|
Local
Police Are a Vital Part of System
With
the tax digest continuing to grow smaller and
governmental budgets continuing to grow larger, as
the old saying goes, "something has got to
give." In an attempt to find out what this
"something" might be, there has been a lot
of talk about consolidation in areas where there is
a duplication of services on city and county levels.
This is an obvious idea that should be explored
because no one can argue there are areas where
duplications exist. Government offices such as
tax collections, parks and recreations, road
maintenance and several others are examples of how
services that are the same in nature, are done both
on a city and county level. It does seem fair to
look into ways that these services might be
performed in uniform manner, on one level, which
should save money for other areas that are in need.
In fact, a state plan is already in effect that
requires government entities to actually work in
concert with the various government levels to
achieve these consolidation concerns.
Based on this approach, one area that
is sure to come up for discussion is police
services. In Gwinnett County, we have many police
departments. Police Departments are probably
one of the biggest items for most government
budgets. While Gwinnett County is the primary
policing agency for the unincorporated areas, we
also have city police departments in eight
municipalities where city boundaries fall all, or in
part, inside Gwinnett County. Other cities that do
not have a formal police department have city
Marshall's in place. Gwinnett also has a sheriff's
department and school police. Some may say that
these are a definite area where duplication of
services is obvious. While they are correct
that duplication exist, I would argue that this is
an area that we cannot afford to eliminate. However,
there are those whom have tried. In past years, a
couple of Gwinnett's cities have held referendums to
see if their voters would support the abolishment of
the local police departments. Both attempts were
unsuccessful and failed by a wide margin.
In fact one city in Gwinnett, Sugar Hill, is
attempting to create a city police department and
the issue is being used as a central theme in their
upcoming elections.
City police departments provide a vital
function that residents obviously appreciate,
despite the fact that this service is only available
by them being double taxed (They pay both county and
city property tax). There is a comfort level that
cities enjoy in knowing that responses are only
minutes away if they should ever have the need for
police assistance. Also, the residents that are
serviced by city police departments enjoy the
relationship of knowing the officers by names as
they interact in a smaller jurisdiction. Although
the larger county department does a wonderful job,
this intimacy is almost impossible due to the large
areas that they patrol and the fact that the
officers are moved around more frequently. It is
common for the ratio of police officers per citizen
on a local level to be at a higher scale than larger
jurisdictions usually provide. Across the nation,
this affection for the personal touch is reflected
in the fact that 74% of all police officers employed
in the nation serve a population of 10,000 people or
less.
In the past, critics of smaller city
police departments claimed that the quality of
officers and leadership were not at the level of the
larger departments. This may have been true,
and may still be true in some jurisdictions, but
Gwinnett's city departments are made up of bright,
dedicated, and professional officers. In a
2000 Justice Department national study of local
police departments, it was estimated that nearly
600,000 people are employed by a local police
department. Furthermore, the Chiefs of our
local departments are some of the best law
enforcement managers available. The experience level
of the current crop of Police Chiefs is quite
impressive. Also, the level of cooperation that we
enjoy between our departments is one that is envious
to other counties that have multiple departments and
seem to battle each other as much as they do the bad
guys.
With suburban sprawl being a phenomenon
that does not seem to be stopping, the role of the
county police and the larger jurisdictional forces
will continue to grow. They will serve as the lead
in the fight against crime. But for those
municipalities that refuse to believe that bigger
always means better, there will always be a place
for the neighborhood cops. The ones that you see at
the ball-games, at the local stores, and yes, the
ones that are minutes away from you should crime
decide to make a visit your house. We are
fortunate to have the best of both worlds where we
live. As the bumper sticker says,
"Support Your Local Police." If we know
what is good for us, this is advice that we will
follow.
For further information, visit www.voice4victims.com
If you are interested in having Mr. Hall speak at your
next club or group meeting, please email contact
information to:
SHall BadgeNotes@aol.com
092603
Archives
|
