Feds claim there are close to 9,000 untrained police departments in America
Half of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have fewer than 10 officers, says the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Nearly three-quarters of agencies have fewer than 25 officers patrolling counties and towns where standards are uneven or non-existent.
"So many problems of organizational quality control are made worse by the tiny size of most local police agencies,'' University of Maryland criminologist Lawrence Sherman told the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing this year.
The Community Oriented Policing (COPS) review, concluded that Ferguson police engaged in a pattern of racially biased enforcement, raised broader questions about the capacity of small communities to carry out crucial public safety responsibilities. Smaller agencies, the White House panel said, "often lack the resources for training and equipment accessible to larger departments.''
Think about that for a moment, that means there are essentially 9,000 untrained police departments in America!
"No other country in the world has this model (of de-centralized policing),'' said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the law enforcement think tank Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). "The challenge will be to find common ground to consolidate and still deliver the neighborhood policing that Americans want.''
COP's recommendations for the St Louis police mirrors a national effort to consolidate smaller police departments. The White House task force recommends "strategic consolidations of police agencies,'' advocating for the merger of about 20 small agencies into three so-called policing "clusters.''
In May of this year I reported how Obama/DHS want to 'officially' create a national police force. We've already got a national railroad police force, so why not a federal police force?
What our corporate run politicians are saying is, screw the Constitution our Bill of Rights is worthless!
COPS and PERF are both run by DHS and that includes the Bureau of Justice. Click here and here to find out more. PERF's's website brags about how their board members work closely with DHS, click here, here and here to find out more.
What it's really all about is control and money. the Feds would have to use a national insurance carrier to lower the cost of liability insurance.
Police abuse lawsuits are so prevalent numerous departments have lost their liability insurance:
A California consulting firm recommended a police department close because they lost liability insurance (2015).
A police department in Louisiana closed because they lost liability insurance (2014).
A police department in Michigan closed because they lost liability insurance (2014).
A police department in Florida closed because they lost liability insurance (2014).
A police department in Ohio closed because they lost liability insurance (2014).
A police department in California closed because they lost liability insurance (2013).
A police department in Pennsylvania closed because they lost liability insurance (2013).
A police department in California closed because they lost liability insurance (2010).
A police department in Kentucky closed because they lost liability insurance (2008).
In one Louisiana town their police department's liability insurance claims are several hundred times higher than in other Maryland cities. And one NJ police department's liability insurance was so high they considered closing it in 2014.
In Sag Harbor, New York the town asked police to contribute to their high liability insurance payments after they received a raise.
Although Mayor Gilbride said the village sought a lower pay hike, he said the panel’s ruling marked the first time in New York State that arbitrators had required police officers be required to contribute to their insurance costs.
The mayor has had a stormy relationship with the department in the past, over staffing levels and even threatened at one time to disband the department, citing its rising costs.
A study published in the NYU Law Review found that individual cops almost NEVER have to pay for their misconduct, it's always the state, city or town that is on the hook.
Taxpayers EVERYWHERE are footing the bill for millions of dollars worth of legal costs and settlements for lawsuits against local police officers and police departments.
Data from 81 police departments found that “governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”
In total, the police departments that provided data cost their governments $730 million between 2006 and 2011. New York City, where the nation’s largest police department has become notorious for its abuses, paid out nearly $350 million in civil rights damages in that time period. The police officers at fault contributed a total of $114,000 to those settlements.
In smaller jurisdictions officers contributed nothing toward the settlements — even when officers were disciplined, terminated, or prosecuted for their conduct.
When will our media start asking hard questions, like how much of their state or city budgets goes to paying for police salaries, liability insurance and lawsuits? And why aren't individual cops held accountable?