The Small Agency Problem in American Policing

There are over 17,500 law enforcement agencies across the United States. Small agencies make up most of the departments in every state except Hawaii. This ranges “from 51% in California to more than 90% in twenty states.” Interestingly, many small departments are in large metropolitan areas. For example, “Cook County (Chicago) has 116 municipal departments, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) has 104, and Bergen County (across the Hudson River from Manhattan has 67.” Despite this, researchers have focused on large urban agencies. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, local, state, and federal agencies spent billions implementing community policing initiatives to bridge the gap between the police and the people they served. Yet, small agencies had never moved away from community policing concepts. Officers in these areas readily embraced problem solving approaches to address issues in the least invasive way and reserved the use of formal processes to resolve more intractable problems. At the same time, officer misconduct that was in conflict with agency and community expectations did not occur as much in smaller departments.

When compared with officers in larger agencies, those serving in rural departments worked longer hours with lower pay and much less training, yet smaller agencies experienced higher clearance rates with 61% of violent calls compared with 40% in communities with 250,000 or more citizens.

This study utilized data from more than a dozen federal databases to develop a comprehensive perspective of agencies serving small communities. This enabled the researcher to identify a ‘distinct set of small-agency problems’ which differ from those found in larger communities.

Using these findings, a typology of small-agency problems was developed as well as a subset of where these problems are most likely to occur. When bad things occur in small agencies, the incident is often linked to broader issues within the department. These more concerning systemic and intractable issues are less likely to self-correct. While the prevalence of these issues could not be determined, the conditions in which various harms are most likely to occur are in communities where there are “inherent limitations of local politics” or “lack the resources and capacities needed to fix the problem.”

1. Limits of Political Accountability

Residents in small communities likely know their police chief and elected officials. So, it is easier for citizens to have their concerns and grievances to be heard and addressed in smaller communities. However, there are three conditions in which this does not occur. First, when the departments operations are more likely to impact people from outside the community. Those individuals are less likely to know and subsequently contact these officials to voice their perceived grievances.

Second, when there is an absence of ‘institutional levers’ such as a local newspaper, engaged advocacy groups (i.e. NAACP, ACLU), and aggressive public defenders who can advocate for the marginalized who are being mistreated.  Finally, there are fewer individuals who are willing to seek elected office and challenge the status quo.

2. Capacity Constraints

Smaller agencies are defined as having less than 50 officers. Of these, 48% of all agencies have fewer than 10 officers, and 2,800 agencies have less than five officers. Officers within these two categories often lack the experience and expertise to perform many functions and address issues.

The problem is compounded in smaller communities experiencing elevated poverty levels. Interestingly, 70% of these communities are located in rural, southern areas. As a result, communities are unable to provide competitive salaries, adequate equipment, and training. To mitigate these issues, some agencies have become dependent on fines.

To address these issues, a common approach has been to disband and consolidate the department with neighboring police departments, the sheriff’s office, or in the case of Pennsylvania, the state police. However, this approach seldom results in lowered crime or costs to the citizens. In some cases, consolidation of agencies “raises far more problems than it solves.” In many cases, the sheriff offices in these communities also lack much needed resources.

In the end, simply disbanding or consolidating agencies will not necessarily resolve the issue.

The author indicated consolidation is more likely to succeed when the departments are similar to each other. When determining whether to dissolve agencies, focus should be placed on those that cannot find qualified candidates. Consolidation should also be considered when the organizational culture has become so toxic that leaders have little hope for reforming the agency.

The author noted most small agencies will continue to operate across the nation, but it is “incumbent upon States to take steps to address the small agency’s problems.” To accomplish this, it was recommended states should work to reform the political shortfalls that enable harmful policing and address the funding disparities for communities with high levels of poverty. In addition state agencies can mitigate many issues linked to high liability claims and mistreatment of underserved communities by mandating training on de-escalation and crisis response as well as for high-risk tactics, no-knock warrants, and deployment of SWAT. Operationally, small departments should be prohibited from using SWAT tactics and require they rely on larger or state-operated teams. Finally, mandatory data reporting to the State should be implemented. At the same time, states should provide funding options for small agencies with high levels of poverty.