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

[TGS]

And @TGS, with regard to Texas reasserting itself as an independent nation, it appears there is a better than even chance we will hold a vote on that issue in November 2023. There was a 90% approval of the issue at the state Republican convention recently and strong across the political spectrum support for it in the past few weeks. Stand by and buckle up.

[HCM]

Texans will eventually have our own planet:

[Jim Watson]

Always liked H. Beam Piper's stuff.

Other threads describe Big City Department Flight.
Do we not have competent, experienced men going to some of those small departments?

[blues]

Always liked H. Beam Piper's stuff.

Other threads describe Big City Department Flight.
Do we not have competent, experienced men going to some of those small departments?

They'll need to...as things continue ratcheting up.

This from our county paper. (County is about 30,000+ souls. Town, about 7,000.)


https://www.transylvaniatimes.com/ne...6b17d55f2.html

Twenty charged after drug task force investigation


In the early hours of Sunday, Operation “C.U.T.” (Clean Up Transylvania) brought an end to a drug investigation in and around Transylvania County, according to a news release from the Transylvania County Narcotics Task Force (TNT). This yearlong, multi-agency operation was conducted by TNT, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations to combat the sale and delivery of controlled substances in the county, the release said. TNT is comprised of law enforcement officers from the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office and the Brevard Police Department.

As a result of this investigation approximately $19,268.64 in currency, 17 weapons, 7.84 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly one-quarter of a pound of cocaine, 3.4 grams of heroin, nearly one-third of a pound of fentanyl and 197 grams of MDMA were seized in Transylvania and surrounding counties.

“Narcotics investigations by their very nature are often unseen by the public,” Sheriff David Mahoney said. “Today’s successful operation serves as a testimony to the unwavering commitment of the Transylvania County Narcotics Task Force, the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office and the City of Brevard Police Department in combating drugs in Transylvania County.”

Mahoney also thanked the partnering agencies for their assistance provided throughout these investigations.

It ain't Miami, but that's why I left there upon putting my papers in.

[TheNewbie]

A national police force is a terrible idea for a nation that purports to be liberty based. America has been the most free because we have be the anti-world follower. Now that we find ourselves changing for the worse, maybe a national police force would be more accepted.


Small town agencies have their place, but there are likely better solutions for many of them. In the case of Texas, the County Sheriff Office would most likely be the best solution. Texas DPS troopers are great at what they do, but answering county/municipal type calls on a regular basis would be outside the scope of their institutional experience (there are exceptions) and they would have to be trained/experienced to convert over to a traditional call answering agency. SOs here have the experience and mindset to do it.


That said, at what size should that happen? I think it depends on a lot of factors, the size of the city/agency being only one of them.


There is corruption in small departments, but there is corruption in all of them. The Feds and small towns seem to be the worst, with state and county being the best, or the least bad....however you want to look at it.


Texas will not secede from the country, but if California/DC/New York want to, they have my full support.

[JHC]

Logistically, there's no reason a state police force could not function as the defacto policing institution in America. There's nothing logistically unique about America that prevents this from happening, and is a pretty standard policing model across the world. The only thing that prevents it from happening in America is the political game. It'll never happen on a widespread scale in America given that policing is a state's issue and cannot be dictated by the federal government, and most states have zero interest in going to this model and plenty of opposition to it from the various small towns and counties who want to safeguard their fiefdoms.

In the northeast, most of the state police agencies have their origins in serving as the primary policing for rural areas and small towns. My dad started with the NJ State Police in 1965, and I don't think they even picked up the highway/motor vehicles enforcement mission until the 70s when a distinctly separate agency responsible for such merged with them, along with the maritime police, capitol police, etc. Up until then, they were strictly a full service police agency for small towns and rural areas, with their barracks placement to reflect that. Even today, the NJ State Police provides primary policing to a significant chunk of NJ's landmass which has either no police department or a part time police department (extremely common, like where I grew up).

