Uvalde intensifies doubts over whether tiny police agencies make sense - Wash Post

[fatdog]

The sheriff’s office offered a contract to provide LE services at less than half of the budgeted amount for the PD.

Of the citizens who spoke against it, the main objection was not having patrol cars with the city’s name on the side…

One of the fastest growing cities in the county where I live has never had a department, their population exploded, and they indeed contracted in a similar way with the SO to provide those services in lieu of forming a department, as part of the deal, those patrol vehicles assigned to the city now not only bear the SO's branding but also have the city's name in large letters under the SO's decals.

Our legislature in this year's session took a major step forward to begin to address one of our long term shameful problems in AL, the small town local PD's that are nothing more than speed trap revenue generators for the cities they are in. We had a major scandal with one of these speed trap only PD's, Brookside, that finally prompted the action. Now any city may not derive more than 10% of their total revenue from traffic fines.

There are a gazillion of these tiny departments that provide north of 40% of the tiny incorporated town's revenue in AL. It is a thing that has been in place since the 60's and 70's and those departments have no meaningful investigative or crime fighting capabilities, they rely on the county for their dispatch, and they don't even offer 24 hour service. When a serious crime happens they call in the SO or the state (ALEA) because they cannot handle a robbery or homicide investigation on their own. Their patrols are focused on setting up to ticket moving violations. Most of these towns have set the stage on their major highway with quick step down speed limits that catch the unaware out of towners. They simply do not need to exist and never did. Hopefully these funding rules will finally choke some of them out of existing.

[Erick Gelhaus]

Our legislature in this year's session took a major step forward to begin to address one of our long term shameful problems in AL, the small town local PD's that are nothing more than speed trap revenue generators for the cities they are in. We had a major scandal with one of these speed trap only PD's, Brookside, that finally prompted the action. Now any city may not derive more than 10% of their total revenue from traffic fines.

One of the fascinating take-aways from a real good de-brief on Summer 2014 events in Ferguson, MO was just how much of that went on in StL County and how egregious it was. That crap never got near enough coverage.

[vcdgrips]

As someone who lives on the other side of the state, I thought the Kansas bedroom communities just outside of KCMO proper were zealous until i saw similar debriefs re the STL area.

Routinely, municipalities were deriving 20% + of their unrestricted budgets from municipal code violations of all types. You overlay that with demographic shifts that had many of these areas majority black (Ferguson was 70+ black ) being policed and governed by 80% whites, it was a recipe for significant issues.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...black-st-louis

https://www.governing.com/archive/go...-to-fines.html

[DpdG]

I’m in NH, which has a strong tradition of municipal PD’s being the primary LE providers in most communities, down to towns with few to no full time officers serving populations of sub 1k. Often these agencies will not have 24hr coverage and rely on State Police for after hour emergency coverage. Sheriffs offices are present but their duties vary greatly- each county is required to do court security, prisoner transports, and civil services, but proactive work varies drastically county to county and it is rare that they are a primary call-taker.

One of the positives for small PDs is they (through the Chief) answer to the town’s select board and/or town meeting. This means there is a great deal of local control, often more than the sheriff’s office. My county’s sheriff’s office is political- a new sheriff means significant turnover in personnel. The last sheriff was was a smooth talker and active with the Rotary/Masons/Loyal order of the Moose, but in the profession he was notorious for questionable hires of people who failed/had poor reputations in local PDs and subsequent perceived meritless promotions. My perception is that the elected sheriffs are much more concerned about getting reelected than they are with moral/ethical righteousness.

One thing our state does well is traffic citations- all fines go through the state coffers with a portion going to our version of POST. None goes to the municipality that wrote the citation.

As with so much in LE, it’s extremely regional.

[jlw]

One of the fastest growing cities in the county where I live has never had a department, their population exploded, and they indeed contracted in a similar way with the SO to provide those services in lieu of forming a department, as part of the deal, those patrol vehicles assigned to the city now not only bear the SO's branding but also have the city's name in large letters under the SO's decals.

Our legislature in this year's session took a major step forward to begin to address one of our long term shameful problems in AL, the small town local PD's that are nothing more than speed trap revenue generators for the cities they are in. We had a major scandal with one of these speed trap only PD's, Brookside, that finally prompted the action. Now any city may not derive more than 10% of their total revenue from traffic fines.

There are a gazillion of these tiny departments that provide north of 40% of the tiny incorporated town's revenue in AL. It is a thing that has been in place since the 60's and 70's and those departments have no meaningful investigative or crime fighting capabilities, they rely on the county for their dispatch, and they don't even offer 24 hour service. When a serious crime happens they call in the SO or the state (ALEA) because they cannot handle a robbery or homicide investigation on their own. Their patrols are focused on setting up to ticket moving violations. Most of these towns have set the stage on their major highway with quick step down speed limits that catch the unaware out of towners. They simply do not need to exist and never did. Hopefully these funding rules will finally choke some of them out of existing.

Notes On Speed Detection

[Totem Polar]

Since we are now into a speed zone tangent, an anecdote:

I once got a ticket for going 70 in a 70 zone. The deal is: the limit on the N/S road going to a population center in the middle of the state had just changed from 55 up to 70, and had been reported in the papers as such, etc. The change was new enough that the old speed limit signs were all down, but the new ones were not yet up. Evidently, the long-time trooper who pulled me over had not received the memo.

