Another Police Force Disbanding

[2Eagles]

A city not too far from me is supposed to be disbanding its police department come this January. It is said that the sheriff's office will take over and save the city some money. At least i think some of the officers working for the PD will be able to join the Sheriff's Dept. and get to keep their jobs. This is really demoralizing for a young person such as I hoping to find employment in this field.

http://www.freep.com/article/2010101...police-Pontiac

[Oddball-Six]

Fort Lupton, CO just had the first of at least 3 city council meetings to propose doing exactly that as well.

Over 300 citizens in a tiny town of under 7,000 turned out and forced them to move the meeting to a larger venue where it took hours for citizens to say their piece -unanimously against the move.

Same deal "lets see if we can save some money by making county do it after hiring on a certain percentage of our existing police department".

[Iowa #1603]

Ossining Ny is also planning on disbanding it's 15 person force (they will be absorbed by the county sheriff)

http://www.townofossining.com/docs/p...ceServices.pdf

[Guams]

The Jackson, WI PD overcame a disbanding recently. All of the support from the community kept the PD in place. Can't think of how many officers they have... 15ish I would say, maybe even a little less than that.

[zr5667]

This seems to be something that's most common in southern California. Very common in L.A county.

The cruisers will say "Goleta Police" but in small lettering it'll also say "Santa Barbara Sheriff" (for example).

I personally don't have a problem, I think it's very inefficient for smaller towns to have their own police force, and all the bureaucracy that comes with it. To some degree, I really wouldn't have a problem with the CHP being the only police force statewide - still need cops, but don't need a police chief and the whole administration for a 5, 20 or 100 man force.

Especially in smaller states, Wyoming only has 550,000 people - that's 550,000 people less than the city I live in.

[PhilipCal]

This seems to be something that's most common in southern California. Very common in L.A county.

The cruisers will say "Goleta Police" but in small lettering it'll also say "Santa Barbara Sheriff" (for example).

I personally don't have a problem, I think it's very inefficient for smaller towns to have their own police force, and all the bureaucracy that comes with it. To some degree, I really wouldn't have a problem with the CHP being the only police force statewide - still need cops, but don't need a police chief and the whole administration for a 5, 20 or 100 man force.

Especially in smaller states, Wyoming only has 550,000 people - that's 550,000 people less than the city I live in.

I believe what you're referring to is "contract law enforcement" where the county provides police and often times fire protection to cities within it's boundries.

[DAL]

Crime has become more of a regional problem than a local problem.

[ryker]

It's on our ballot.

No need to have duplicate middle and upper managment. Different uniforms, cars and buildings. Seperate dispatch, courts and radio channel.

[Oddball-Six]

It's on our ballot.

No need to have duplicate middle and upper managment. Different uniforms, cars and buildings. Seperate dispatch, courts and radio channel.

I think a lot depends on the geography of the area.

The Sheriff's office has a substation that is located in Fort Lupton. I am fortunate enough to have spent some time with both agencies and while the town has had budget problems for years, it has had two successive chiefs who have made real strides in the professionalism and development of officers on the staff with the budget that they have. You compare the capability and service of the offices the department that is there today to what was there 5 years ago and its no contest - total improvement.

Weld Co Sheriff is similarly a pretty good organization however the way the force is structured, only two deputies patrol the entire area right now that includes fort lupton. Primary management for these guys is about 30 minutes away in the city of greeley.

The main opposition so far is that people are concerned about level of service given that the deputies would be patrol for the whole area and this is the only town in that area so how many of these people would be wandering the countryside, and how many would be patrolling the town itself (a fair question), the lack of community resources like the SRO which is the ONLY security officer right now for the whole 5-school district, the lack of local accountability /participation that has characterized other such relationships in the area, and of course its almost guaranteed that the sherriff's office - in thier own budget crunch - would be using the funds but empirically providing a smaller number of officers.

