Los Angeles is confronting a wave of violence while simultaneously experiencing an unprecedented loss of police officers. Street and motorcycle gangs and their estimated 9,000 members continue to be major contributions to senseless violence. They accounted for nearly 4,000 serious crimes. Gang violence requires the full-time assignment of 133 officers to a special Department program. The retirements of veteran officers have soared, accountable on the one hand to favorable pension benefit adjustments and, on the other hand, to acute concern about the erosion of the entire criminal justice system. On two occasions since 1978, the Department was prevented from hiring any new officers. The first occasion was a hiring freeze following the passage of Proposition 13, and the second was a Federal court injunction which greatly limited all hiring due to charges of hiring discrimination. Hiring is now proceeding under an advertising campaign designed to meet the court quotas for women and minority officers. Significant developments in the past year were the revision of several recruit and inservice training programs to provide new guidelines for the use of deadly force, the provision of three full-time psychologists and four interns to help officers deal with stress, a significant decrease in traffic deaths and injuries, and a continued drop in the number of citizen complaints against the police. Several devices designed to be used as alternatives to deadly force were approved and are now in use. Illegal drug trafficking continues to occupy a large portion of the Department's resources, since Los Angeles is the center of PCP production and distribution and is a favored part of entry for cocaine, heroin, and marijuana smugglers. Tabular data are provided on the population, size, and police costs for various sections of the Department's jurisdiction.