Clearly not an optimistic view of the near-future — last week, from the best news source up here on California’s north shoreline, the Lost Coast Outpost:

When a security alarm went off a little after 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 10, at Trim Scene Solutions, she says, there were no Humboldt County Sheriff deputies available to respond to the situation.
For three hours, first one suspect and then a second, who joined him later, took their time stealing items from her business.
Law enforcement, she said, was unable to respond to the alarm and discover the burglary while it was in progress.

(Illustration above found here).

Details of the whole story at the link — a three-hour burglary — and the major crux in the tale.
Lt. Wayne Hanson of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office: “Staffing levels are at critical mass. Sometimes there are only six deputies on at night to cover over two million acres.”
Beyond the normal absences, leaves and whatnot (a couple of deputies out as result of a shooting earlier this month), the culprit is money: And, he said, because of funding issues, there are 16 frozen deputy positions. Because of the monetary situation at the County level, the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have the money to hire people to fill some vacated positions, Hanson pointed out.

Pretty-much wilderness territory up here, except for spots along the coast, most of the area is unincorporated — my little town is in the county, utilities through a community services district, and cop/fireman via the county.
Although renown for marijuana cultivation, the place is awash with really-bad shit, like heroin and meth — freak-heads of all types and descriptions, which makes for not only more crime, but asshole-dumb-ass crime.
Like the above shopping spree/burglary.