# Mega-Church to get its own police force **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 22, 2019, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869 "2019-06-22T01:34:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/41 "2019-06-24T01:46:28Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > They (especially the Shomrim, who have even attempted, unsucessfully so far, to obtain permission to carry firearms) have taken it upon themselves to patrol the public streets of Brooklyn, not just the grounds of mosques/synagogues/shul/madrasas/etc. I don’t like this at all. Anyone is allowed to do this. I can drive to Brooklyn right now and walk up and down the public streets and report any violations of the law I see, or indeed make a citizen’s arrest to the extent that NYC law allows it. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/42 "2019-06-24T01:53:10Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Anyone is allowed to do this. I can drive to Brooklyn right now and walk up and down the public streets and report any violations of the law I see, or indeed make a citizen’s arrest to the extent that NYC law allows it. But that would be under civil law, not for violating another person’s idea of how you should be behaving according to their religious beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/43 "2019-06-24T02:11:56Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > But that would be under civil law, not for violating another person’s idea of how you should be behaving according to their religious beliefs. Then I misunderstand. What are these groups doing when they “patrol the public streets of Brooklyn”? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/44 "2019-06-24T02:16:59Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Anyone is allowed to do this. I can drive to Brooklyn right now and walk up and down the public streets and report any violations of the law I see, or indeed make a citizen’s arrest to the extent that NYC law allows it. No doubt. Please don’t. We have enough problems with the people already doing that. [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/nyregion/brooklyns-private-jewish-patrols-wield-power-some-call-them-bullies.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/nyregion/brooklyns-private-jewish-patrols-wield-power-some-call-them-bullies.html) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/45 "2019-06-24T02:17:13Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > But that would be under civil law, not for violating another person’s idea of how you should be behaving according to their religious beliefs. Are you implying that the church police would have the authority to enforce church rules? Like, they could arrest people for saying “Jehovah”? I don’t think it works that way—does it? Private police are still in the business of law enforcement—does that include the private “laws” of their employers? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/46 "2019-06-24T02:20:04Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > But that would be under civil law, not for violating another person’s idea of how you should be behaving according to their religious beliefs. The Shomrim do not, generally, do that. There are anecdotal reports (just people in Brooklyn talking) of them enforcing religious strictures within the Hasidic community (for example, Hasidic women wearing stockings the Shomrim deem too sheer may be chastized). Stuff like that. But they don’t seem to have any interest in enforcing ultra-Orthodox codes of behaviour upon non-Jews, or upon non-Hasidic Jews. They don’t appear to be acting as religious police. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/47 "2019-06-24T02:24:06Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Then I misunderstand. What are these groups doing when they “patrol the public streets of Brooklyn”? [This](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/nyregion/shadowy-squads-enforce-modesty-in-hasidic-brooklyn.html) is what I was thinking of though I see I had the wrong group. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/48 "2019-06-24T02:50:23Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > Meh. In North Carolina, private police have all the powers of regular municipal police, as long as they are on property owned or controlled by their employer. That’s right…the mall police in NC often have every right to arrest you on mall property. It’s no namby-pamby citizen’s arrest, either. I believe that a private security company (Securitas?) has full law enforcement authority at the Honolulu airport. At least that’s the way it was last time I was there. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/49 "2019-06-24T02:59:37Z")
> [@Bayaker](#): > > 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. Every one of those organizations has its own police force because they want more uniformed officers than the local government can provide on regular patrols. In addition to all those listed, there’s also have a special policing district in downtown St. Louis, where the taxpayers in that district pay the city to assign X number of units directly to the area. A two square mile area of downtown may have 5 or 6 police units working it during the daytime, while a two-square mile residential neighborhood might see a cop car once a day. And the downtown residents and businesses are paying extra to make sure that happens. Is that different from a single business (or college, or church) establishing its own police force? ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/50 "2019-06-24T03:10:53Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The Lemon test is all but dead and buried. Disagree. The Supreme Court may have dented it this week in the American Legion case, , but saying it’s dead and gone is premature. But even by your narrow interpretation, the Briarwood case is iffy: Alabama authorizes and uses tax money to train Briarwood cops at the state police academy. It specifies Briarwood Church. Since it doesn’t authorize other churches, synagogues, or mosques to have cops, that’s pretty clearly _not neutral_. > [@](#): > > The law is basically that the government may not favor nor diminish religion. It must be neutral to it. It’s not a law, counselor; it’s an amendment in the US Constitution, and Jefferson and Madison would disagree with you. They believed making people pay taxes to support a faith other than their own was a violation of natural rights. > [@](#): > > So, if the state says that an organization is eligible to have a private police force if it has X numbers, X amount of land, this factor, that factor, then the police force must be available to all comers on equal terms without regard to religion (or lack thereof). That’s not what the Alabama law says. It specifies Briarwood Church and 10 colleges/universities. It says nothing about other churches. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/51 "2019-06-24T03:32:36Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > But they don’t seem to have any interest in enforcing ultra-Orthodox codes of behaviour upon non-Jews, or upon non-Hasidic Jews. Still, what could they do to Hasidic Jews? They cannot arrest them. Perhaps report them to the religious authorities? How is this any different than one Southern Baptist seeing another at the grocery store with beer in his cart and telling the preacher? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/52 "2019-06-24T03:48:44Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Disagree. The Supreme Court may have dented it this week in the American Legion case, , but saying it’s dead and gone is premature. But even by your narrow interpretation, the Briarwood case is iffy: Alabama authorizes and uses tax money to train Briarwood cops at the state police academy. It specifies Briarwood Church. Since it doesn’t authorize other churches, synagogues, or mosques to have cops, that’s pretty clearly _not neutral_. There is nothing to suggest that the Legislature did, or would only allow Briarwood Church this permission because it is a religious organization or that Briarwood Church is somehow the official religion of Alabama. Presumably (and I don’t know) Briarwood is of sufficient size that reasonable secular policies would allow a person to believe that having its own police force is prudent. And, again, this isn’t the Jesus police; they simply patrol the campus and enforce laws much like university police. Is there any evidence that other similar non-religious groups have been denied the right to a private police force? Tax dollars training police to protect a church is not a religious function. If there is a murder at a church, should the police not investigate? I don’t see the difference, even if these officers patrol exclusively at a church, just like how some officers work exclusively at sporting events. > [@nelliebly](#): > > It’s not a law, counselor; it’s an amendment in the US Constitution, and Jefferson and Madison would disagree with you. They believed making people pay taxes to support a faith other than their own was a violation of natural rights. It is law as in case law interpreting the First Amendment. The Lemon test is both dented and dead. Everyone criticises it because anyone can reach any result under it. It is not really a test at all. > [@nelliebly](#): > > That’s not what the Alabama law says. It specifies Briarwood Church and 10 colleges/universities. It says nothing about other churches. Many laws do this. As long as the inclusion of the church was not for religious reasons, I don’t see the issue. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/53 "2019-06-24T03:59:16Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > It’s not a law, counselor; it’s an amendment in the US Constitution The Constitution IS the law. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/54 "2019-06-24T05:43:07Z")
Something occurred to me a few minutes ago. Does Alabama law require a specific statute be enacted each time a community (city, town, county, etc.) wishes to create a sworn police department? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/55 "2019-06-24T13:04:45Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Every one of those organizations has its own police force because they want more uniformed officers than the local government can provide on regular patrols. I admit I find this response to be kind of a non answer. If the local government is not providing a sufficient number of patrols to enforce the law, surely the solution is for more resources to be devoted to that, rather than creating another police force? I live in the Town of Oakville, which is policed by the Halton Regional Police Service. If it were to come to pass that my neighborhood were underpoliced, the logical approach is to have the HRPS dedicate more police officers to it. Setting up a “South Central Oakville Police Department” would be objectively stupid; there is no possible way you could do that half as efficiently as just adding a few more officers to the HRPS. It’s very difficult for me to believe that the Briarwood Church needed its own police department. It’s a big CHURCH, but 4,000 people (at least half of whom don’t actually live there) isn’t that many people to police. Looking at the map, you could walk across campus in three minutes. I can see why one would have special police forces in situations where the specific nature of the policing that needs to be done requires a specialty that the larger police force might not be suited for. A state highway patrol, for instance, or the security force in an airport - there are arguments for that, but hell, even in those cases it’s really more a matter of turf wars and budget arguments. On the other hand I can see a dozen reasons why this is a dreadful idea. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/56 "2019-06-24T13:21:03Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Are you implying that the church police would have the authority to enforce church rules? Like, they could arrest people for saying “Jehovah”? At the very least they’d come in handy [if you found a dead bishop on the landing](http://www.montypython.net/scripts/bishop.php). ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/57 "2019-06-24T13:29:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I admit I find this response to be kind of a non answer. If the local government is not providing a sufficient number of patrols to enforce the law, surely the solution is for more resources to be devoted to that, rather than creating another police force? Local government (including policing) and its funding are so atomized in most of the USA that this isn’t necessarily politically feasible. I’m not sure this church is really large enough to go into this category, but universities can totally outstrip the local jurisdictions they reside in while not necessarily providing commensurate revenue. > [@RickJay](#): > > Setting up a “South Central Oakville Police Department” would be objectively stupid; there is no possible way you could do that half as efficiently as just adding a few more officers to the HRPS. I’m not denying that it would be stupid, but if Oakville were in a typical US state, there would probably be a South Central Oakville Police Department, because modern Oakville would simply never have been created by the forcible merger of the old Oakville with Bronte, Palermo, Sheridan, and Trafalgar Township. And policing would never have been consolidated at a level above that. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/58 "2019-06-24T17:10:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I admit I find this response to be kind of a non answer. If the local government is not providing a sufficient number of patrols to enforce the law, surely the solution is for more resources to be devoted to that, rather than creating another police force? Okay, you’re in south central Oakville. Let’s say you’re happy with the police protection you receive. Now, suppose in North Oakville there’s a university that occupies about 70 hectares and has about 15,000 students. They want a LOT of police protection. Do you want to pay the increase in taxes it would take to pay for 57 additional staff, including 33 uniformed officers, to handle those added patrols? I know there’s a cultural divide here, but in the U.S. I’ll bet most people/taxpayers/voters would at least want to charge every one of those 15,000 students a head tax, if not throw the university out, plow the 70 hectares and put in houses. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/59 "2019-06-24T18:20:18Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Local government (including policing) and its funding are so atomized in most of the USA that this isn’t necessarily politically feasible. I’m not sure this church is really large enough to go into this category, but universities can totally outstrip the local jurisdictions they reside in while not necessarily providing commensurate revenue. I can see the budgetary problems, but the safe, logical thing for the University of Shitville to do is to pay the Shitville PD for the added cost of a number of cops with the agreement that they will patrol UofS. Private interests and subjurisdictions do this sort of thing, too. On a large scale, for instance, most of Canada’s provinces pay the RCMP to provide local policing rather than setting up their own provincial cops (like Ontario and Quebec do.) On a smaller scale, it’s not uncommon for sports teams to pay a little extra for cops to provide security services at games. Your point about the atomizing of municipalities is a good one but, after all, counties and regions do figure this shit out sometimes. Oakville, to use that example a little further, is a separate municipality from Burlington and Milton but they share a police force (but don’t share a fire department) so there is a choice there. I’m not saying the politics are easily overcome, but it can be done. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869/60 "2019-06-24T23:02:43Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Your point about the atomizing of municipalities is a good one but, after all, counties and regions do figure this shit out sometimes. Oakville, to use that example a little further, is a separate municipality from Burlington and Milton but they share a police force (but don’t share a fire department) so there is a choice there. I’m not saying the politics are easily overcome, but it can be done. TL;DR **RickJay** , your world and my world just aren’t the same. With all due respect, I see that Burlington has a population of 42,000, Milton has about 11,000, and I can’t even find an Oakville, Vermont on Google or Google maps. The entire, three-county Burlington Metro Area has a combined population of 213,000, which makes much it about 70% of the population of the supposedly decaying rust-belt City of St. Louis, MO. That’s not “police.” In the Midwest, your area’s geographic size and population would fit nicely into a Missouri county Sheriff’s department. Meanwhile, here in Shitville the latest proposal for combining St. Louis City and County, and folding all the little suburbs in it into the combined megacity, has recently blown up for a lot of reasons. One of the major ones was that all the little Shitvilles in the county want to keep control of their municipal services. At the very top of the list is police and fire services. This holds true not only for affluent suburbs with excellent (if small) police departments, but also with poorer, smaller municipalities whose police seem to occupy themselves with radar traps on major roads. Putting it bluntly, the people of the Shitville metropolitan area won’t trust a Greater Shitville Unified Police Department. I mentioned Washington University in Shitville. Shitville University (despite the name, it’s also a private school) has about the same enrollment but the added burden of being an urban university with busy city streets cutting through the campus. They don’t have “police,” but say about their [Department of Public Safety officers.](https://www.slu.edu/about/safety/index.php) > [@](#): > > SLU’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) is staffed with 80 dedicated officers who patrol campus around the clock. Each is armed and licensed by the St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners and has undergone training in both active shooter response and fair and impartial policing. As licensed private security officers, SLU DPS officers have the authority to arrest, and to search for and seize evidence in connection with an arrest while on Saint Louis University property. Maybe not a “police” department, but potato/potahto. The other major educational institution, the University of Missouri-Shithole calls their security “police” but it’s pretty clear from the University itself [it’s really just a security department.](http://www.umsl.edu/safety/police/about/index.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mega-church-to-get-its-own-police-force/835869.md?page=4)