I just saw this (Maywood, Calif., to city cops and employees: You're fired) on cnn.com and it made me think about Lone Star/Knight Errant and outsourcing the police. Admittedly, the city outsourced the police functions to the county sheriff, but when you consider that all other city functions were outsourced as well, it's definitely an interesting report.

While I don't expect to see it going to a private business anytime soon I expect to see more of this in the future at least in CA. The fancier parts of CA pay exorbitant rates to the police especially on the retirement programs base pay is frequently 60,000ish which does not sound like much for the areas they live but after 20 years you are not in the 60,000 bracket anymore. Retirement is based on the last 2-3 years you work and many people work insane overtime hours during that time so they get well over 100% there normal salary during there retirement for the rest of there lives, frequently starting at 50. Oh and then they rehire at the police department and get double paid. And this isn't hazard pay or anything, this is in towns that have like .5 murders a year and a population in the hundreds of thousands. It would be awesome though if CA goes bankrupt and is forced to outsource police to a private business. I think some places already do it for fire and jailing.

several corporate towns (aka incorporated suburbs) do it, they have private police forces that enforce laws and ordances there (think a homeowner's association is bad... wait till the city cops are paid by them too)

God, that's just what I need - Angry Mrs. Edelstein from up the street bringing KE in to enforce the length of my grass because someone pissed on her azaeleas last night.

And it wasn't even me this time!

Any town (and a lot of other organizations you might not expect) can create their own police department. There is a bunch of paperwork and there is typically state requirements and some federal requirements (depending on your plans) but at the end they are a formal police department and can go and hire certified or pay the state to train police officers. (Though in some states it's up to an individual to pay for their own training...)

However the police are working for a government body, not a company. For example, if Disneyland had decided to create it's own police department they could have created a town instead of being part of Anaheim. IIRC Disneyworld is legally allowed to create a police department under "Reedy Creek Improvement District", but has chosen not to. However Reedy Creek Improvement District is a formally created political entity (created by the Florida legislature) and has elections and such. There is just a limited number of people who live in the District and who are eligible to vote.

http://www.rcid.org/AboutUS_main.cfm

Heh, I actually posted a pic of the cover art from the Lone Star sourcebook in the Fark thread on this story...not sure if anyone got it.