OUT OF
TOWN COPS
between police departments.
“I don’t know that this has been
done before,” says Louis Tuthill,
a criminal justice professor at
Rutgers University. “I have never
heard of it.”
Some see the move to shut
down the Camden Police Depart-
“EVERY COP
IN AMERICA
SHOULD WORRY
ABOUT WHAT’S
HAPPENING
IN CAMDEN.”
ment and shift to a cheaper county-run model as a frontal attack on
public safety unions. They warn
the same strategy may soon be
used to extract concessions from
cops and firefighters across New
Jersey, and ultimately the country.
“This is not a policing strategy.
This is something more sinister,”
says Eugene O’Donnell, a professor
at the John Jay College of Criminal
Justice in New York. “Every cop
HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
in America should worry about
what’s happening in Camden.”
Backing the plan are Camden’s
mayor and six of seven city council members — all Democrats
— together with the Democraticcontrolled Camden County Board
of Freeholders, which represents
the county’s 400,000 residents.
Those involved say New Jersey’s
Republican Gov. Chris Christie has
also been a crucial force behind
the proposal. In interviews and
town hall meetings over the past
two years, Christie has repeatedly denounced the Camden police
contract as “obscene” and described the county police plan as
a common-sense measure to bring
down public safety costs during
tough economic times.
“The taxpayers of New Jersey
aren’t going pay any more for Camden’s excesses,” Christie said in a
2011 in ѕ