Promising Strategies from the Field: Spotlight on Sheriffs · Promising Strategies From The Field...

U.S. Department of JusticeOffice of Community Oriented Policing Services

www.cops.usdoj.gov

Promising Strategies from the Field

Spotlight onSheriffs

Acknowledgements

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AcknowledgmentsThe COPS Innovations Promising Strategies from the Field series is acollaborative effort among the Institute for Law and Justice, local lawenforcement agencies, and the Office of Community Oriented PolicingServices (COPS Office). At the COPS Office, Amy Schapiro managedthe project and Noah Teates and Kelly Tapp edited the document forpublication.

The project team also wishes to thank the following agencies for theirparticipation in this project: Orange County Chiefs and Sheriffs'Association (CA), Leon County Sheriff's Office (FL), Rogers CountySheriff's Office (OK), Sacramento County Sheriff's Department (CA),Mohave County Sheriff's Office (AZ), and East Baton Rouge Sheriff'sOffice (LA). Without their time and cooperation we would not havebeen able to showcase their work.

Promising Strategies from the Field:Spotlight on Sheriffs

This project was supported through cooperative agreement #2001-CK-WX-K092 by the U.S. Department of Justice Office ofCommunity Oriented Policing Services. The opinions contained inthis document are those of the author and do not necessarilyrepresent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Section Page

Letter from the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Innovative Uses of COPS Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Orange County Gangs Up on Gang Violence . . . . . . . . 3

Leon County Makes MORE Time for

Community Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Rogers County Hauls Down Trailer Theft . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Sacramento Communicates MORE Effectively. . . . . . . 17

Mohave SROs Go Back to School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

East Baton Rouge Takes It To The Streets . . . . . . . . . . 25

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

TellCOPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Letter from the Director

The Office of Community Oriented PolicingServices (the COPS Office) is pleased tocontinue this new COPS Innovations:Promising Strategies from the Field seriesfeaturing COPS grantees from around thecountry. As a former sheriff, I'm pleased to beable to give you this special edition of thenew series that focuses specifically on howsheriffs across the nation are leveraging COPSgrants to advance community policing andmake their communities safer.

COPS programs fund efforts to make communities safer by addingcommunity policing officers and deputies to our streets and schools,investing in crime-fighting technologies, supporting innovative policingpractices, and fostering strong problem-solving partnerships. This serieshighlights community policing practices among COPS grantees. COPShopes that sharing these approaches will allow other jurisdictions tolearn from, replicate, and improve upon these innovative communitypolicing strategies.

The sheriffs' offices represented in this edition of Promising Strategiesfrom the Field are just a sampling of the 16,000 grants COPS hasawarded to sheriffs' offices since 1994. COPS grants not only helpreduce violent crime, they also help law enforcement address persistentquality of life issues.

This COPS Innovations series is one more way in which the COPSOffice reaches out to the field to provide information and resources thatwill benefit your agency. Please note that the Promising Strategies fromthe Field project is ongoing, and we welcome hearing from you aboutyour agency's accomplishments. To do so, please email my staff [email protected]. All of us at COPS appreciate the opportunity toshare our grantees' successes and help law enforcement keep everycommunity in America safe.

Carl R. PeedDirector

Office of Community Oriented Policing Servicesiii

Promising Strategies From The FieldSpotlight on Sheriffs

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Introduction

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) hasinvested more than $9 billion to implement and enhance communitypolicing efforts in tribal, state, and local jurisdictions since 1994. Overthose eight years, COPS issued more than 35,500 grants to more than12,800 agencies across the United States. These grants tackle importantand immediate needs of communities across America through 27innovative grant programs. COPS' Making Officer RedeploymentEffective (MORE) grants help agencies increase the number of officerson the street who can engage in community policing activities. TheCOPS in Schools (CIS) grant program places law enforcementprofessionals in schools to work on a variety of issues and fostercommunity partnerships. COPS has provided nearly $6 billion inassistance to tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies throughthese three programs alone.

