By Heather Ratcliffe
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Police officers with questionable qualifications, working for small agencies with little oversight, have long been a hallmark of the fragmented policing in the St. Louis region - which has more than 120 local jurisdictions.
St. George, thrust into the spotlight last week with an embarrassing video of an officer berating a motorist, is among the smallest. It uses four full-time officers to cover just one-fifth of a square mile in south St. Louis County.
Experts say little police forces like St. George’s are susceptible to trouble because they are often short on resources and qualified recruits. But rogue cops can be found in any department, experts say.
“Sometimes police officers do stupid things,” said David Klinger, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “And sometimes they happen to be on smaller departments.”
The region’s patchwork of policing began forming just after St. Louis stopped annexing property in 1887. Rural neighborhoods began incorporating to get services such as street paving and police protection.
Eventually, highways and sprawling development connected free-standing communities of St. Louis County into a metropolitan web. And all the while, policing stayed mostly inside municipal compartments.
St. Louis County alone has 64 departments among its 91 municipalities. Only Cook County, Ill. has more departments in one county.
If this level of fragmentation in one metro area is unusual, the prevalence of the small-town cop is not. Of 18,000 U.S. police agencies, about 75
percent employ fewer than 25 officers, the International Association of Chiefs of Police says.
In St. Louis County, municipal police departments range from four full-time officers in St. George and Lakeshire to 83 in Florissant, 2005 figures show.
“America has a long tradition of fractured policing,” Klinger said. “People want local law enforcement controlled by local people rather than having a state or federal agency lording over them.”
Tim Fischesser, executive director for the St. Louis County Municipal League, said people generally prefer local control for many services - from snow removal to police protection.
“I like it. I feel safe,” said Angela Ulett, 42, while walking her dog Sunday along a bicycle path in Brentwood. But Ulett is unsure if the Brentwood Police Department makes the city safer than if it contracted with the St. Louis County police. “Psychologically, it sounds more appealing,” she said. “Like we’re being taken care of in a better way, like there’s more attention given to an area.”
Cathy Geraghty, 41, who has lived in Shrewsbury for 18 years, likes the feeling of a small police department. “They’re visible,” she said. “I know a lot of them by their first names.”
But recruiting and resources can be difficult for some small departments, said Webster Groves Police Chief Dale Curtis, who is president of the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association.
“You can’t lower your standards,” he said.
A five-part investigation published by the Post-Dispatch in 2003, called “The Law in Disorder,” found that smaller departments with limited resources were fraught with problems. Among them:
— Using unlicensed reserve officers for real police work.
— Hiring other agencies’ rejects, who will work for less.
— Failing to maintain even basic equipment, such as functional patrol cars and radios.
— Keeping dramatically different policies — or in some cases no policies — on key issues such as the use of force and vehicle pursuits.
— Ignoring basic patrol and investigation procedures.
Cuts to federally funded police programs in the past seven years have hit small departments the hardest, said Elaine Deck, a program manager with the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
With less money for training and salaries, she said, small agencies may turn to young applicants with little experience, or veteran officers who left other departments under a cloud.
“Some of those guys who go to those small departments have a lot of baggage they bring with them,” said Timothy Maher, a criminal justice professor with UMSL.
The Missouri Police Chiefs Association is now launching two programs aimed at helping improve small departments.
One is a leadership “college” for senior officers. The other is an accreditation process for small departments.
“There’s already a long list of people who want to participate,” said Lake Saint Louis Police Chief Mike Force, a leader with the association.
Illinois lawmakers recently added training requirements to improve small-town policing, said Roger Richards, executive director of the Southwestern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission and former chief in Fairview Heights.
A law passed last year requires chiefs to complete 20 hours of continuing education a year, he said. Standards for part-time officers were tightened.
Curtis says agencies can benefit from consolidating work. Webster Groves joined six other departments to share dispatching. “We’re able to keep state-of-the-art equipment at a much lower cost,” he said.
Deck said that while the International Association of Chiefs of Police offers training on consolidation, few officials want it.
“You don’t save money in the first three to five years, and control often goes away from the community to a larger agency,” she said.
Klinger, of UMSL, said benefits of a professionally run small department can be significant.
“The lines of communication between the citizens and police chief are pretty short,” Klinger said. “It’s easier for police to be responsive to the community under those circumstances.”
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch