According to the Lancaster County commissioners, Lancaster may well be on the path toward a regionalized police department, or at least something like it. At the January 6 commissioners meeting, Commissioner Scott Martin told NewsLanc that the board has been researching the possibility with a slight chance that the commissioners may spearhead a more formal countywide assessment within the year. Also at the Wednesday meeting, Martin was named the board of commissioners’ new chairman; Commissioner Dennis Stuckey moved to the role of vice chairman.
Stuckey noted that the mid-term chair appointment had been planned by the commissioners since the beginning of their four year term.
Last year, the commissioners of Berks County took the lead in considering police consolidation for their region by ordering a broad policing study from consulting group Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). The study was released in July 2009 and detailed five consolidation options for Berks County police departments—each of which would potentially improve the level of public safety service for area residents.
NewsLanc asked the Lancaster County commissioners whether they have considered conducting a similar study for Lancaster.
“It’s kind of funny that your brought that up,” Commissioner Martin said, “Actually that report’s sitting on my desk right now. I just completed reading it.” Martin said that he has been in communication with Commissioner Christian Leinbach of Berks County to discuss the cost of the report as well as feedback regarding the consulting firm.
When asked if the commissioners would take action on such an initiative within the year, Martin said, “I’d say it’s possible.” He noted that the County has already taken a lead role in developing countywide law enforcement efforts, such as the new central booking center. “But I think there’s more that the County can do,” Martin asserted.
Stuckey said that he would expect it to take more than a year before the board moved ahead on formally examining regional police options. “From my position,” Stuckey noted, “I think we’d want to hear from our local municipalities and police chiefs, because I know that some of them are talking about regionalizating and consolidation. So there is…a move afoot to look at that and do some cost-cutting and be more effective.”
Commissioner Craig Lehman asserted that it is most likely that police departments will move toward smaller consolidations before we see a complete countywide police force. “I think that’s the next step in terms of trying to find some efficiencies,” Lehman said. Regarding regionalization in general, Lehman asserted, “I think we’re headed in that direction already. How quickly we get there—I would not predict that with any degree of certainty. But I think it’s a worthy conversation.”
“The best part about it is that people are already thinking about this,” Commissioner Martin added, “We often talk about how the silver lining in difficult times is that a lot of these municipalities are voluntarily looking at their options.”
To read NewsLanc‘s recent series on police force regionalization, click here.
Oh how we desperately need to wrest power from those township and boro fiefdoms who use the police as their own ‘hit’ team against their political enemies.
Currently rural police spend much of their times on non-moral authority crimes like registration, inspection [and] on our county roads. Why do they spend the majority of their time on those issues? It gives them something to do and it’s much easier to stop the ‘average Joe’ than deal with REAL crimes and REAL criminals. They can go home and whenever asks what they do – they can pound their chest and proclaim they are ‘protecting’ us.
The truth? Cops are report takers for the most part when it comes to crimes. The crimes they ‘solve’? For the most part are from citizens acting on their own behalf or the criminals’ ‘friends’ wanting to get revenge or make money from ‘crime stoppers’.
Am I am being harsh? Maybe. But the next time you drive down the road and see some poor sucker pulled over – are you thinking, “Thank God those cops are here protecting us!”. Or are you thinking, “Wonder what that poor sap did to get harassed by that cop?”