Small towns adjusting to life without police depts.

This just in from PoliceOne.com: "It's a crime what City Hall did last month, some residents of this town say.

But eliminating the entire police department — chief and all — is just a sign of these penny-pinching times, according to law enforcement experts.

That's little comfort to Cleo Brewer and other townsfolk, many of them retired and living on fixed incomes.

"No one wants to say their town doesn't have a police force. It's an invitation for trouble," said Brewer, owner of the Western Cafe, a popular eatery that has been tempting patrons with its catfish plate specials for 25 years.

Other residents of this relatively quiet town of 1,100 say the city simply had no choice.

For several years now across the country, rural towns like Kemp have been disbanding their police departments because they can't afford them anymore. While the overall number of law enforcement agencies in the nation went up from 2004 to 2008 — the latest years for which national statistics were available — smaller departments with fewer than 10 officers dipped about 2.3 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics ..."

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