It’s not safe anymore, well especially in Camden, NJ. The most dangerous city has decided to get rid of their 141-year-old police department only to replace it with a non-union division of the Camden County Police. Read more below.
Amid what they call a “public safety crisis,†officials in Camden, N.J., plan to disband the city’s 141-year-old police department and replace it with a non-union division of the Camden County Police.
Camden city officials have touted the move as necessary to combat the city’s growing financial and safety problems. The entire 267-member police department will be laid off and replaced with a newly reformatted metro division, which is projected to have some 400 members. It will serve only the city of Camden starting in early 2013.“It’s not a money-saver, it’s living within the budget you’ve got to get more boots on the ground,†Camden County spokesperson Joyce Gabriel told NBC News. “There has been an uptick in violence this year, and the city decided to go with the county’s police department.â€
Camden isn’t the first cash-strapped city to be faced with the decision to eliminate or merge its police department.
Bernard Melekian, director of the Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, told NBC News that as communities around the country recover from the recession, police mergers are part of a new reality that will likely continue through the next decade.
