The governor of Alabama has signed a law allowing the Briarwood Presbyterian church to form its own police force. According to this article, the force would receive training through the police academy. The church claims a police force is necessary to protect its members. The church, which is overwhelmingly white, already has a private security force but claims that isn’t sufficient to protect its 4,000 members, seminarians, etc.
Briarwood belongs to the ultra-conservative Presbyterian Church in America, which split off from the mainstream Presbyterian Church in the US in 1973, when PCUS decided to end segregation of black and white worshippers. Though PCOA has since apologized for this segregation and for its support of white supremacists, the decision was not unanimous, and the PCOA remains overwhelmingly white.
The police force will consist of church members who train at the state police academy but report only to Briarwood Church officials.
• Why wouldn’t a security force be enough?
• Since Alabama allows Briarwood to do this, will it have to allow all houses of worship to do this?
• If a member of the Briarwood Cops for Christ (not their official name) shoots a black kid because he assumes the kid is an intruder (again, the church is overwhelmingly white), what happens? Is there a governmental body who oversees private police forces?
• What dangers, if any, would be presented by all churches having state-trained, state-approved private police forces?
According to the article, the force will be trained in the use of non-lethal weapons. It doesn’t say anywhere they will be armed.
There have been shootings at all-white Christian churches churches as well as all-black churches, not to mention synagogues and mosques, so a little paranoia is warranted.
If they are a “police” force, but they don’t carry firearms, that means pretty much all they get to do that a private security guard couldn’t do is arrest people and take them do a police station for booking.
Of course, a legally deputized private law enforcement officer would also be subject to the same kind of laws and lawsuits that a municipal officer is subject to, albeit with less oversight.
I can’t really get twisted up about this, if that’s really all there is to it. In fact, it sounds a lot better than the security goons Henry Ford used to bust labor unions in the 1930s, and their lackies in the Dearborn, MI police department. Those people shot to kill.
If you were cool with the Muslim Community Patrol & Services that formed in NY this past winter, and have no qualms about Orthodox Jewish Shomrim, it would be a little hypocritical to begrudge another group of supernaturalists their own proprietary security force.
Private (non-sworn) security does not have the same arrest privileges as sworn officers. Perhaps this particular church has had some issues with private security or some instances (the cynic in me is thinking “Instances like what, too many minorities showed up to pray?”) in the past.
What is the actual law under which the church’s (aka community or organization) police department is organized as “sworn police officers”? My non-lawyer/non-police guess is that it is the same law that has, for example, state university campus police sworn officers (assuming that, like for the University of California system, campus cops are sworn officers). So, “allowing” some organization to do what the law permits is following the law, even if the outfit is a church. If all the churches which wish to have sworn officers and they apply and the applicants are in compliance with the law, then, yes
Isn’t there a governmental body that oversees sworn police officers? That’d be the outfit.
Personally I’m hoping the mosques in certain areas of the country decide to tell a certain element of American society, “Hey! We agree with you guys. We’re going to assimilate just like you want us to. And we’re going to start with exercising our Second Amendment rights right now” and are armed when they welcome that certain element when said element shows up at the mosques armed to protest. Yeah, I can see the danger of someone getting trigger happy and all of a sudden there’s a bloodbath. But, as we’ve seen far too often, non-church sponsored sworn officers aren’t averse to being trigger happy.
Anyway, I don’t see all churches, or even all private organizations, trying to be an American version of Orania.
I see no legitimate reason for this, either. I could see maybe having some police officers appointed there during actual services, but having their own seems rather ridiculous when no one actually lives there. Especially since they won’t carry guns, so this doesn’t seem to be a concern about some shooter showing up or anything.
Sure, they can arrest people. But security guards can detain and call the police. Heck, security guards can be off duty police (which is exactly what happens at my church). And citizen’s arrests are still a thing.
Heck, due to Alabama gun laws, it wouldn’t surprise me if the security guards would be packing.
That said, I agree that I don’t see any real way for it to be a bad thing. My first instinct with a megachurch is to assume some sort of monetary corruption possibility, but I’m not sure how having police would allow them to have more money. It’s not like they’re replacing other police so they’ll “look the other way.”
Though the CNN article says the police force would be trained in the use of nonlethal force, the bill itself, which was introduced by Rep. Jim Carns (R), an elder at Briarwood Church, does not prohibit lethal weapons.
The church, which has never had a violent incident but is concerned about the possibility of one, already has off-duty police officers providing security but says that’s not enough because the roster revolves, so those officers don’t know the church members.
Since the law doesn’t prohibit church police from carrying lethal weapons, why couldn’t they carry them, particularly if they have concealed carry permits?
The law specifically states these institutions have the right to form their own police forces:
. (Madison Academy is part of Briarwood.)
So the law allows 10 colleges/universities and one church–this one-- to have police forces. The 13 other Alabama megachurches are SOL until another law is passed. Maybe every high school, grade school, and church should get to have its own police force, all of whom would be trained at the state police academy.
One concern opponents to the law have is that it could allow church officials to cover up their own criminal activity. The church pinky-promises it won’t do this. And surely we can trust them. It’s not like the school refused to release any information about the drug bust at Madison School in 2015: no number of students arrested, no mention of which drugs were seized. I mean, they’re VERY transparent. :dubious:
The ACLU, citing the unconstitutionality of giving governmental power to a church, is taking this to court. We’ll see how this goes.
Did the church grounds incorporate as a separate town? If so, it might make sense, but otherwise, I’m curious as to why they couldn’t hire some rent-a-cops or have off-duty officers do security.
This things actually sounds more than a bit cultish to me.
I’m not a fan of this, but I also don’t think every little postage stamp of a “city” should be allowed to have its own police. Tiny police departments, whether operated by municipalities or colleges or churches, are subject to zero supervision in practice, and are simply incapable of the self-regulation that we expect police departments to perform (which is probably another problem). And it’s not that large police departments haven’t had problems, but they at least theoretically have economies of scale going where you could imagine them not being intrinsically corrupt.
Why limit it to “houses of worship”? What if other community organizations want to police their own ranks? Maybe the Pagans MC or Outlaws MC, for example?
The original main campus of Washington University in St. Louis lies in its own little enclave of unincorporated territory in St. Louis County. According to the University
By my rough count there are 34 separate municipal police departments in St. Louis County, plus one department comprised of multiple municipalities, and the St. Louis International Airport Police, which is totally independent. That’s in addition to the St. Louis County Police Department, which is responsible for all the area not covered by the other 36 departments.
If a university and an airport can have their own police department, why shouldn’t any other geographically coherent organization have it’s own police force.
I don’t get the need for special police forces for every entity under the sun. Why are there college police forces, or “metro” police who are employed by and for the bus systems of many cities? The Presbyterian Church “police” force should be no different from them, but I don’t think any of them should be sanctioned as official police forces. The state/county/municipal entities should be the sole providers of official police forces. If that is not adequate then the voters should be asked to approve additional expenditures. Failing that, simple security guards will suffice.
Allowing every religious organization the same authority. Then the first religious organization is neither endorsed nor established ; it’s merely part of the new and totally normal plenipotentiary crusading orders.
A private entity being able to have its own actual police department is not new (hospitals, universities, railroads, etc. already do). It’s not even new that a church can run a police department, though it may be the first time that a church has been authorized to have a police department simply for a church, as opposed to a church university or a church hospital.
IANAL, but if the religious organization is a private entity/property, then how is it any different than a homeowner doing a citizen’s arrest of an intruder on his property (just on a more macro scale?)