About Pennsylvania Constables

Pennsylvania constables are locally elected law enforcement officers who serve their communities directly — carrying out court orders, maintaining public order, and protecting the ballot box. They are self-funded, voter-accountable, and historically foundational to how Pennsylvania organizes law enforcement.

A Record Older Than the Commonwealth

William Penn established constables as officers of county government in 1683 — before Pennsylvania was a Commonwealth. Royal governors required constables alongside Justices and Sheriffs to enforce the law through the colonial period, and a century later Pennsylvania's own civics textbooks described the constable as "the chief executive officer of the township," responsible for maintaining peace and order.

That foundational role is not merely historical. When Pennsylvania created its State Police in 1905, the legislature explicitly granted them "the powers and prerogatives conferred by law upon...constables of this Commonwealth" — acknowledging that constable authority is the original baseline from which the rest of Pennsylvania law enforcement derives. Philadelphia police derive their powers from the same foundation: the 1951 Philadelphia Home Rule Charter grants them "all the powers conferred by law upon constables of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

In short: constables did not borrow their authority from the state police. It worked the other way around.

What the Law Authorizes Constables to Do

Under 44 Pa.C.S. Chapter 71, Pennsylvania constables are full law enforcement officers with authority to:

• Make warrantless arrests for felonies and breaches of the peace
• Execute warrants for courts throughout the Commonwealth
• Serve civil process — summonses, judgments, and orders of possession
• Transport and hold prisoners for the courts
• Provide courthouse security
• Keep order at election polls — constables are the only law enforcement officers the law permits inside polling places on Election Day
• Direct traffic: under 75 Pa.C.S. § 3102, no person may willfully refuse to comply with any lawful order of a uniformed constable

Pennsylvania law explicitly authorizes constables to carry firearms (18 Pa.C.S. § 6106(b)(1) exempts them from the concealed carry licensing requirement). Federal courts have confirmed that constables exercising arrest authority act "under color of state law" — the same constitutional standard applied to municipal police (Galluze v. Miller, W.D. Pa. 2012). Pennsylvania courts have confirmed that constables also retain common law arrest authority for breaches of the peace that predates and supplements their statutory powers (Commonwealth v. Allen, Pa. Super. 2019). And the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that constables are members of the executive branch because their "function is law enforcement" (Miller v. County of Centre, 173 A.3d 1162 (Pa. 2017)).

Accountability comes with that authority. Constables are subject to constitutional accountability the same as any law enforcement officer.

Training: Rigorous, Ongoing, and Self-Funded

Constables are trained through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) — the same agency that trains sheriffs and deputy sheriffs. Under Act 49, no constable may perform judicial duties without completing mandatory training:

• 80 hours initial basic training
• 40 hours initial firearms training
• 20 hours annual continuing education
• 20 hours annual firearms recertification

The curriculum covers criminal and civil law and procedure, the unified court system, court security, prisoner transport, mechanics of arrest, crisis intervention, management of aggressive behavior, use of force, defensive tactics, chemical aerosol, professional ethics, and firearms qualification. The PCCD firearms qualification requires 60 rounds at 75% accuracy — comparable to the municipal police standard.

Beyond the state mandate, most constables invest substantially in additional private training throughout the year — active shooter response, CPR and bleeding control, tactical emergency casualty care, search and rescue, community policing, domestic violence response, FEMA emergency management, and more. Every hour of that training and every dollar it costs comes out of the constable's own pocket.

Equipment: Paid for by the Constable

There is no municipal budget allocation for constable equipment. Every piece of gear a constable carries — badge, duty belt, body armor, firearm and ammunition, radio, and transport vehicle — is purchased and maintained at the constable's own expense.

The transport vehicle is not optional. AOPC standards require constable vehicles used for prisoner transport to meet visual and functional equivalency standards comparable to police and sheriff vehicles, including a prisoner cage. A vehicle meeting those standards, combined with the rest of the duty kit, routinely costs more than $10,000 out of pocket before a constable performs a single service.

This is a recurring cost, not a one-time investment. Equipment wears out. Vehicles need maintenance. Training standards require current gear. Constables absorb all of it — while being paid a per-service fee that the legislature has not updated to keep pace with inflation.

How Constables Are Paid — and What They Pay

Constables are not salaried employees of any government body. They are paid per service performed under a fee schedule set by the Pennsylvania General Assembly (44 Pa.C.S. Chapter 71). That fee schedule has not kept pace with inflation, and it never included benefits: no health insurance, no pension, no sick leave, no workers' compensation.

At the same time, constables bear all the costs of running the office themselves — training, equipment, vehicles, insurance, and the professional liability insurance that Pennsylvania law requires them to carry (44 Pa.C.S. § 7142). The IRS classifies constable fee income as self-employment income, adding a 15.3% self-employment tax burden on top of ordinary income taxes.

The picture that emerges is straightforward: the Commonwealth relies on constables to perform essential court, public-order, and election functions, while offloading the full cost of performing those functions onto the constables personally. Pennsylvania gets professional law enforcement services; constables get a fee schedule written a generation ago.

Constables in Pennsylvania Today

Without constables, many rural communities throughout Pennsylvania would lose their only practical local law enforcement presence. Their reach extends to every township, borough, and ward in the Commonwealth — a coverage network that no other Pennsylvania law enforcement entity can replicate at that local level of accountability.