And, what did the police officer not do? As reported in the Post, Alphonso Hayes "routinely failed to follow up on leads, interview witnesses, file court paperwork, or appear at trials." And when Hayes became aware that his former supervisor, Gerard Hanley, was building a case against him, "cabinets full of his files disappeared."
Dereliction of duty has consequences. A suspect in a carjacking, who allegedly beat the victim with a lead pipe, was convicted in a string of later carjackings. (He was suspected in at least 30 subsequent carjackings, most while armed.)
We either have a grossly negligent police officer, or an officer who purposely hampered efforts to investigate crimes. The citizens of Prince George's County, after reading about their less-than-crack police force, are (understandably) probably nervous about what they should do if they need police assistance: they risk being abused, or the responding officer may LITERALLY IGNORE the crime.
Given the massive injustice subjected to the residents of Prince George's County, what are the alternatives, if any? (Keep in mind that the county has "one of the highest concentrations of violent crime in the Washington area.")
People of most ideological persuasions would agree that protection of the citizenry is a duty for the State. This concept was described by the English philosopher John Locke, in his discussion of the purpose of government in his Two Treatises of Government:
§. 92....government being for the preservation of every man’s right and property, by preserving him from the violence or injury of others, is for the good of the governed...
However, entrusting such power -- the legalized use of violence -- is enough to give anyone pause. Therefore, the general approach has been to "localize" State authority; in other words, giving such power to the smallest possible quantum of State organization that can fulfill the duties. (If a town can provide a police force, then no need for the state to have the authority; states will be involved in multi-town crimes. If a state can provide a militia to protect itself, then no need for the national government to have a National Guard.)Localizing State authority serves two purposes: 1) It ensures that State officials are as close as possible to the community, rather than having too many faceless bureaucrats making decisions; and 2) should the authority become too overbearing, citizens can simply leave that jurisdiction.
Because possessing the legalized use of violence is such an awesome power, with tremendous temptation, anyone in that position must have extraordinary restraint, patience, discipline, and self-control. (Qualities quite possibly drummed out of recruits at the police academy for this department.)
A problem with State control and oversight of a community's police department is that the citizenry does not, really, have much ability to have their voices heard. Additionally, the police may not necessarily have a vested interest in furthering the safety goals of the community, in much the same way that executives of publicly-traded firms may not have the shareholders' best interests in mind. (Referred to as the agency dilemma.)
If the implicit social contract is broken between a police department and its jurisdiction, what are the citizens to do? Are the residents of Prince George's County going to move because their police officers have an annoying habit of abusing them, or safeguard serial violent criminals (see, possibly: Hayes, Alphonso)? No -- it's too impractical, too expensive, and they are too invested in their communities.
Murray Rothbard explored an alternative in For a New Liberty: private enterprise to the rescue. It seems completely counter intuitive, but that concept is just because we have only known State-supported protection. The chapter should be read in full to understand the various threads of Rothbard's thinking, but he addresses police protection for the poor, assurance of efficient and effective police, and the fact that we are already paying for police protection as taxpayers with little input.
There is another feature of a privately-funded police force that would especially appeal to residents of Prince George's County:
"Free-market police would not only be efficient, they would have a strong incentive to be courteous and to refrain from brutality against either their clients or their clients' friends or customers."
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we are victims also by forest heights police and their friends on the pg police force.they have been co-conspireders to attempted murders 3 times on me and my kids and the court does nothing.they have helped the people who have tried to kill me and my family over and over again.
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