Other COPS grant programs focus more narrowly on specific issues.For example, COPS funded agencies facing significant gang-relatedproblems in their communities in 1996. COPS funds helped smallcommunities retain COPS-funded officers through the SmallCommunity Grant Program in 1998. COPS Tribal Resources GrantProgram (TRGP) has helped tribal law enforcement agencies keep theircommunities safer since 1999.

COPS funding has made a difference. By working to put more lawenforcement officers on the street, the COPS Office increased thenumber of officers actively engaged in community policing activities.According to the Law Enforcement Management and AdministrativeStatistics Survey (LEMAS), about 22,000 officers practiced communitypolicing in 1997. That number rose more than five-fold by 1999. Otherresearch conducted by the University of Nebraska (2001) suggests thatCOPS hiring programs have helped to make a significant reduction inlocal crime rates in cities with populations greater than 10,000.

Promising Strategies From The Field

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In addition to these grant programs, COPS works hard to delivercommunity policing training and technical assistance to America's state,local, and tribal law enforcement professionals and the communitiesthey serve. COPS funds a national network of Regional CommunityPolicing Institutes, providing innovative community policing training tolaw enforcement officers, other government agencies, and communitymembers. More than 216,000 people have taken advantage of thistraining. COPS also funds the Community Policing Consortium, whichis made up of five of the leading police organizations in the U.S. andhas provided technical assistance to more than 5,000 law enforcementagencies across the country.

The stories that follow highlight the projects of six sheriffs' offices whofound innovative uses for COPS funding. As more agencies report backon their progress in implementing COPS-funded community policingstrategies, this series will showcase those efforts. The COPS Officehopes that in presenting them that others may benefit from theseexperiences, and that other agencies can learn from, replicate, andimprove on these promising strategies.


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Innovative Uses of COPS Funding

Orange County Gangs Up on Gang Violence

A 1996 COPS grant helped the Orange County Chiefs and Sheriffs'Association (OCCSA) assess its response to a surge in gang violence.Orange County, California became aware of an escalating gang problemin the early 1990s. The OCCSA established a countywide, multi-agencyGang Strategy Steering Committee to respond to this problem in 1992.This Committee's goal was to determine the extent, nature, anddistribution of gang crime in Orange County. One key element of thatproject was the development of a centralized database known as theGang Incident Tracking System (GITS) in 1993, to which county lawenforcement agencies report all gang-related incidents. A 1996 COPSgrant helped OCCSA partner with the University of California, Irvine(UCI) to assess this response by evaluating both the Committee'seffectiveness and the GITS database's usefulness as a law enforcementmanagement and research tool. The project began with a Memorandumof Understanding (MOU) that clearly identified the mutual goals andresponsibilities of all participants.


Orange County's gang-related problems were far reaching and rangedfrom prosecutable crimes to analysis and monitoring difficulties. Gang-

related crime was increasing both in terms offrequency and violence, and law enforcementlacked sufficiently detailed information aboutthe nature, extent, and location of gang crimethroughout the county. It was also difficult tomaintain consistent, uniform reporting of gangcrime by 23 law enforcement agencies in 31cities and unincorporated areas, and evenmore difficult to track changes in gang crimeover time and across jurisdictional boundaries.Perhaps the most significant issue was thelack of analytical resources and expertise tofully evaluate and monitor the effectiveness ofnew gang prevention and suppressionprograms.

A COPS grant helped the OCCSA address thefollowing key project objectives:

Determine how completely, accurately, andreliably Orange County law enforcementagencies measure illegal gang activity

Identify ways to improve collection of dataon gangs and gang incidents

Increase the usefulness of this informationfor community policing efforts

Analyze GITS data to better understand the nature and distributionof gang incidents

Use GITS data to test the effectiveness of various gang suppressionand prevention efforts

Increase the ability of law enforcement and community agencies tomore effectively coordinate their work to control gang violence

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Anti-Gang Initiative

The Anti-GangInitiative was created tohelp law enforcementagencies address gang-related violence, drugproblems, and fear intheir cities andneighborhoods. COPSprovided funding to 15jurisdictions in 1996 tohelp them developinnovative programsand strategies thatincluded buildingpartnerships betweencommunities andschools, usinggeographic informationsystems to identify ganghotspots, and enforcingcurfew and truancyregulations.


