It's not a crime-fighting strategy.

Some experts and police officials cite the broad expansion of the department, coupled with new crime-fighting strategies, as the driving force behind the declines in crime.

Making more resources available at every level of government to expand these efforts would be a smart fiscal and crime-fighting strategy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani proposed new crime-fighting strategies yesterday.

And he has installed a citywide crime-fighting strategy called Command Status, or ComStat.

Mrs. Clinton said the crime-fighting strategies launched in the 1990's required a two-pronged effort.

Mr. Kerik's crime-fighting strategies may amount to little more than tinkering, but the overall approach has worked.

Far more common, and harder to prevent with conventional crime-fighting strategies, police officials say, are rapes in which the attacker and the victim know each other.

The initiatives in Brooklyn and northern Manhattan are at the forefront of the department's crime-fighting strategy.

The police also hope the public will grow more secure as the department's new crime-fighting strategies take hold.