OK, cool, I’ll just set a court date, and make a day of it. So the time comes to drive back down for my court date, and I take my little folder with my copy of the ticket, a news paper clipping of the “road news” update, and—get this—an old school polaroid camera—with which I took pics of several of the new speed limit signs noting that the road was 70mph all the way down.

So I get to court, and the trooper is a no-show. I’m thinking that this is a slam dunk.

The judge listens to my side of the deal, and then says: I grew up around here, and I’ve seen a lot of accidents on that road. It should still be 55. The ticket stands.

So I had to pay the ticket.

About a decade later, I have the chance to do my thing on an outdoor stage at the city’s big riverside park for their yearly music festival, so I told the story over the mic to a couple thousand people.

Afterwards, as Mrs T and I are selling CDs off stage, a pile of people—and by “pile” I mean 7 or 8 couples, come up to tell us “We all know that judge. He’s always been an asshole.”

Anyways, carry on.

[TheNewbie]

Since we are now into a speed zone tangent, an anecdote:

I once got a ticket for going 70 in a 70 zone. The deal is: the limit on the N/S road going to a population center in the middle of the state had just changed from 55 up to 70, and had been reported in the papers as such, etc. The change was new enough that the old speed limit signs were all down, but the new ones were not yet up. Evidently, the long-time trooper who pulled me over had not received the memo.

OK, cool, I’ll just set a court date, and make a day of it. So the time comes to drive back down for my court date, and I take my little folder with my copy of the ticket, a news paper clipping of the “road news” update, and—get this—an old school polaroid camera—with which I took pics of several of the new speed limit signs noting that the road was 70mph all the way down.

So I get to court, and the trooper is a no-show. I’m thinking that this is a slam dunk.

The judge listens to my side of the deal, and then says: I grew up around here, and I’ve seen a lot of accidents on that road. It should still be 55. The ticket stands.

So I had to pay the ticket.

About a decade later, I have the chance to do my thing on an outdoor stage at the city’s big riverside park for their yearly music festival, so I told the story over the mic to a couple thousand people.

Afterwards, as Mrs T and I are selling CDs off stage, a pile of people—and by “pile” I mean 7 or 8 couples, come up to tell us “We all know that judge. He’s always been an asshole.”

Anyways, carry on.

Awesome but annoying story? That’s crazy, but I have the inverse of that. You’ll understand where I got my argumentative independent streak from.

When seat belt laws came into existence in Texas, or when DPS, really started enforcing them, my dad got a ticket for no seat belt. He argued with the troopers about how it shouldn’t be a law (my dad was pro wearing a seat belt in general) but they gave him a ticket, which is to be expected.


My dad took it to traffic court and the judge said he didn’t think it should be a law either, so he dismissed it.


Neat that it happened that way for him, but I think your story is more common.

[CraigS]

I think the argument is that you wouldn't have the individual agencies. They would all work under a single umbrella.

I can see how that would work. I know it is different but most businesses who are nation wide have National headquarters, Regional headquarters, and maybe District headquarters. I see an advantage in most every aspect of the business. It can be a pain for the local people who can easily get the feeling that all policies are made up by people so far up the chain that they have no idea of the real world. I know I have felt that way at times. But it is easier for the large company to afford better training facilities and better instructors and policies are the same country wide. How to make that happen will be tough because first the local police, sheriffs etc. will need to be forced into it which they won't like at all.

[TheNewbie]

There is no one size fits all answer here.

While a Sheriff Office is likely the best option for many smaller towns, specifically tiny towns, seeing a Sheriff being in total control of a counties (counties with multiple towns, not talking rural counties with 2k total population) LE services would be not be good either. Division of power has a quality unto itself.


Many larger agencies would have performed poorly in this situation too. Though there is some amount of overlap, small town police forces vs larger agencies and the response in Uvalde each need their own specific discussion to address the issues. I don’t mean here at PF, but in society.

[BehindBlueI's]

For discussion's sake let's take a state w/ 10 large cities, each having a large PD. There are also 30 counties, towns, or jurisdictions w/ each having it's own PD/Sheriff w/ 30 officers. The decision is made to disband the 30 PDs because ?????? Do the 900 officers from those 30 PDs now work for one of the large city PDs? Do they keep living in the same place or do they have to move to one of the 10 cities? I live in X-town 50 miles from the nearest large city and call 911. Who will respond? Do they have to drive 50 miles to get to me?

It will never work. It is a giant pain in the ass to merge two peer/near peer agencies with similar policies and training requirements. it's a Herculean task to combine multiple departments, all with different levels of pay, different levels of seniorty required to be a detective or supervisor, different equipment, etc. City cops are often city cops because they wanted to work for that city or didn't want to be moved around the state, region, or country. Tiny town cops are often tiny town cops because they can't get hired at bigger cities. They are too old to be a merit officer, so they end up as a reserve. They have a career they don't want to leave and only police part time. They couldn't hack it, had discipline problems, or whatever at a larger department. For various reasons you will lose a lot of officers with any sort of merge, you'll spend an enormous amount of time and money to retrain and equip everyone (you're going to all wear the same uniform, right? Mark the cars the same? Are your radios compatible? Who's approved weapons list do you go with? Do you issue approved guns to those who have now disapproved guns?) Is everyone on the same pension plan? Are some even on a pension plan? What about reserves and special police? What stops Tiny Town PD from making all of their officers captains the day before the merge? Do existing personnel have to reapply for their rank and position?

It would be chaos for years, if not decades.