NCJ Number
80519
Date Published
Unknown
Length
122 pages
Annotation
This report focuses on the issues, needs, problems, and priorities vital to an understanding of the regionalization of police services.
Abstract
There is an increasing recognition that many of the problems facing America's cities and metropolitan areas cannot be handled by most of the local governmental units acting alone and independently. The lack of qualified personnel, low salaries, insufficient training, inadequate and antique record systems, and unreliable and ineffective communication systems are but a few of the factors which will result in inadequate police services. These factors represent perhaps the clearest examples of law enforcement problems today, and they dictate the need for cooperative and combined police efforts of two or more police agencies having responsibilities in adjacent or overlapping jurisdictional boundaries. This need is especially evident in police agencies serving small towns, cities, and villages, and to an extent, those of counties and States. Two major objectives of this paper are (1) to provide guidelines designed to assist the local or agency police administrator in planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating the needs, merits, and results of regionalized police services and (2) to present a course of action for future regionalized police services showing the practicality of regionalization and the flexibility present in planning and implementing such services by the local police or agency administrator. The report focuses on regionalization of police services in a comprehensive, descriptive manner and compares factors related to the regionalized approach to factors related to other possible approaches. A glossary and about 125 references are provided. (Author abstract modified)