"Least objectionable candidate".....Therein lies the problem. Either they're worth hiring or they're not. If you don't have anyone worth hiring you can either attract better people or close up shop. That's how it works for regular businesses and there's no reason a police department should be any different.
FWIW-I've never seen a community served by a three man department that wouldn't have been better off without a department at all.
Bingo. There it is. I was thinking the same thing two pages back but you beat me to it with a better summary than I could have provided. The problem in rural areas that don't have a lot of income not provided by agriculture, is that they are too freaking poor to hire somebody decent. In the absence of decency, nothing is preferable to something since by definition, that something is indecent.
