Rutgers Professor Wayne Fisher Weighs In On The Camden Plan For A County-Wide Police Force

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Camden County is in the process of trying to put together a county-wide police force, but an expert says it's a tough-sell in most areas of the state.

The prime mover in the Camden County plan is Camden City having so little money so it's laid off police. These pressures are mounting in other communities, says Wayne Fisher, Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers and director of the Police Institute there, but county police is a big, jarring jump from local.

"I will be very surprised if it occurs to a large extent statewide. I would be more inclined to think we'd see groups of municipalities realizing that it's a good way to go," says Fisher.

In many states, mostly in the West and South, countywide police forces are common, but Professor Fisher says they don't have the deeply ingrained tradition of municipal government of New Jersey.

He sees Somerset and Sussex Counties as good bets for county police forces because they are relatively homogeneous.

Reported By John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio