HONESDALE, PA — As aggressive police tactics come under increasing scrutiny elsewhere in the nation, Honesdale faces an entirely different scenario: long police response times, insufficient police manpower response, and sometimes no police response at all. It’s not a matter of slackness, though. It’s a matter of overwork.

Police Chief Rick Southerton, who has recently been forced to cancel some shifts for lack of manpower, told the Honesdale Borough Council at its July 11 meeting that he had a lot to say about the chronic, critical understaffing of his department; the council asked him to confine the bulk of his remarks to executive session later that night.

Southerton managed to say that he has invoked a new policy, effective immediately, limiting part-time officers to two eight-hour shifts per week. The change comes in response to complaints from his crew that fellow officers are asleep on the job. By that, they didn’t mean distracted or inattentive on the job. They were talking about officers sound asleep in their vehicles, oblivious to calls for response, backup and assistance.

Far from faulting those officers for dereliction of duty, Southerton praised them for their public spirit, noting that almost all of them are dedicated and experienced full-time law enforcement officers working 40-plus hours per week in neighboring or overlapping jurisdictions. Most, said Southerton, are motivated by a desire to help Honesdale out in a pinch, not for self-serving ends.

Southerton justified his policy of limiting part-time officer hours by pointing out that the consequences of falling asleep on a job requiring high levels of alertness and constant vigilance can be tragic. But that action also exacerbates the current shortage of borough police officers, a challenge so severe that Southerton himself has been forced to work back-to-back shifts when an officer fails to report.

Although the council unanimously approved hiring two additional part-time officers, each starting at $15 per hour, it is a short-term fix only.

“I can’t go on working double shifts indefinitely,” said Southerton, who originally accepted the former council’s job offer of police commissioner, a largely administrative role. Since then, the job has been reclassified as police chief, requiring him to spend a minimum of 40 hours per week as a working officer, in addition to considerable administrative duties.

In private remarks before the executive session began, Southerton said that, among other police department issues to be considered that night would be whether or not he would continue to serve as a working officer. His paramount concern, however, is public safety. “If the public knew how shorthanded we really are, people would hesitate to attend a concert in the park.”