Why does PG county have so many police departments? (Silver Spring: schools, university)

[dropping_k]

I’ve always been interested on the different police departments that operate in PG County. I tried looking for a list of all police departments that operate within the county but have not been able to find. I never understood why PG county has so many small police departments

So I decided to take a stab and create one myself. Feel free to add or correct me if I am wrong.

County:
PG County Police

City/Towns:
Fairmount Heights Police
Forest Heights Police
Glenarden Police
Greenbelt Police
Berwyn Heights Police
Bladensburg Police
Bowie Police
Capitol Heights Police
Cheverly Police
Colmar Manor Police
Cottage City Police
District Heights Police
Edmonton Police
Hyattsville City Police
Landover Hills Police
Laurel Police
Morningside Police
Mount Rainier Police
New Carrolton Police
Riverdale Police
Seat Pleasant Police
University Park Police
Upper Marlboro Police

Schools:
Bowie State University Police
University Maryland Police college park

Other:
US park police (BW parkway)
NASA Police?? ( I always see a police car outside of NASA entrance, but not sure if they have their own)

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by dropping_k

I’ve always been interested on the different police departments that operate in PG County. I tried looking for a list of all police departments that operate within the county but have not been able to find. I never understood why PG county has so many small police departments

So I decided to take a stab and create one myself. Feel free to add or correct me if I am wrong.

County:
PG County Police

City/Towns:
Fairmount Heights Police
Forest Heights Police
Glenarden Police
Greenbelt Police
Berwyn Heights Police
Bladensburg Police
Bowie Police
Capitol Heights Police
Cheverly Police
Colmar Manor Police
Cottage City Police
District Heights Police
Edmonton Police
Hyattsville City Police
Landover Hills Police
Laurel Police
Morningside Police
Mount Rainier Police
New Carrolton Police
Riverdale Police
Seat Pleasant Police
University Park Police
Upper Marlboro Police

Schools:
Bowie State University Police
University Maryland Police college park

Other:
US park police (BW parkway)
NASA Police?? ( I always see a police car outside of NASA entrance, but not sure if they have their own)

All of those police departments belong to incorporated cities/towns that pay taxes for their own police forces. Unincorporated parts of PG have to rely on PG police. This list looks normal to me. Montgomery County has police forces for each of their incorporated cities/towns as well.

You can't really include NASA police. They are a federal/private police force and more than likely only has jurisdiction over the NASA properties in Greenbelt. They mostly deal with trespassing, thefts, national security, etc. I even saw a WSSC police cruiser on I-95 once. More than likely, they too are involved with national security; protecting the water supply along with other duties.

UMD police has jurisdiction outside of campus in parts of College Park and around the UMD golf course. They also patrol parts of Brentwood if I'm not mistaken. US Park police has jurisdiction not only along the BW Parkway but any park in MD. For example, Park Police patrol the Adelphi Mill and NW Branch park area and roads that connect to those parks. I've seen a Park Police cruiser pull over a car on Adelphi, RD.

You forgot MD State Police which has barracks throughout the county.

[North Beach Person]

It should be noted that many of those listed departments are in practice part-time.

Bowie PD is relatively new, the last few years. They got tired of counting on PGCPD for coverage.

To have a full-time, small town police department with all shifts covered requires a sworn staff of 7 (8 is better) and roughly $1M/year to cover all the costs. The staffing presumes the Chief is also doing patrol and not just supervision. That level gives you one officer per shift 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It may also give you some flexibility to have 2 officers on duty at busy times.

If you want to have a local jail then add some staffing and some dollars, a person can not be in a cell and unattended while the arresting officer goes back to patrol.

[tgs_bg]

There was a poster from a police website that gave a pretty accurate list of all law enforcement agencies broken down by county/state/federal, The Unofficial List of Maryland Law Enforcement Agencies. That has a list of all law enforcement agencies that operate in PG county.

Adelphi Sky hit the nail on the head. To add to it, all incorporated municipalities have to have their own police force in Maryland. College Park does not, and therefore has to contract PG county police to provide LE services to the city.

The NASA police are SPOs (Special Police Officers) and are not technically considered certified police officers. Think of it as armed security with arrest powers.

WSSC Police deals more with building alarms on their poperty than anything else.

North Beach, to your surprise most of the agencies in PG operate 24/7. The only "full-service" departments (which means they handle every call in their jurisdiction) are Greenbelt Police and Laurel Police.

