Police officers have enrolled in training that would have been unlikely before Sept. 11. Officers attended a terrorist bombing school in New Mexico, learned how to interpret deceptive responses in interviews, studied unconventional weapons and clandestine explosives laboratories and attended classes in terrorism prevention and suicide bombings.

Today, the boat still patrols the harbor, especially when liquefied natural gas tankers arrive from overseas. The stanchions around police headquarters are in place. The S.U.V.’s, loaded with emergency response gear, have been distributed to field units who use them as part of regular patrols. Most officers have learned to put on and take off their emergency gear, but none of the equipment or training has been needed to respond to a terrorist threat.

From 2002 to this year, the department went from zero to more than $11.6 million in total domestic security grants, according to Police Department figures, while other criminal justice grants, like those from Justice Department programs used to pay overtime and hire more officers, dwindled to less than $4.5 million for the same period.

One Justice Department program, the Byrne Justice Action Grant, which helps the police fight violent crime by paying for overtime and other policing costs, has suffered heavy cutbacks. Providence’s Byrne grant was reduced to $118,000 this year, from $388,000 in 2007.

The Bush administration has proposed eliminating money for the program in its 2009 budget.

Larry Reall, a 21-veteran of the Providence Police Department, is the liaison to the local Joint Terrorism Task Force. He has top-secret security clearance and access to classified computer databases at the local F.B.I. office down the street from City Hall.

In Detective Reall’s six years on the job, none of the hundreds of leads he has chased have turned up a terrorist. But he keeps looking, convinced that his work has made the city safer and may have deterred a potential extremist before a threat materialized. “It’s not whether we are going to be attacked; that’s probably not going to happen,” Detective Reall said. “But I don’t think that you can let your guard down. Just because nothing has happened doesn’t mean that something won’t.”

Police experts said Providence’s experience was similar to that of other cities around the country. Looking back, local law enforcement agencies took on new counterterrorism responsibilities when violent crime rates had plunged to statistical lows.