Walking around this once-beautiful city is now profoundly depressing. Instead of exemplifying a free society, Washington is now a monument to fear. Closed streets, concrete barriers, guards at every building, police officers capriciously ordering citizens to show their papers and submit to searches.
The nation’s capital has the oppressive feel of a police state for good reason: It may well be the most over-policed city in the world.
According to the Department of Justice, nationwide there are 36 federal law enforcement agents per 100,000 residents. In some states, that number is fewer than 10. In Washington, D.C., it is 1,700. New York state — with 54,000 square miles and almost 20 million people — has thousands fewer federal officers than the District has with a population of only 588,000.
Obviously, Washington has a high number of federal agents because it is home to the federal government. But the number is so absurdly disproportionate because fear is a catalyst for power. Agencies can expand their size and budgets by claiming the need for expanded security.
It’s difficult to see how the problem can ever resolve itself when lawmakers and the president are the worst offenders. Congress now provides for itself a 1,600-member Capitol Police force — three officers for every legislator.
How many other citizens have 3-to-1 police protection? The Secret Service has 1,300 uniformed officers and probably another 2,000 special agents in Washington. By any measure, that is overkill.
Additionally, the District of Columbia has 3,800 sworn officers in the Metropolitan Police Department. A separate force — the D.C. Housing Authority Police Department — serves the city’s housing projects. The city’s Officeof Property Management has a Protective Services Division that polices the District’s buildings.
Federal buildings not only have their own protective service; many of them have their own police forces. A 2006 survey by the Government Accountability Office found, for example, that the Supreme Court had a police force of 139; the Library of Congress had a force of 110. The Smithsonian’s Office of Protection Services numbered 787. The U.S. Mint Police had 352 officers (though not all are stationed in D.C.).
In 2002 the General Services Administration reported a uniformed police force of 140; the Justice Department said it was guarded by 173. The Government Printing Office had a police force of 52, presumably to defend against miscreants scheming to heist pamphlets. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency has almost 500 officers, ostensibly to protect the military.
Not surprisingly, with so many police forces, there is duplication. The 500 Park Police officers who are supposed to guard the city’s monuments also work as traffic cops on the George Washington Parkway (i.e., revenue enhancement), act as escorts for Vice President Dick Cheney (isn’t that the Secret Service’s job?) and help with dignitary protection. That’s another role of the Secret Service, although it is sometimes duplicated by the 1,450-member Diplomatic Security Service.
In addition, many of the estimated 4,700 U.S. Marshals are on patrol in Washington. The Metro Transit Police has a force of 526. Even the National Institutes of Health has 90 law enforcement officers.
Of course, part of the reason for the burgeoning police presence is that no one can bear to be thought of as so unimportant that he isn’t a target for terrorists. But please: Most Americans couldn’t pick the secretary of transportation out of a lineup. It’s hard to believe she needs eight officers for “executive protection” — or that the Federal Reserve Board chairman is in such grave danger that he needs a “protection unit” staff of 18.
There is not space enough in this column to list all the police forces in Washington, which represent staggering costs to taxpayers. In addition to the generous salaries paid to most of them — a private first class with 30 months of service on the Capitol Police force earns $60,187 a year, for instance — there is the cost of health insurance for them and their families, other benefits, and retirement pensions.
No one is made any safer by wasteful and duplicative police forces. They do not diminish the threat of terrorism; rather, they create a threat of their own. Nothing jeopardizes freedom more than unchecked expansion of police powers.
