Opportunities for Alternative Service Delivery

The Detective Bureau, or Investigative Unit, of the department is composed of highly skilled officers who investigate a wide variety of criminal activity, such as murder, rape, arson, crimes against children, and narcotics. The Special Operations Unit is composed of specialized units to handle matters beyond the skills of ordinary police officers, such as a SWAT team, which specializes in the use of force and aggressive policing techniques. Maintaining these specialized departments full-time can be very expensive for smaller departments and municipalities. A good solution can be to regionalize or consolidate the departments by entering into agreement with neighboring cities or regions to share resources under a central administration, or to enter into contract with a separate public entity to provide specialized, jurisdictional, or full police services. Contracting with another, larger public agency to deliver law enforcement services makes sense when a municipality’s tax base or budget is too small to maintain a stand-alone police department and the ensuing administrative, operational, personnel, and equipment costs. If done correctly, there are many benefits to contracting or regionalizing, but citizens are often wary that it means a slower response time in case of emergency, a decline in the quality of services, or a loss of local identity and sovereignty. A community might have had a negative experience with contracting in the past, and will need convincing that there won’t be a decline in quality or equity of service. Labor organizations are also typically very resistant to contracting, whether as a provider or as a customer, because they are worried it will lead to layoffs or loss of promotion opportunities. As a result, a manager should consider all of these potential issues before committing to alternative services.

Traditionally, many local jurisdictions contracted with county sheriff departments to provide jail detention services and SWAT services. Now, because of the budget squeeze felt by local governments across the country, full law enforcement services have also been contracted out. Often a local government is trying to provide law enforcement services to many departments in their municipality, like parks, courts, and airports, and the overhead costs and inefficiencies brought on by having multiple, limited-jurisdiction forces can make contracting an attractive option. In addition to contracting for different jurisdictions, contracting for different specialty services can also be a great option, giving a small municipality access to more high quality, specialized services, increased expertise and assumed liability at lower cost.

Alternately, if your department is large enough, you could become a provider and help a neighboring jurisdiction, and the economies of scale would lower administrative and support costs by making your department more efficient. Revenues earned from contracting can expand the budget and allow your department to invest in modern technologies and weather any shrinking of their tax base in the future. Contracting can’t be entered into lightly; both the provider and the customer have to set up a long-term budget, engage in strategic planning, create realistic cost structures and service matrices, all to ensure that there are clear expectations on both sides. If successful, it can benefit everyone. In this case, it is best to partner with an experienced provider or customer.¹

1: For more information on contracting with another government entity, see ICMA 2002 report, “Contracting Law Enforcement Services.” For information on the privatization of law enforcement services, see Erwin A. Blackstone and Simon Hakim, “Police Services: The Private Challenge” (Oakland, Calif.: Independent Institute, 1996).