With the help of Federal subsidies provided by the Clinton administration's 1994 crime bill, the number of police officers nationwide is expected to increase by more than 100,000 over the next 6 years. This effort has some potential problems, however. Too often a rush to put more officers on the street has significantly undermined the quality of individual police departments. Also, the attempt to meet the twin goals of hiring and diversity tends to widen racial divisions within a force. Further, there is always the practical issue of whether more police correlates with less crime. Within law enforcement circles, any discussion of the hazards of "binge" hiring begins with the experiences of Miami and Washington, D.C. In an effort to hire more officers in a short period of time, both departments lowered admission standards, expedited or haphazardly completed background checks, and cut corners on training in order to meet hiring goals and timetables. Large numbers of unprepared rookies were thus rushed into service. In both departments, the officers employed during periods of "binge" hiring were involved in criminal and corrupt behavior. In Houston, the faster the police department has moved to diversify its personnel, the more racially divided the police force has become. From the time a potential applicant first meets a Houston police recruiter to the time when that individual takes a test for promotion or higher rank, the officer becomes part of a race and gender-based bean- counting contest that has left the officers themselves splintered into a handful of different interest groups, ranging from the two most broadly constituted officer organizations, the Houston Police Officers Association and the Houston Police Protective Union, to smaller, ethnicity-based groups such as the white officers, the Afro-American Officers League, and the Organization of Spanish-Speaking Officers. Although an increase in police personnel does increase public perceptions that the community is safer, this may bring more problems than the police agencies and the public expected, unless planning takes into account the speed with which hiring is done and the qualifications of the people selected.