With that said, you'd need a complete re-write of a given state's constitution to mandate a state police force and get rid of local policing. Any town that can afford its own police will...especially affluent towns that want more police than a cop-to-crime ratio employed by a statewide agency would allow. You saw this in play when the city of Camden, NJ disbanded its police department to form a county police department. However, the city and county did not possess the statutory power or political leverage to force the other towns to disband their police departments and force their involvement into the county police, and so you ended up with the Camden County Police Department that serves only hte city of Camden. Ain't nobody else around Camden that is going to buy into a county police department just to see all the cops that previously patrolled their town slapped with a county badge and told to go into the city...the rest of Camden county would basically lose their police presence.

Besides that, I'm vehemently opposed to small police departments. The amount of corruption, incompetence, and waste involved in small municipal services is fucking staggering......as in, off the charts. I don't pretend to know what's right for Texas other than to let them secede so they can go do their annoying "huur durr hurr I'M A TEXAN" oogie-cookie circle jerk somewhere else, but municipal policing should be the exception and not the norm for the vast majority of America. I think county level policing is a happy middle ground.

GD I love this post. There are reasons they want small town PD. They aren't virtuous ones in many cases I suspect.

And any western state that secedes will be a 3rd world shithole in a year. LOL

https://smartasset.com/data-studies/...overnment-2022

[Hambo]

Logistically, there's no reason a state police force could not function as the defacto policing institution in America.

No reason except the need to hire a thousands of officers.

[TheNewbie]

GD I love this post. There are reasons they want small town PD. They aren't virtuous ones in many cases I suspect.

And any western state that secedes will be a 3rd world shithole in a year. LOL

https://smartasset.com/data-studies/...overnment-2022

You can find third world shit holes in this country today. We are seeing the West secede from their traditional values (especially in the USA) and the results are obvious and not surprising.


How many people want bigger, and therefore more corrupt government, is disturbing. A national police force would be part of that corruption.


In general, even with all the associated problems, more local control is better. Be that state, county or municipal.


One thing that small town policing will teach a person is self reliance. When a person is the only officer on, they will be stopping cars , searching cars, making arrest, doing investigations, etc. all alone on a regular basis. Often with back up far enough away that it will only show up for the aftermath of an incident. There are a lot of issues with that, but it does have a benefit as well.


Again, small towns have issues and many would be better served by County Deputies patrolling the area. It would be a good balance of power between city councils who want ticket money and the County Sheriff who is less worried about ticket revenue, but concerned about providing quality police services to the community that holds him accountable.


There are no perfect solutions, but giving the federal government more power is among the worst of solutions.

[Shades]

In Orange County CA, where I'm from and still have family, many of the smaller municipalities have gotten rid of their PDs and contracted with the OCSO to provide police service. The patrol cars are marked as both OCSO and with the name of the community to which they're assigned, e.g. San Clemente, Dana Point, etc. It seems to have worked out reasonably well.

[JHC]

You can find third world shit holes in this country today. We are seeing the West secede from their traditional values (especially in the USA) and the results are obvious and not surprising.


How many people want bigger, and therefore more corrupt government, is disturbing. A national police force would be part of that corruption.


In general, even with all the associated problems, more local control is better. Be that state, county or municipal.


One thing that small town policing will teach a person is self reliance. When a person is the only officer on, they will be stopping cars , searching cars, making arrest, doing investigations, etc. all alone on a regular basis. Often with back up far enough away that it will only show up for the aftermath of an incident. There are a lot of issues with that, but it does have a benefit as well.


Again, small towns have issues and many would be better served by County Deputies patrolling the area. It would be a good balance of power between city councils who want ticket money and the County Sheriff who is less worried about ticket revenue, but concerned about providing quality police services to the community that holds him accountable.


There are no perfect solutions, but giving the federal government more power is among the worst of solutions.

yeah but not a WHOLE state! Well, outside of MS and WV maybe. I'll get back to other points in a bit.