How do the “Pigs” use their piggy bank

Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com

Most people imagine their tax payer money going to machine guns and birthday cakes for the station, but most will be surprised to see the spectrum of programs and products spent on by the police. It is important to know that the vast majority of police departments' scarce budgets go towards paying police officer's and not purchasing military grade weapons.

Evidence of how an average department spend it’s funding can be found within a case study of the Saint louis's police department’s budget. The budget was released to the general public through the board of public safety. Within the released budget of 134 million, the police department spent the money on (1) labor and personal benefits which was 87% of the budget (2) physical supplies such as uniforms, gas, bullets, etc represented 2% of the budget (3) physical assets like buildings and cars were 3% of the budget (4)  programs and special events like training and investigation expenses accounted for remaining 8%.

I think this breakdown of police spending has shown us that a significant amount of the money the department receives goes to labor. In addition, it’s clear that most department’s aren't spending a large amount of their budget on the militarizing or modernizing their officers. Therefore any budget cuts will most likely affect the amount of employees hired by the department and the benefits they receive for their labor. This change in labor and employment could have an impact on the effectiveness of the police.

My future research will look to answer the question: In what ways do the police waste the money they receive from their budget.