Consolidation of Police and Fire Services in the United States

• Author: Clifford A. Grammich,Jeremy M. Wilson
• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567717698012
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Consolidation of Police and

Fire Services in the

United States

Jeremy M. Wilson

1

and Clifford A. Grammich

1

Abstract

More than 100 municipalities across the United States have consolidated their police, fire, and

emergency medical services into a single, consolidated agency. Typical reasons for such con-

solidation are to reduce costs or improve efficiency. As initial reasons to consolidate change or

diminish, some agencies have deconsolidated, but many remained consolidated. In this work, we use

perspectives of contingency theory and institutional theory of organizations to explore why agencies

may remain consolidated. Using a mixed-methods approach, we first recruited two expert panels of

consolidated agency leaders and others knowledgeable about consolidation and deconsolidation

across the United States. From these experts, we gathered insight into a broad range of issues

related to public-safety consolidation. We then conducted a series of seven case studies among

communities chosen for their location and community features, interviewing agency executives and

line staff as well as local officials. We found contingency theory helps explain why many of these

agencies consolidate. We also found, as institutional theory would predict, that many conformed to

standards of other bodies or even created their own “cultural” standards. This work highlights the

importance of both theoretical perspectives in assessing the growth and persistence of these

agencies.

Keywords

police, fire, public-safety consolidation, contingency theory, institutional theory

Introduction

In recent years, local governments have struggled to maintain public-safety services. Five years

after the “Great Recession,” most U.S. municipalities had not returned to their prior revenue and

employment levels (House, 2013). Such problems persisted for police and fire services, the second

largest category of expenditures for U.S. local government (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). A recent

1

School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jeremy M. Wilson, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road, 560 Baker Hall, East Lansing,

MI 48824, USA.

Email: jwilson@msu.edu

International CriminalJustice Review

2017, Vol. 27(3) 203-221

ª2017 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567717698012

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Police Executive Research Forum (PERF, 2014) survey found three in four U.S. police agencies

expect continuing budget cuts and force reductions.

In the face of such challenges, many local police agencies have implemented hiring freezes,

layoffs, furloughs, or even disbandment (Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2011;

Melekian, 2012; PERF, 2010; Wilson, Dalton, Scheer, & Grammich, 2010). Others have explored

differing modes of service delivery, greater sharing of services with other communities, contracting

for services, and merging of agencies (Chermak,Scheer,&Wilson,2014;Wilson,Weiss,&

Grammich, 2016; Wilson & Grammich, 2012, 2017).

One approach that has grown in the recent years is consolidating police, fire, and emergency

medical services into a single “public-safety” agency. There are now more than 130 such agencies in

the United States; about one in four of these have been established in the past decade (Wilson, Hollis,

& Grammich, 2016). While less documented elsewhere, consolidated public-safety agencies have

also been extant in Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom (International Association of

Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs, n.d.; Morley & Hadley, 2013; Rosen,

2010). Indeed, in the United Kingdom, the Cameron (2015) government has called for “police, fire

and ambulance services to work more closely together to save money and improve their

effectiveness.”

While the number of such agencies is growing, several have deconsolidated over time (Wilson &

Grammich, 2015). Among reasons cited for deconsolidation has been the need for greater specia-

lization, particularly in growing areas or those with significant homeland-security duties, the failure

to reflect changing community characteristics, and the need for administrative streamlining. Such

deconsolidations pose a question for consolidated agencies: Why do they persist?

This article explores why communities have maintained consolidated public-safety agencies. It

explores the extent to which two types of organizational theory—contingency theory and institu-

tional theory—may explain the origins and persistence of consolidated public-safety agencies. We

review seven communities that consolidated their police and fire services between the 1950s and

1980s. The decades since in these communities provide a sufficient time period to explore the

challenges such agencies have faced, including, for some, protracted transition periods. The lessons

of this work can help communities that have adopted, or are considering, the model understand how

it may best function.

We begin with a review of previous research on the origins and operations of public-safety

agencies and their place within the context of research on police organization. We then summarize

our methods for this research, including our approach to selecting and exploring our case-study

communities and what we learned from them. We conclude with lessons from our case studies for

other communities and police organization research, suggesting directions for future work.

Literature Review

History and Forms of Public-Safety Consolidation

Public-safety consolidation dates back to ancient Rome, when city wat chmen executed both

firefighting and law enforcement duties (Morley & Hadley, 2013). In the 19th-century Britain,

special constables provided both police and fire services; this practice persisted until World War

II, when, faced with the fire bombings of the war, Parliament nationalized and separated police and

fire services (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs,

n.d.). Similarly, both Germany and Japan had consolidated police and fire service until after World

War II, when the Allies, deeming such a combination undesirable, reorganized and separated police

and firefighting activities (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association

of Fire Chiefs, n.d.).

204 International Criminal Justice Review 27(3)