To Police or Not To Police? You Decide.

My phones have been ringing lately as constituents call and voice their opinion on House Bill 1500, which would assess a fee of $156 per person to pay for State Police protection in every municipality that does not have their own police force. I want to  take a few minutes and give my thoughts on the idea.

First off, let me say I do not support House Bill 1500 as written. Second, I did not author or so-cosponsor the bill; the author is a State Representative from the Lancaster area. Third, there is no immediate danger of this bill becoming a law anytime soon; this whole hornet’s nest was stirred up by a publication clearly written by a statewide townships’ group.

As a clear sign of their irresponsibility, the article began by referring to the governor’s proposal to raise the personal income tax, which we defeated in the Legislature. The article then goes on to talk about House Bill 1500 as another way to take money from your pockets, which is pretty disingenuous since their first example never happened. But I digress…

There is no magical formula to determine whether a municipality should provide their own police coverage. There are many factors to consider, including the level of crime, population density, municipal budget and proximity to State Police facilities, just to name a few.

It also makes sense to look for alternatives. For example, is it possible to contract some police service from a neighboring municipality with their own police department? Or perhaps consider the idea of forming or joining a regional police force with nearby towns? I have experienced quite a bit of opposition to the idea of regional police departments, mainly because one town involved (and often all of them) seem to think they will be getting the short end of the stick. These territorial biases are deeply ingrained and very hard to shake.

I was recently talking to a group of constituents who were planning to stand outside the polls on Election Day and take a straw poll of voters. The question was simple. “Would you be in favor of a police officer in our township?” Like many polls, the question is inherently flawed. Unless you are a criminal, why wouldn’t you want a police officer in your town?

The question they need to be asking is the harder one. “Are you willing to pay for a police officer in our town, and if so, how much would you be willing to pay?” Police protection is not cheap. You have training, equipment, vehicle, administrative costs, insurance, salaries, benefits, pension costs and a whole bunch of other expenses I can’t even begin to fathom as I write this. It’s not something you can do just a little bit or only halfway.

The only way to build real public support on something as involved as starting a police department is to disclose the price tag up front and be prepared to weather the sticker shock. My admittedly unscientific guess is that many, if not most people living in our rural townships would ultimately not consider the benefit to be worth the costs involved.

But I could be 100% wrong, and there is certainly a real danger in trying to generalize on an issue like this, which is all the more reason why an idea like House Bill 1500 does not make sense for this area. Certain decisions should be left to our local municipal governments, especially decisions which involve big chunks of municipal tax dollars, and the issue of local police protection is a perfect example of such an idea.