What will be the safety of small towns that are eliminating their local police departments?

Actually, I live in a small town and it’s fine. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were a Memphis police officer, right? In our town,unlike a bigger city like Memphis, we don’t have enough crime to need a police force. We rely on the state troopers. Each town in our area has a resident state trooper, or someone who lives in the town and can be on the scene quickly if needed. In the neighboring town, their trooper is stationed in the old connected middle school at the high school. I see him in the hallways more than anywhere else.
It might sound like a problem to you, but it probobly isn’t. Also, I don’t know about some of those towns, but in my area, we know how to work guns.
Criminals be warned! We’re crack shots over here!

They might actually be safer.

Backwoods justice is swift and firm. A favorite of the hometown loyalists.

We only just got a police officer, and only because the cop lives here and works in the next town over. My town signed a compact and we get a whole 15 minutes of patrol a day. Just about enough time for him to drive to work and back every day.

It is tough for a town of 325 to afford a part time cop, let alone a full time one.

^325 people? You got us beat by alot. We have about 1,000. But we don’t actually pay the cop. He works for the state police, so technically the state taxes pay him.

I grew up in a small town (5000 people) and when I was in high school, the town changed from their own police force to having a county sheriff’s sub-station. It was in the same building, and the men who had been the police did whatever training, etc. that was necessary to become county sheriffs. The only real change was where their paycheck came from.

Where we currently live, also a small town, we have the county sheriff as our law enforcement. The only time I dealt with them was when I hit a deer. The officer was very nice as well as professional. I just wish they could do more about the people who speed on our 40 mph road. Oh well, the potholes will get ‘em!

That would not be good.

A volunteer posse? It could be organized by blocks or areas. There could be training sessions once a month. How did they handle it in the days before large cities?

@Sunny2 when it got out of hand, the solid citizens lynched a couple of the trouble makers. The rest got the hint and either settled down or left the territory.

@Sunny2 Our firefighters are all volunteers.They all have day jobs that they’re allowed to leave work from in order to answer calls. At 14, you can start training and you can begin going to fires at 17. It works great. Having volunteer police squads to help in crimes would work too, I guess.

It depends on the town. Some towns might gravitate towards lynch mobs for troublemakers, others will simply decide calling 911 will cover most circumstances, many have neighborhood watch programs that might get more of a workout. The nearest large town is downsizing their police force and this is cause for concern, as they are experiencing increasing gang activity. The average citizen there can join a citizen’s force that has a special training course, unless that gets crunched by the budget too. Such a citizen’s force supplements the police force somewhat.

I live in a town where we’ve always had the sheriff’s deputies. A local string of burglaries caused an increase in patrols for a brief period, so just like anything trouble draws attention, lack of trouble = lack of attention. We’ll just have to learn the hard way what our taxes were paying for.

People are going to be pretty much on their own, which, in reality they have been whether they realize it or not. When was the last time a cop got to a scene quick enough to be much good? It happens, sure, but not enough to make them all that missed.

Police as a special class are not necessary. This is proven by history, as classical Athens did not have criminal law. All law was considered civil. If someone did you wrong, you’d either gather up a gang of friends, or you’d hire a professional to haul the party in and deliver her or him before a judge. If the judge found that you had arrested someone unfairly, then it might be you paying a fine or getting banished. I have never been present when the arrival of police did anything good or useful. When police arrive, all it does is escalate the situation, because suddenly there is deadly force present.