At first, the new military leadership was going to dissolve the battalion, but they later decided to replace senior officers and keep it intact.

The city may be able to cut the force even further if it replaces officers doing clerical duties with less expensive civilians.

Captain Croughwell said the program is not intended to replace undercover officers but to augment them.

It said the city had been slow to hire civilians to replace officers now doing certain desk jobs.

At the same time, the 40,000-member department has had trouble, like police agencies across the nation, in finding recruits to replace officers as they leave.

And it questioned whether the effort to replace officers with civilians could be accomplished in time.

More than 80 percent of the new workers were to replace uniformed officers in desk or technical jobs, freeing them for patrol.

However, in some areas, the department has not made progress in replacing uniformed officers with civilians.

Once in office, the Ames brothers flushed out the police force, replacing experienced officers with known crooks.

As in other cities, there was talk about replacing officers with traffic lights.