(NANTUCKET, Mass.) - Nantucket’s police department doubles in size every summer. Of course, the island’s population grows by even more: from about 10,000 winter residents to 50,000 or 60,000 in the summer.
The tide of summer visitors range from day-trippers who come over by ferry from Hyannis, Woods Hole or Martha’s Vineyard, to “summer people” those wealthy enough to own a house on the island and to spend the season there. They also bring some problems with them, said Police Chief Randolph Norris.
“They’re on vacation,” he said. “They’re here to have a good time.”
The visitors whose idea of a good time includes spending a lot of time in the bars keep Norris’s officers busy with assaults and disorderly persons offenses. On an island where camping is illegal there are also visitors who will try to bed down for the night in the open.
Visitors seem to also be lulled by the island’s peaceful atmosphere and leave valuables in unlocked cars. Larceny is another major crime problem.
But the 54-square-mile island is generally a peaceful place. Norris said that the last homicide was in 1983, an argument that resulted in a fatal shooting.
The island’s remote location -- more than an hour by ferry from the nearest point on the mainland -- also spares it the large rock concerts and similar events that can bring sudden surges of people into other summer resorts.
Norris supervises a year-round force that includes a deputy chief, a lieutenant, four sergeants and 20 officers. This summer, the department hired about 40 “summer specials”, most of them college students majoring in criminal justice.
In the summer, the regular police officers handle the more serious police calls while the summer officers do bicycle and foot patrol and keep an eye on the island’s beaches and open land in an all-terrain vehicle patrol. Enforcing parking regulations is a major headache, according to Norris, and the department writes an average of 10,000 parking citations during the season.
Norris himself is not a native of Nantucket, although he has lived there for 27 years and been police chief for 17. He grew up in northern New Jersey and worked part time as a police officer in West Orange. When he and his wife decided they wanted a change of pace, they considered the island where they had spent their honeymoon and several subsequent vacations. Once the couple made the move, Norris quickly joined the Nantucket Police Department and has never regretted his decision.
He said that the police department has no trouble filling vacancies. But he does have trouble keeping officers because housing on the island has become so expensive that anyone who is on a municipal salary has a hard time making ends meet. While winter rentals are cheap, the rates shoot up in the summer and year-round rentals are also pricey.