About how large do you think a police department would be in a town with about 3000 people? Extreme prejudice for answers by people who are actually police officers in a town more or less that size.
The closest town to me has 2,386 people. There is a police force of 3 full time and 2 or 3 part time employees.
Most of the towns here of that size don’t even have a police force. They let the county sheriff handle the ruffians.
SSG Schwartz
Wow, that’s exactly what I’d decided in the manuscript I’m working on. Three full time, two part time. Then I started to wonder if it was too small. Thanks a lot.
Wait, here’s a follow up question – if it was a small rural county, would they necessarily have a county sheriff? Do all counties have one?
^In PA it is complicated. Small towns that have no police force rely on the PA State Police to patrol their town.
I grew up in a small town in Louisiana. We had a local police chief and two or three officers. Not all places in the U.S. have a county (parish) police force but most do.
Holy crap. I grew up in a town of 700, and I just looked up the number of cops: one chief, two seargents, one detective, three patrolman, and a communications officer. 8 cops. More than one per 100 residents.
That explains a lot about that town.
The last town that I lived in about that size (2500) had three full time officers. The remaining patrols were handled by the county sheriff’s department. The county sheriff’s department employed a sheriff, six full time deputies and two part time. There was a county dispatch team of four for town police, sheriff’s department, EMS and fire combined.
This town was the only incorporated one in the county and was home to more than half of the county residents.
Our town (made up of seven tiny towns) is about 2500 and there’s one chief and I think two or three officers.
The county sheriff website mentions:
<<The department works on a contract basis with many of the towns and maintains a strong presence throughout the county.
Civil court Services - Family Court Services - Prisoner Transports
Traffic Enforcement - DUI checkpoint - Patrol
Fingerprinting - Detention facility - School Resource Officers
Project DARE - Dispatching services - Seatbelt Enforcement Officers
VAST snowmobile trail system patrol - Child safety seat inspections
We actively participate in campaigns such as click it or ticket and DUI enforcement>>
The nearby Village of Cayuga Heights, NY, population 3,273 [2000 census] has a police chief, a sergeant, four officers and a police clerk. In contrast, the adjoining Village of Lansing, NY population 3,417, has no police department, relying instead on the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office.
The sleepy, upper-class suburb near us has 12 officers and 14 civilians for 6,000 people. I should note that the civilians (dispatchers, etc.) also contract services for other neighboring police departments.
Around here it’s 2 to 0.
I grew up near a town that then had about 2,800 residents and now has something like 4,200. I think they had about 8 total police personnel when I was in high school, and now they have 7 or 8 patrol officers and sergeants combined, with a detective, deputy chief, and chief.
Of course, they aren’t typical. It has a very tourist-oriented economy, being the most popular seaside destination in the state. The population can go to 60,000 or more on a busy weekend. In a good year, I wouldn’t be surprised if they get twice that on the Fourth of July or Labor Day weekends.
Caledonia, MN (where I lived for ~7 years) has a chief, secretary, 3 fulltime and 2 part time officers.
Note that Caledonia is the county seat so Sheriff type people also patrol (I couldn’t find a count quickly)
Brian
I wonder could somebody from a small town with a police force chime in with the opening hours of the station.
Around here (pop. 2,500) the facility is available from 9am to 5pm and is closed at weekends. Presumably, during the closed periods, all crime is transferred to Cheltenham 25 miles away.
Police service consists of a Chief and 2 part time special officers. The Police Chief, [old info] Additional law enforcement response is available from the Orange County Sheriff’s office in Chelsea and the Vermont State Police barracks in Bradford. Dispatch services, as of December 1, 2000 are being handled through the Vermont State Police in St. Johnsbury. The direct dial number of the …Police Department is (802)… If there is no on available to take your call, it will automatically be transferred to the State Police.
I think the office is probably only open during business hours but can’t find confirmation.
My home town in Louisiana has about 1,300 people and the local police were on patrol 24/7 and the police station with two jail cells was always open as well. However, the police station sat right next to the river that forms the Louisiana/Texas border. There was only one two-lane bridge across for miles with lots of drug traffic going through so they always needed to be able to respond quickly especially when people were trying to, literally, make a run for the border in either direction. The Texas side usually didn’t have any police available for many miles. The Parish Sheriff’s Department always served as backup but they had to patrol hundreds of square miles of areas that had no police whatsoever on their own.
Our town is around 4000ish. One day, we had a “table-top” disaster drill at school. In this drill, we don’t actually do anything, we (the teachers and staff, not the students) sit around and talk through various disasters. During the meeting, the police chief said he had four officers on duty (and he was one of them). In addition, the county had two officers and the highway patrol (state police) had two officers out in the county. I remember how he said "Imagine what you saw on TV from Columbine. If such a thing happens here, it won’t look like that. SWAT and all that will show up, but it will probably take two hours or more to get here. Until then we’re on our own.)