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COPS funds helped UCI meet each of these goals. UCI's FocusedResearch Group on Gangs is a team of faculty and graduate studentresearchers that provided the skills and tools to analyze GITS data. UCIsupplied the computer hardware and software needed to analyze theGITS data, performed that analysis, and helped OCCSA prepare reportsof regional and individual agency data. It also advised OCCSA on theinterpretation, analysis, and policy implications of GITS data andapplied geographical information systems (GIS) analysis to GITS data.

Approach/Methods

UCI's Focused Research Group on Gangs began by assessing theaccuracy and reliability of the GITS database. Every law enforcementagency in the county already reported information on gang incidentsmonthly to the centralized database. UCI researchers initially sought toensure that definitions of gang membership, gang activity, gang-relatedness of incidents, and other categories for reporting gang activitywere being applied in the same way by all agencies. They conductedregular visits to all 23 county law enforcement agencies to ensurecomplete and accurate gang incident data collection and reviewed theprocess by which each law enforcement agency collected GITS data.Researchers also interviewed law enforcement supervisors and went on50 hours of ride-alongs with eight gang units to observe gang incidentdata collection in the field. These experiments resulted in a newlyrevised GITS data form that was adopted in 1996.

UCI researchers then used GIS to translate GITS data into crime mapsthat showed the relationships between the social, demographic,ecological, and geographical correlates of gang activity. They used thesemaps to determine the location of "hot spots" of gang activity in OrangeCounty. This information helped law enforcement agencies judgewhether they were targeting the most volatile areas of their jurisdictions.Finally, the UCI researchers evaluated the usefulness of the GITSdatabase for assessing the effectiveness of law enforcement responses togang activity in Orange County.


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Results

UCI's assessment of GITS led to several revisions of the data reportingform that improved data quality and usefulness. Researchers found thatreporting errors were infrequent overall, but when they did occur, theytended to under-report gang incidents rather than over-report them, assome critics had claimed. For example, contrary to concerns voiced bysome activists at the start of the project, it did not appear that lawenforcement professionals routinely labeled all young adult males whodressed in what seemed to be gang attire as gang members. Instead, theassessment concluded that officers and deputies were quite sophisticatedin making gang determinations. With regard to serious violent gangcrime, it appeared that GITS data generally were as reliable as thepolice reports from which they are derived.

In addition, the GITS database appeared to have great potential forguiding gang control policies and tactics. Analyses of GITS data provedhighly effective for determining hot spots of gang activity in OrangeCounty, and for evaluating the impact of gang enforcement efforts. Incontrast to traditional methods of gang enforcement assessment, such asexamining records for changes in arrests, prosecutions, convictions, andsentencing, the GITS database makes several more sophisticatedmethods of analysis possible. A gang enforcement team's efforts againsta particular gang, for example, can be examined. Gang enforcement


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teams can determine not only the annual numbers of incidentscommitted by specific gangs, but the nature and seriousness of thoseincidents as well. Finally, the countywide GITS data enablesenforcement teams to track a particular gang's activities acrossjurisdictions. This is important because targeting a gang in one city mayaffect its level of activity in other areas.

All partners continue to work together on gang enforcement issues longafter COPS project funding ended in 1998. GITS data have been used todevelop novel gang civil abatement approaches, analyze theeffectiveness of curfews, and study how gang incidents should bedefined and how best to predict where gang crime will occur. Teammembers integrated GITS into the Orange County node of the statewideCalGangs database in July of 2001.

Since the activities of street gangs seldom conform to the abstractjurisdictional boundaries, effective measures to prevent or suppressgang crime often must involve many different agencies, each of whichhas its own goals, political imperatives, and ways of doing business.Orange County's Gang Incident Tracking System shows that a regionaldata-sharing system can be developed and maintained, but that doing sorequires substantial forethought, commitment, and persistence on thepart of all participants. COPS is pleased to support efforts like OrangeCounty's that demonstrate so clearly the effectiveness of communitypolicing strategies.


