Recently, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department (DCSD) aggressively increased revenue enhancement traffic patrols. Now the DCSD patrols all freeways in the southern half of Dallas County and is seeking more freeway patrol duties.
The Dallas Morning News explains:
The department patrols unincorporated areas of Dallas County in the southern sector – a shrinking area of only about 9,000 residents. (source)
Texas sheriffs have full countywide jurisdiction, but their traditional police mandate is to patrol unincorporated county land. The DCSD’s policing mandate is shrinking with this unincorporated land.
Dallas County Commissioners are loathe to spend scarce resources only to duplicate city police. An impending $20 million county deficit seals this point.
As the rural mandate and dollars go away, all incentive is–literally–on revenue enhancement. (Disagree? See why Dallas County started constable traffic patrols.)
Dallas County, meet your new sheriff’s department: home of Texas’s most incompetently-managed jails and revenue patrols.
I feel so much safer!