Cities That Have Fired Their Police Forces

[JohnKelly]

In my part of the world it would be inconceivable that an entire Police Force could be disbanded.

I do understand that the US has a different system of policing in that there are numerous small police departments throughout the country, whereas in Australia there is only one Police Force for each State, but disbanding an entire Police Force.

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[retdetsgt]

As stated in the article, they sometimes find it more convenient to contract with their local sheriff to patrol the town. I don't know about anywhere else, but in Oregon the agency taking over have to take on the laid off people so very few lose their jobs. The opposite happened here when we annexed a huge chuck of unincorporated area and the sheriff had to lay off people, they came to our department.

Another problem around here is, the bigger cities pay a lot more money to officers than some of the little towns can afford. The little bitty town next to mine couldn't seem to find a chief the city council could get along with for the money they were able to pay. They ended up contracting with the town I live in for police service after they fired their last chief. The three full time cops came over to work with our police department.

A national police force wouldn't go over well at all over here. People like to have more accountability in their police and experience has shown there is no local voice at all in Washington. If the people don't like the way things are being done, it's a whole lot easier to get rid of a police chief or sheriff than some guy sitting 2500 miles away.

[cntryboy0531]

My agency has taken over four cities police department's because it was more affordable to let us take it over and they contract with us. We took most of their officers and hired them. Some didn't pass our hiring standards and were subsequently told to "seek employment elsewhere".

[JohnKelly]

>>>>...A national police force wouldn't go over well at all over here. People like to have more accountability in their police and experience has shown there is no local voice at all in Washington. If the people don't like the way things are being done, it's a whole lot easier to get rid of a police chief or sheriff than some guy sitting 2500 miles away.

You mentioned that smaller towns/cites often contract out to those with larger police forces.

Instead of contracting to another city, it is possible for a City/Town/Rural Area to use the services of the State Police?

My understanding that in Canada, policing service requirements can be contracted out to either State or Fed ie RCMP and so perhaps the U.S. can do the same?

I'm not questioning your information -- just trying to gain an insight into how things are done in the U.S.

Cheers.

[greg72982]

Instead of contracting to another city, it is possible for a City/Town/Rural Area to use the services of the State Police?

That's usually the case here, though regionalizing with local departments is becoming much more common. In a sense using the state is free.

I know some people that get irritated though because they have to pay higher local taxes due to them having their own police plus the same state taxes everyone else pays. They also don't have three hour wait times though for police(no exaggeration).

[retdetsgt]

Instead of contracting to another city, it is possible for a City/Town/Rural Area to use the services of the State Police?

At least in Oregon, not a contract, no. Eastern Oregon has some really rural areas, for instance one county is 1500 sq. miles, but only has 1400 residents. None of the towns that I know of are big enough to have a police department and sheriff is a three man operation. The state police generally handles most criminal stuff in counties like that, but the only extra cost to the residents is generally a long wait for cop to show up. It's still pretty much the old west out there.

But they won't confine themselves to patrolling within a city limit like a contracted sheriff's office will.