Police Coverage Reform

The Lebanon Daily News pitches in with an editorial which does an excellent job laying out the issues involved in reforming police coverage throughout Pennsylvania. Currently many townships and towns rely on the State Police for their law enforcement, depriving their citizens of proper enforcement and shifting the costs to other citizens, some of whom are already paying for their own police forces.

I see one good alternative as allowing counties to create their own, county-wide police forces. Law enforcement agencies are very expensive propositions, especially in these days with anti-terrorist concerns aplenty. Combining resources, manpower, and assets is far more cost effective. One result of the current system is the epidemic of bad driving in Pennsylvania. There are so few police everyone knows there's no enforcement and this results in more accidents, property damage, and injuries.

It's time for reform in this area also.