ELEVEN 
MONTHS TO GO:
Small Indiana Towns Struggle
To Respond to Local Crime
Police departments across Indiana are grappling with a shortage of police officers. Indianapolis Metro Police said recently that they are 300 short of optimum strength. Then there’s the difficult position of small rural towns that lack any police protection whatsoever. Towns that have learned that laws don’t enforce themselves.
The U.S. Department of Justice says that roughly 70 percent of departments serve communities of fewer than 10,000 people. OK. But what about the really small towns with more like 500 inhabitants? Crime exists in small towns too, and protection is needed. In fact, about 600 police departments across the state of Indiana have ten or fewer officers, and many have no officers at all.
The little town of La Paz is a good example. It’s only a couple of hours north of Indianapolis on Old U.S. 31. In 1999, when the state rerouted the highway away from the center of town, it cut off local income that had been flowing through their community for almost 100 years. Everything changed. Business suffered, tax income plummeted, and the town council could no longer pay for policing. Years went by.
For a decade, the town of 560 inhabitants had no local police protection. While La Paz was small, it was not immune to crime. In those 10 years, the crime rates jumped, and traffic violations increased rapidly. Heroin use had surfaced and brought with it property crimes. The Marshall County Sheriff’s Office is 12 miles away and had to make nearly 500 runs to La Paz during that time. The County did its job, but it’s not the same as having a police presence on site—that can intercede quickly in cases of theft or an accident with injury—someone who knows the people and probably the trouble-makers too.
So, in 2021, the town went searching and received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay a salary for a police officer starting in August 2022. With the grant, La Paz was able to offer $45,000 per year for three years, but the town was under contract to pay for the fourth year until August 2026. Eleven months to go. I talked to Jen Gilmer, La Paz’s Clerk Treasurer, and asked how La Paz could keep paying for police protection after the grant period is over. “Honestly," she said, "I don’t know.”
Pretty obviously, there is no extra $45,000 in the La Paz till, and with nearby cities paying new officers between $60,000 and $70,000, they probably wouldn’t be able to keep an officer at that salary anyway. Gilmer says the likely next step is to use volunteers to enforce ordinances—like dogs on a leash or making sure lawns are mowed. Everything else will go back to the Marshall County Sheriff’s office. And, once again, La Paz, like so many other small towns will be essentially on its own.
Nancy
