There’s a good chance that your local beat cop doesn’t even live in the city they patrol—they likely commute out to the suburbs when their shift is over. To counter this pattern, some law enforcement agencies actually require officers to live in the city where they work. The controversial practice dates back more than a century, but the effectiveness of these laws is questionable, and they are largely being left out of the current conversation about reforming America’s police.
This story originally aired on Life of the Law in September 2015.