In Fort Lupton's case, in my humble non-LE opinion I think they are overstaffed with a 24 officer department for a town of 7000, however I also think that having the department makes sense. There is a large geographical dispersion between it and other communities with police presence. The ability for mutual aid is relatively low with a high latency as a result. The couple of major things that have gone down in the last few years in town have tied down all of the officers on duty at once leaving no patrol resources for the remaining area for periods of time. The sherriffs office would have more resources to draw on however they too would have the latency that Ft Lupton's mutual aid agreements have. The other thing here is that Ft Lupton is already using a shared facility that was built for the purpose to be half city hall, half police department so there is little savings there if they suddenly disband, its not like the already-paid-for detention cells, etc, suddenly go away and become offices. And they are on a shared radio channel for which they only pay time used on a co-op basis with a number of other agencies for their area of the county.

[Unistat]

This is happening all over Michigan, although Pontiac is the largest city that I recall eliminating their force. The PDs that remain are severly understaffed. Fire Departments are facing the same problem and there is no "County Sheriff" version of FD for a city to fall back on. Some municipalities are talking of combining their FDs into a regional department. The city I work for has talked of this and have already combined dispatch (PD and FD, I think) with a couple of other cities.

To the OP, if you really want to be a LEO in the next 5 years or so, I would begin to look out of state, just my $0.02.

[2Eagles]

To the OP, if you really want to be a LEO in the next 5 years or so, I would begin to look out of state, just my $0.02.

It's really looking like that. Maybe i might have a slight chance with DPD they are always hiring but even with them its tough as nails, there just isn't any money anymore.

[JJHunsacker]

Pontiac has been mismanaged so badly for so long that this was inevitable. Hopefully at least some of the Pontiac police will get a job with OCSD. This is not a good place to be law enforcement or fire/rescue.

Royal Oak has started down that road as well. Police layoffs, eliminating paramedics, they are talking about closing a fire station. The writing is on the wall. No matter what amount of millage increase people approve, for some reason it is not enough.

[zr5667]

I think a lot depends on the geography of the area.

The Sheriff's office has a substation that is located in Fort Lupton. I am fortunate enough to have spent some time with both agencies and while the town has had budget problems for years, it has had two successive chiefs who have made real strides in the professionalism and development of officers on the staff with the budget that they have. You compare the capability and service of the offices the department that is there today to what was there 5 years ago and its no contest - total improvement.
...

Well, I know with the contract cities, as the previous poster called them, the city contracts for exactly how many officers will be on duty at any given time, it gets pretty detailed...

[2Eagles]

Pontiac has been mismanaged so badly for so long that this was inevitable. Hopefully at least some of the Pontiac police will get a job with OCSD. This is not a good place to be law enforcement or fire/rescue.

Royal Oak has started down that road as well. Police layoffs, eliminating paramedics, they are talking about closing a fire station. The writing is on the wall. No matter what amount of millage increase people approve, for some reason it is not enough.

I remember a RO officer telling me they were going to lay off 33 persons sometime in July but i don't know if that actually happened. This is really sad, i mean its Police Officers its not street sweepers, we can't do without LE. This is unreal i never thought such a thing would happen, where LEO's lost their jobs.

[ateamer]

There is a small city here that has a PD consisting of 10 officers, 5 sergeants, 2 lieutenants and the chief. During dayshift, you will find on duty the chief, both lieutenants, the detective sergeant, the adult detective, the juvenile detective, the patrol sergeant and two patrol officers. Ridiculously top heavy. Why not have the detectives report directly to the duty patrol sergeant, and the sergeants directly to the chief? They are incredibly micromanaged. They do a very good job, but they could either pay their officers quite a bit more, or just save money, but dumping most of their admin. Run it with the chief, 4 sergeants (they work patrol on the 3/4x12 plan) and 10 officers. Sergeants supervising four instead of two people is nothing, and the night sergeant only supervises 2. Our sergeant supervise six to eight people spread over dozens of times the land area and we do just fine. They ought to disband and contract.