Regionalizing Public Safety Functions

In my October 17, 2005, Whitecaps post entitled Why Not a Regional Criminal Justice Center, I led with the basic question, "Why don't Idaho and Washington, Kootenai County and Spokane County, join in creating one regional criminal justice center near the Idaho-Washington border?" The suggestion was for a regional justice campus incorporating elements of incarceration, corrections, and law enforcement training.

The idea of regionalizing some public safety functions is not new. Interagency mutual aid agreements have existed for decades. But expanding the concept imaginatively is getting closer attention because of the myriad issues uncovered by the events of September 11, 2001.

In 2004, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and the Police Foundation conducted "...a project to help position state, local, and tribal agencies to proactively manage a changed and continually changing police environment." The 62-page study this group produced and released in September 2005 is entitled Post 9-11 Policing - The Crime Control - Homeland Security Paradigm.

This study, in turn, resulted in the preparation of four promising practices briefs. They are:

• Intelligence-Led Policing: The New Intelligence Architecture
• Assessing and Managing the Terrorism Threat
• Mutual Aid: Multi-Jurisdictional Partnerships for Meeting Regional Threats
• Engaging the Private Sector to Promote Homeland Security: Law Enforcement - Private Security Partnerships

As I noted in my blog post, there are very signficant social and political issues that would need to be resolved. Local governments are very territorial and possessive. But here's reality: Local governments will get more benefit than they will lose by sharing resources (multi-jurisdictional partnerships). Any major emergency in our area is almost automatically a regional emergency that will require interagency cooperation to mitigate and resolve. We in Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai County are more likely to engage in mutual aid with Spokane County in Washington State than with Ada or Canyon Counties in Idaho. For governors, state and national representatives, and local government officials to reject multi-jurisdictional partnerships because of political boundaries makes no sense. The money for unnecessary, inefficient duplication is drying up.