Police Detail Actually Looks out for me!

Yes, you read that right.

There’s a scam practice here in the Boston area of assigning police officers to “watch over” road construction. Much of the time they’re just standing around, or spending a lot of time just talking with the crews (so neither is actually “working”).

Today, however, a police officer actually did his job, and moved into a position to block me from potentially falling down a manhole. Of course this was after he got off the phone. And just after he and the crew finished jaywalking. So…yay?

Here’s a quote from an articles I found on the topic that sums things up:

In general, police details cost too much, waste police resources, diminish extant police resources, are open to abuse and are widely abused. They need at least to be reformed, if not abolished.

Source: Carpundit. (2009). Paid Police Details Are a Scam. Retrieved on August 18, 2008 from Carpundit Web site: http://carpundit.typepad.com/carpundit/2004/09/paid_police_det.html

They’re not needed in every situation. I’ve heard that many times the municipality pays for them (though in some cases the companies doing the work pay)–which either uses local resources or personal resources in the form of higher bills. Use them when necessary, which is to say about 80% less.