized statistics unit with an in-house academic who helps officers quickly detect crime patterns.

Capt. Andrew Hall believes these expenditures proved much more effective than hiring more officers and points with pride to a 45% drop in reported crimes since 1990.

“Rather than just throwing people at problems, we are thinking through the root causes,” Hall said. “Just the general premise that more cops lead to less crime is incorrect. . . . I think there’s a limit to how you can use the officers effectively.”

Orange County has 2,680 sworn officers, an increase of 107 from 1990. But with a growing population, the number of officers per 1,000 residents declined slightly during this period, from 1.3 to 1.2. Nationally, the ratio rose slightly.

The numbers have prompted researchers from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, to begin their own examination of Orange County’s staffing levels.

“It’s [a] great untold story of crime reduction,” said Eli Lehrer, a fellow with the Heritage Foundation who plans to visit local police departments this summer. “They’re not only getting crime down, but they’re more efficient.”

Lehrer said he is most impressed with several larger Orange County police agencies, such as Anaheim and Garden Grove. In Garden Grove there is fewer than one officer per 1,000 residents, with Anaheim, Santa Ana and Irvine following with somewhat higher ratios.

The four communities have seen significant drops in crime and have been ranked by the FBI as among the safer large cities in the nation.

The analysis of police data found that Newport Beach, Los Alamitos and Laguna Beach have the most officers per 1,000 residents. But for the most part, they recorded no greater drops in crime than neighboring cities.

“You can continue to put more and more officers on the street, but how effective is it in the big picture?” asked Laguna Beach Capt. Danelle Adams, whose department has nearly twice as many officers per capita as Garden Grove. “We’ll always push for more cops . . . but you have to walk a delicate balance between the technology and the bodies,”

Adams believes Laguna Beach’s 56% decline in crime over seven years is less the result of extra officers than of innovative community policing techniques and new technology such as an automated report dictation system that saves the department the equivalent of eight hours’ work per day.

Staffing level is a hotly discussed topic in police departments across the nation, and experts say there is no “magic number” that a given agency should have. The debate has intensified over the last seven years as the federal government allocated more than $5 billion in grants available to police departments.

A Justice Department audit completed last year found that despite the big federal expenditure, only about half of the 100,000 new police officers promised by Clinton have been hired. The report predicted that 72,000 new officers would be on the streets by the end of 2000.

Some of the new technology and other policing advances now used by Orange County agencies came from the millions of dollars received from the federal government.

By contrast, several big cities, including Los Angeles and New York, have focused considerable resources hiring new officers, and leaders believe the heavier police presence is a reason for declining crime.

Los Angeles has been especially aggressive. The number of sworn officers has increased from fewer than 8,000 in 1993 to 9,263 now. The department has proposed hiring hundreds more officers this year, though finding qualified candidates has been a challenge.

Officials said putting more officers on the street was sorely needed in vast cities that include areas with serious gang problems. They said having more officers on the streets is, in itself, a deterrent to crime.

“Our motto is to protect and serve, and our mission is to keep the streets safe. So if your population is growing, you have to keep step,” said LAPD spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello. “We need more officers to implement community policing. It’s more labor-intensive. We need more officers to interact with residents, to attend community meetings.”

Even with staffing increases, the department’s 2.4 officers per 1,000 residents is still below the average for cities with more than 250,000 residents, which is 3.2 officers.

Many Orange County agencies have tried to free up officers’ time by hiring civilian employees to handle functions ranging from taking certain crime reports to handling administrative functions.

Dennis Zine, vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said this practice can be helpful but warns that the trend can go too far.

“You need someone who is fully committed to the task of public safety--chasing down robbers,” he said. “You’re always going to have your criminals who are preying on society, and you need trained professional law enforcement, just like we have a paid military.”

Other veteran officers question Zine’s logic, saying that it is a balancing act to find the right number of officers to patrol the streets without sending the wrong message.

“You want people to feel safe . . . but not intimidated,” said Westminster Det. Tom Rackleff, who first patrolled the streets in 1974 when the city was dotted with strawberry fields.

Rackleff said he spends much more time investigating cases now than in the old days, when making a phone call meant going to the call boxes on street corners.

“We [used to] easily spend 60% to 70% of our time writing reports,” he said “Today, we have laptops in the cars, and we’re becoming a paperless department.”

Other officials credit increased involvement by the public in Neighborhood Watch, volunteer programs and other activities with freeing up officers to do more policing with less.

In Costa Mesa, where crime has dropped 63% over the last decade, Police Chief David L. Snowden said the growth of these community involvement programs has made a big difference. “Today, the community is all over the place. Our citizens are concerned,” he said. “That volunteerism means we have more time to fight crime.”

Times staff writer Ray F. Herndon contributed to this story.