Comment by thinkcontext | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thinkcontext | Hacker News Reader

> Last week, the [state] agency sent a letter to the city notifying it that its five-member police department would be closed effective Sept. 18. Law enforcement duties will be transferred to the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office until a permanent solution is found.

> The agency said its investigation found the department failed to meet minimum standards and failed to provide sufficient evidence that it provided a "public benefit to the community." The department also failed to provide resources to its officers, including bulletproof vests and an evidence room.

The US has many thousands of little law enforcement jurisdictions like this. The argument for it is local control but in practice you too often get situations like this one. Poor quality, abuses, corruption, good-old-boys network, lack of accountability, frequent unnecessary use of force, etc. Large police organizations are certainly not w/o problems but at this point there are accountability mechanisms and modern standards.

The WaPo did an excellent article a few years ago looking at the fragmented LEO landscape

"Most police departments in America are small. That’s partly why changing policing is difficult, experts say"

https://archive.li/05zA7

Given the size of the US, and the variety of local populations, I argue that local enforcement is necessary. Adherence to larger enforcement standards is also necessary. I fear that larger, “cohesive” enforcement runs the risk of bringing more political laws and regulations from other jurisdictions. No one wants to be subjected to some remote jurisdiction’s idea of “lawfulness” especially when religious ideals get mixed in.

Well, how fine grained do we need to get? A police force with 5 officers is pretty fine. In this case law enforcement is being taken over by the county (of which there are 254 in Texas) so its still pretty local.

> Well, how fine grained do we need to get?

As always: it depends. There are many municipalities throughout the US that are content with (or can only afford) county-level enforcement. If their residents want something more localized, they need to do what it takes to create that.

In this case, what’s happened is fine. Leaving it up to local residents and their local government to form a new trustworthy enforcement agency is fine. Leaving it up to them to not do that is also fine.

There is a pattern where elective democracy does not work, or at least gets weird at small scales like this. Small pool to elect from, only need to win over a modest number of people, etc.

You see it with home owners associations as well.

Wouldn't you want more data to learn if its "fine" vs "not fine"? If you learned that small departments were significantly worse than larger ones on use of force, corruption, etc wouldn't that inform a decision?

> Wouldn't you want more data to learn if its "fine" vs "not fine"?

Sure. But I’d default to the locals’ preferences in the absence of it.

> the county (of which there are 254 in Texas)

Fun fact: Texas's counties range in population from ~5.1 million (Harris — Houston) to less than 500 (Loving, King, Kenedy [sic])

I agree with this. It may be reasonable for a town to have its own PD if they can afford it and choose to have one, but certain levels of training and evidence collection and ethical standards should be set at the state level or higher.

Why is it so ridiculous that the state can provide police where and when they're needed, and it's only when you have a sufficiently robust metropolitan area that can afford their own police force that you then have "local" cops?

Or are we all about locally-sourced, artisanal law enforcement now?

Who said it’s ridiculous? If that’s how you want your locality to obtain law enforcement, go for it.

Are you suggesting that your way is The Way everyone else should go? That is what I’m arguing against. Let locals decide.

> Given the size of the US, and the variety of local populations, I argue that local enforcement is necessary. Adherence to larger enforcement standards is also necessary.

In Canada, Ontario and Quebec have their own province-level police forces, but the rest of the provinces 'contract' the RCMP to do street-level policing in many areas (with larger municipalities having their own forces). Part of the reason for this is that with any organization there's overhead (training, HR, payroll/pensions, etc), and for smaller communities a larger portion of a fixed budget would go to those things, so by leveraging the RCMP those fixed costs are amortized wider.

In Ontario/Quebec, many smaller communities use the OPP/QPP for local policing (larger cities have their own forces) for the same reason.

For the community in the article, is there a reason why the same 5 cops couldn't become employees of the county's force? For really small counties, it may be necessary / useful to 'contract' the state police to run a local detachment.

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