this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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As Goodhue Police Chief Josh Smith struggled this summer to fill vacancies in his small department, he warned the town’s City Council that unless pay and benefits improved, finding new officers would never happen.

When nothing changed, Smith quit. So did his few remaining officers, leading the Minnesota town of 1,300 residents to shutter its police force in late August.

America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the twofold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. From Minnesota to Maine, Ohio to Texas, small towns unable to fill jobs are eliminating their police departments and turning over police work to their county sheriff, a neighboring town or state police.

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[–] Gradually_Adjusting 131 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Wishing a very pleasant day to everyone who decided not to become a police officer.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At one point when I was 18 I almost started down that path. Thank god I didn't.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 13 points 1 year ago
[–] Drivebyhaiku 4 points 1 year ago

I shudder to think of the alternate timeline where I gave up on my dream and became a Mountie.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] alvvayson 107 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I didn't expect small town USA to actually defund the police first.

[–] TheLowestStone 48 points 1 year ago

Try THAT in Small Town

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah. They can't keep up with the funding that big cities have to outfit their cops in cool tactical gear.

[–] Chainweasel 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My town had their police department disbanded after the mayor's son got arrested for a DUI about 20 years ago and we're doing just fine without cops.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

My town growing up (~2500 people) disbanded their police force in the 90s and just contracts out with the county. Small towns are generally fine without their own police force.

[–] DoctorTYVM 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Chainweasel 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[Redacted for privacy reasons]

[–] Coffeemonkepants 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I bet the deer are doing terrible though.

[–] Chainweasel 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh no lol, I counted 44 on my way to work this morning before I got to the main road. They're in desperate need of a culling but no one hunts them anymore because there's a bad case of Chronic Wasting Disease going around, now they're just starving to death because they have no natural predators in this area. Although the town got its name from Chief Kill Buck who was a Delaware chief in the area and had a town near where the current town stands.

[–] thelongshot93 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Chronic Wasting Disease

Well there's a rabbithole I wasn't expecting. Horrifying what those diseases can do and how much we try to avoid them.

[–] SheeEttin 2 points 1 year ago

Fortunately there's no evidence it affects humans. But then there's no evidence it doesn't, either.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Ever since they changed the name from Chillbuck there's been a noticeable but difficult to pin down shift in attitudes

[–] dethb0y 37 points 1 year ago

My town didn't have cops for over three years, and it was totally fine.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Small town in Ohio, we disbanded our local Police, and instead have county police here now

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

this is the reality, we have several overlapping forces who compete for staff leaving some places overflowing with officers and some completely empty.

the whole county vs city vs state police forcing inefficiency needs to be addressed.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, the USA should nationalize the police. Standards and police academies (just a movie in many places, not an actual thing).

Cops could be rotated, and internal affairs could find and remove bad cops. Less local corruption.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants 0 points 1 year ago

There really just shouldn't be cops.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

very uplifting news

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This would be a good opportunity to try out some sort of volunteer community defense system and crisis intervention units. Both would be far more cost effective. If it were arranged appropriately to make volunteers accountable, it'd be a lot safer than traditional policing

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

george zimmermans

[–] FlyingSquid 17 points 1 year ago

But then the only white people who get to shoot black people risk being charged for it!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Oh no! Who's going to drive all their tanks?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

At least 521 U.S. towns and cities with populations of 1,000 to 200,000 disbanded policing between 1972 and 2017, according to a peer-reviewed 2022 paper by Rice University Professor of Economics Richard T. Boylan.

In the past two years, at least 12 small towns have dissolved their departments.

That works out to an average of 11 per year. I haven't needed to think about numbers in a long time. Did I fuck that up? Cause if not, this sounds like a lot of panic over losing fewer police departments than the norm.

[–] MossBear 13 points 1 year ago

Law and order? Can't afford'er!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

“No one wants to harass black people any more.”

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I believe it.

It's ridiculously expensive to hire cops and equip them with gear that makes them competitive with other cops.

[–] rez_doggie 1 points 1 year ago