Police Chief Richard Pennington said Thursday the report, which will be made public today, describes a department where police officers and commanders are not held accountable. Crime reports have been either intentionally suppressed or lost through sloppy record keeping.

Pennington, who came to Atlanta from New Orleans in 2002, said he has made improvements to the department and has seen a decrease in crime. But, in a briefing Thursday for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the chief stressed the department has a long way to go.

He also warned that a lax attitude about crime fighting --- among dispirited police, the public and politicians --- could stifle the turnaround.

Even though he described Atlanta as the most dangerous city in America, Pennington said he was shocked that city residents seemed to be unaware of the severity of the problem. Less than a third of residents questioned in the study considered crime to be Atlanta's No. 1 problem.

"More people said they are concerned about traffic than they are about crime," said the chief, who will discuss the findings today at a breakfast with business and community leaders at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Pennington asked New York-based Linder & Associates to review a year's worth of crime reports to determine whether they were properly classified and documented.

Additionally, the firm conducted a confidential survey that received responses from about 1,000 of the department's nearly 1,500 officers. About 200 were interviewed by the firm.
Researchers also questioned city residents to get a sense of their impressions of the department and Atlanta's crime.

The audit was paid for by the Atlanta Police Foundation, which Pennington formed to raise money from local businesses to supplement his department's budget. Linder had reviewed operations for the New Orleans Police Department when Pennington was chief there.

Among the other findings of the yearlong Atlanta study:
 
* The department for years has underreported crime to the public largely because of poor record keeping. At least one ranking officer said he believed the department's job was to protect the city's image for tourism.
 
* Atlanta's crime problem is worse than indicated by FBI crime statistics, the standard used to measure crime rates. This is largely because the numbers for Atlanta, unlike in most cities, do not include the crimes reported by the 15 other law enforcement agencies --- including those at universities and MARTA --- that operate in the city.
 
* Thousands of fugitives, including murderers, wander Atlanta streets with little worry that they'll be tracked down. Fugitives usually aren't taken into custody until picked up on a traffic stop or another crime.
 
* A revolving-door justice system in Fulton County Superior Court ensures that many burglars, drug dealers, car thieves and purse snatchers --- even if caught --- spend little time in jail.
 
* A culture centered on second jobs has corrupted the department by making some cops more loyal to their outside jobs than to their police officer duty. "When they came to work, they are too tired to work," Pennington said. "They came to work to relax."

Pennington said he would use the information to seek support to hire more cops and improve their pay and equipment.

The chief said the department began to turn the corner in August --- a year after he took charge --- when he restructured the top brass. He said he already had instituted a system in which zone commanders met weekly to share crime information. The audit shows homicides, robberies and burglaries rose until August and then declined, he said.

Mayor Shirley Franklin said Thursday that pay raises were needed but that money alone won't improve the city's Police Department. She said leadership and a good strategy are key, and she expressed confidence in Pennington.

"The point is, now that we have a plan, we have to find ways to finance it," Franklin said.

The City Council voted Monday to give police and other city employees a 2 percent pay increase retroactive to January and another 2 percent raise in July.

Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of Local 623 of the International Brotherhood of Police, said the report supports the complaints of rank-and-file cops who say they don't have enough officers to respond to 911 calls and patrol the streets in many zones.

"Each year the beat officer doesn't see improvement in manpower or equipment," Kreher said. "All he sees is the population of the city increasing while the manpower decreases. This is why we continue to fight City Hall for better pay and pensions to retain experienced officers."

Kreher said Pennington's reforms so far have boosted accountability and made the department more effective.
Pennington plans to increase the number of officers to more than 1,700 this year. The department needs at least 2,000 officers, he said.

Among the changes Pennington wants to make this year are:
 
* Moving detectives from headquarters into the six police zones, which he says will reduce tension between patrol officers and detectives, increase information sharing and ensure detectives respond more quickly.
 
* Adding 10 patrol beats to the department's 56 and restructuring beats for better patrol coverage.
 
* Increasing the size of the narcotics unit and targeting midlevel and upper-level drug dealers instead of focusing on street sales. He said the unit would work closely with federal prosecutors.
 
* Doubling the size of the fugitive unit to about 14 and working more closely with the U.S. Marshals Service's new regional fugitive squad.

Councilman H. Lamar Willis, chairman of the council's public safety committee, agreed police need more money but said officials must learn to do more with less.

"Every report tells us we're behind on everything, and every report tells us we need a whole lot more money," Willis said. "Until we can become a leaner, more efficient city government, then I can't support another tax increase."

Councilman C.T. Martin, a member of the public safety committee, said he was skeptical of the report, since the consultants were paid by the Atlanta Police Foundation.

David Klinger, a former police officer and currently a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, called Pennington's criticism of the department unusual in that police chiefs usually try to put the best face on their operations.

He said Pennington's approach was not without risk. "It could demoralize the cops further and the citizens could get mad at the cops."