The other day I was flipping through the cable channels and came across the movie “Colors” with Robert Duvall and Sean Penn. The movie is all about two Los Angeles police officers working in the Gang Unit. They deal with generational, entrenched gang issues in certain neighborhoods, and the overall tone of the movie is how hopeless and difficult reducing gang violence can be.
The United States has a very different law enforcement system than almost any other country in the world. While most other countries have a central or national police force, we have more than a whopping 17,000 separate local police departments. People from other countries think this is inefficient and outmoded. But, the reason we have so many departments is for one simple reason—local control.
