Prevalence, Form, and Function of Consolidated Public Safety Departments in the United States

• Author: Clifford A. Grammich,Jeremy M. Wilson
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1525107117744349
• Subject Matter: Research Articles

Research Article

Prevalence, Form, and

Function of Consolidated

Public Safety Departments

in the United States

Jeremy M. Wilson

1

and Clifford A. Grammich

1

Abstract

Most communities in the United States provide fire and police services through

separate departments, but some operate a single consolidated one for police, fire, and,

frequently, emergency medical services. The number of such public safety depart-

ments has grown in recent years, but little systematic research has been done on

them. This article presents results of a census and subsequent survey of public safety

departments in the United States to examine their prevalence, form, and function. It

reviews characteristics of their distribution, capabilities and structure, staffing and

management, budget, and approach to community policing. It concludes by identifying

future research needs.

Keywords

police, fire, public safety consolidation

Most communities in the United States provide fire and police services through

separate departments. Nevertheless, some, often for reasons of efficiency or cost

effectiveness, operate a single consolidated public safety department providing police,

fire, and, frequently, emergency medical services (EMS). Such departments, though

receiving increasing attention and growing in numbers in recent years, are not new.

Previous discourse on them has largely focused on the extent of consolidation and its

potential costs and benefits. Possibly because of the lack of comprehensive data on

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

Justice Research and Policy

2017, Vol. 18(1) 3-23

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1525107117744349

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them, little research has systematically examined the administrative features of these

departments.

This article provides the necessary first step in systematic research on consolidated

public safety departments and their characteristics. After reviewing public safety

consolidation and its forms, it provides a brief history of such departments. It then

discusses efforts to create the first census of public safety departments in the United

States to determine their prevalence and a survey of their characteristics to examine

their form and function. Among features we discuss of these departments are their

distribution, capabilities and structure, staffing and management, budget, and

approach to community policing. We seek to identify ways in which departments

may compare with one another as well as common characteristics they may share.

Contextual Review

What Is Public Safety Consolidation?

Police departments have engaged in many forms of consolidation. These may include

mergers of departments to cover wider areas or functional consolidation in which two

or more departments combine units, such as communications. Public safety consoli-

dation is a form of local merger that, as noted, integrates police, fire, and, in many

instances, EMS into a single department. Past research (Lynch & Lord, 1979; More,

1970; Wilson & Grammich, 2012) has tended to identify public safety departments as

having nominal, partial, or full consolidation (Table 1).

Nominally consolidated public safety departments in this typology usually do not

have integrated police and fire services, nor do they have cross-trained public safety

personnel trained in multiple services (e.g., both police and fire training). Rather, their

consolidation is limited to the chief executive or a public safety director who oversees

separate police and fire divisions within a single department. These departments may

maintain shared facilities, training, or dispatch resources between divisions. Partially

consolidated departments in this typology may have a limited integration of police and

Table 1. Characteristics of Public Safety Departments by Type.

Type

Command and

Management Consolidation

Police–Fire Service

Integration Cross-Training

Nominal Generally limited to chief

executive

Little to none Little to none

Partial Within administrative ranks Partial Cross-trained public safety

officers exist alongside

separate functional

personnel

Full Complete, with single

structure rather than

separate police and fire

divisions

Complete, with cross-

trained public safety

officers performing all

duties

Complete

4Justice Research and Policy 18(1)