To touch on the other agencies that operate in Prince George's County that arn't on your list or under the PG County section in the link that are uniformed LE:

Maryland State Police, Maryland Transportation Authority Police, Metro Transit Police, Natural Resources Police, WSSC Police, Maryland Park & Planning Commission Police

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by tgs_bg

There was a poster from a police website that gave a pretty accurate list of all law enforcement agencies broken down by county/state/federal, The Unofficial List of Maryland Law Enforcement Agencies. That has a list of all law enforcement agencies that operate in PG county.

Adelphi Sky hit the nail on the head. To add to it, all incorporated municipalities have to have their own police force in Maryland. College Park does not, and therefore has to contract PG county police to provide LE services to the city.

The NASA police are SPOs (Special Police Officers) and are not technically considered certified police officers. Think of it as armed security with arrest powers.

WSSC Police deals more with building alarms on their poperty than anything else.

North Beach, to your surprise most of the agencies in PG operate 24/7. The only "full-service" departments (which means they handle every call in their jurisdiction) are Greenbelt Police and Laurel Police.

Which is it? You're contradicting yourself. They "operate 24/7" but only Greenbelt and Laurel are "full service".

I'm only going on what the various Chiefs say at meetings I have to attend.

"I have a Department of 3 and myself". That isn't full time.

[tgs_bg]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Which is it? You're contradicting yourself. They "operate 24/7" but only Greenbelt and Laurel are "full service".

I'm only going on what the various Chiefs say at meetings I have to attend.

"I have a Department of 3 and myself". That isn't full time.

24/7 manpower coverage and full-service mean two completely different things. Maybe I should have been more clear. A full-service department is not only 24/7, but handles all TYPES of calls in their jurisdiction. For example, a 24/7 municipal department other than Greenbelt or Laurel gets a call for a homicide, they don't do the full investigation, they give it to the county police.

But like I said, most of those departments operate 24/7. If I had to guess, only Fairmont Heights, Cottage City, Brentwood, Colmar Manor, Upper Marlboro, Morningside and Landover Hills are not 24/7. Maybe you can elaborate on that since you go to meetings.

[North Beach Person]

Some of them fill in with contract PGCPD officers, which is what we do with the Calvert County Sheriff's Department. We abolished our Town PD 20 years ago or so.

To answer the original question of why?:

A local PD is more responsive to the community and you can tailor scheduling to meets your needs. If you contract with the County agency you're somewhat at their mercy. You see a problem developing and you have to ask them to look at it. Your own department you issue the order.

[Matt2789]

add to your list the town of Brentwood, MD (population about 3,000). They have recently acquired their own police force. I'm wondering when the separate neighboring town of North Brentwood (population 517) will be getting their own force as well

[dropping_k]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Some of them fill in with contract PGCPD officers, which is what we do with the Calvert County Sheriff's Department. We abolished our Town PD 20 years ago or so.

To answer the original question of why?:

A local PD is more responsive to the community and you can tailor scheduling to meets your needs. If you contract with the County agency you're somewhat at their mercy. You see a problem developing and you have to ask them to look at it. Your own department you issue the order.

Thanks for the response. I'm surprised that MoCo doesn't have that many small ones. I know Chevy Chase Village, Rockville, Takoma Park, and Gaithersburg have their own. I lived in Silver Spring (Cloverly) growing up and wished my area had their own. I remember the response times of MoCo in that area was horrible. I could think of many small towns in MoCo that could use it.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by dropping_k

Thanks for the response. I'm surprised that MoCo doesn't have that many small ones. I know Chevy Chase Village, Rockville, Takoma Park, and Gaithersburg have their own. I lived in Silver Spring (Cloverly) growing up and wished my area had their own. I remember the response times of MoCo in that area was horrible. I could think of many small towns in MoCo that could use it.

Silver Spring is unincorporated so it wouldn't have police services except for County.
That's where I think some get confused, MD isn't really friendly to formation of local municipalities so there really aren't that many compared to other states, the main local government is the County.

Montgomery County doesn't as many municipalities compared to Prince George's which has 27. Montgomery only has 21, including a couple weird Chevy Chase ones.

Municipal League, MD - Official Website - Prince George's County

Municipal League, MD - Official Website - Montgomery County

Having a police department is incredibly expensive. Not only do you have to fund it yearly (a 7 or 8 officer department I mentioned earlier will cost roughly $1M/year, $125K per officer when all the numbers get crunched) but you're competing with other agencies which can pay higher salaries and offer better benefits.