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Leon County Makes MORE Time for Community Policing

A 1998 COPS MORE grant gave the Leon County Sheriff's Office(LCSO) the resources to improve the efficiency of its deputies so thatmore time could be spent on community policing. Leon County is hometo the city of Tallahassee, Florida's state capital. Tallahassee is also thecounty seat of Leon County and the county's only incorporated city. Thepopulation of Leon County's 702 square miles increased by almost 25percent to almost 240,000 during the 1990s. The large geographic areaand increasing population encouraged the LCSO to seek ways tomaximize the efficiency of its deputies. A COPS MORE grant helpedthe LCSO to do precisely that.


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LCSO staff determined that installing mobiledata computers (MDCs) in patrol vehicleswould save deputies time that could then beused to improve community policing efforts.The LCSO identified three primary objectives.

The LCSO needed to:

1) acquire a system that was sound, reliable,and expandable,

2) deploy MDCs capable of connecting withlocal, state, and national databases, and

3) effectively disseminate information todeputies in their vehicles so that theywould no longer need to commute to andfrom daily roll calls at the main office.

Approach/Methods

The LCSO carefully researched thetechnology surrounding mobile data terminalsby making site visits to law enforcementagencies throughout Florida, searching theInternet for relevant information, andreviewing technical periodicals. Researchersstudied the pros and cons of existingoperational systems to avoid making mistakes.The Sheriff's Office concluded that MDCs area natural and beneficial progression oftechnology as applied to law enforcement

communication. LCSO technologists selectedthe system best suited to their situation and prepared forimplementation.

LCSO staff then worked with information technology employees at thestate and local levels to set up inquiry access to the Criminal JusticeInformation Services (CJIS), the Florida Crime Information Center(FCIC), and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). The LCSOfound that as with any large project, the emphasis and direction changed

Making OfficerRedeployment Effective(MORE)

MORE grants cover upto 75 percent of the costof technologyacquisition, equipmentpurchases, or supportpersonnel salaries.MORE grants giveAmerican lawenforcementprofessionals tools thatallow them to spendmore time oncommunity policingactivities. COPS MOREgrants have providedmore than 4,500 lawenforcement agencies inexcess of one billiondollars to redeploy lawenforcementprofessionals intocommunity policingactivities since 1995.


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several times before final implementation. Project team members foundthat the plan improved each time it was revisited, and credit much of theproject's success to its flexibility and exhaustive research phase.

Results

COPS MORE funding allowed the Leon County Sheriff's Office topurchase a base system for wireless communications that was sound,reliable, and expandable. The Sheriff's Office started with 81 MDCs andhas successfully expanded the system in the following years. The MDCshave not only proven to be efficient, but also have made both deputiesand their communities safer by giving deputies better access to criminaljustice databases in the field. Information like that can help deputiesrespond most effectively to a given situation. MDCs also make it easierfor deputies to track and respond to community problems.

The LCSO tracked the hours saved by the MDCs with its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. During the grant period the LCSOcharted and reviewed this information on a monthly basis. MDCsallowed the LCSO to redeploy the equivalent of 15 full-time deputiesper year into the communities they serve. Deputies spent their newfoundtime in the community in a variety of ways, including walking intobusinesses to visit with owners and patrons, talking with citizens incommunity parks, and attending community events to speak on crimeprevention or to provide a law enforcement presence. The MDC systemcontinues to grow well after the expiration of the COPS grant. Theefficiency improvements MDCs offer allow deputies to spend muchmore time working directly in their communities.

COPS MORE grants help law enforcement agencies purchase andimplement the technologies they need to improve their communicationabilities and better serve their communities. The Leon County Sheriff'sOffice was able to do just that as new technology allowed deputies tospend more time practicing community policing in the communitiesthey serve. This kind of crime-fighting technology helps keep Americasafe as the challenges to law enforcement continue to evolve.


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Rogers County Hauls Down Trailer Theft

A 1997 Problem-Solving Partnership grant helped Oklahoma’s RogersCounty Sheriff's Office reduce trailer thefts. Theft of general livestock,horse, utility, and flatbed trailers increased significantly in RogersCounty during the mid-1990s. This problem adversely impacted thelivelihood and recreation of area residents and businesses. RogersCounty Sheriff's Office field deputies began to monitor the problemwhen they noticed unusually high numbers of trailer theft calls forservice. Thieves claimed more than 37 trailers during the first eightmonths of 1996 and only three were ever recovered. These theftsresulted in average losses of $2,500, but losses were as high as $35,000.


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Approach/Methods

The COPS Problem-Solving Partnerships grant allowed Rogers Countydeputies to review crime reports, conduct site visits to theft locations,speak with victims, and conduct a community survey. Theft reportsfrom 1996 and 1997 indicated that thefts of privately-owned equipmentusually occurred between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., while thefts ofcommercially-owned equipment usually occurred during the earlymorning hours–between midnight and 4 a.m. In 95 percent of the cases,the theft locations were remote but easily accessible to one of thecounty's four major highways.

Deputies discovered during site visits to theft locations and interviewswith victims that most trailers were stolen from open areas not visiblefrom residential dwellings. These locations proved to be tempting tothieves: they offered no means to secure a trailer, and little opportunityfor natural surveillance. Stolen trailers had usually been chained andpadlocked to the ground or a tree, which could be overcome with acommon bolt-cutter. A random community survey of 200 RogersCounty residents indicated that while most citizens had not been victimsof trailer theft, they were interested in protecting their property andrecovering it in the event of a theft.

While trailers might not seem concealable, it is extremely difficult todetermine legitimate ownership by their appearance. Stolen trailers arevery difficult to find at a private sale or auction in large part due to lackof legislated licensing or registration requirements. The small number oftrailers recovered led deputies to believe that they were being repaintedand sold at regional auctions.

Rogers County implemented a four-pronged response strategy in March1998.

Educating the Community: Sheriff's deputies attended meetingswith residents and members of organizations such as theCattleman's Association to make the community aware of the


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increase in trailer theft, identify at-risklocations, and discuss how new trackingand monitoring equipment could helpprevent thefts.

Harnessing New Technologies: TheRogers County Sheriff's Office offers theinstallation of tracking and monitoringmicrochips into at-risk property for a lowfee. Deputies install rice-grain-sizedmicrochip tracking devices into trailers atpublic clinics for only $35 per vehicle.Once installed in a trailer, these microchipdevices permanently identify the owner'sname and a description of the property,which is then entered in a police database.

Visually Archiving At-Risk Properties:Deputies also take photographs ofmicrochip-equipped trailers andequipment. This allows deputies tovisually confirm the identification oftrailers registered in the database andimmediately place pictures of stolenproperty onto the Internet when they arestolen. It also allows deputies to dispatchinformation quickly to neighboring lawenforcement agencies, auction organizers, and community members.

Publicizing the Project to Potential Offenders: The Sheriff'sOffice also warned trailer thieves and potential buyers of stolengoods through an extended media campaign. One press releasestated, "if a trailer is found in the possession of a person other thanthe owner without the owner's permission, that person will be goingto jail." This almost immediately detracted from the value of apotentially stolen trailers.

Problem-SolvingPartnership (PSP)

PSP grants promotepartnerships betweenlaw enforcement andother community-basedgroups to respond topersistent local crimeand disorder problems.PSP grants employproblem-solvingapproaches along theSARA model, and haveresponded to auto theft,prostitution, vandalism,and others problems.COPS awardedapproximately $37million in grant funds to454 jurisdictions in 47states to implementProblem-SolvingPartnership projects in1996.


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The Rogers County Sheriff's Office worked closely during this projectwith members of the Cattleman's Association, Professional RodeoCowboy Association, Quarter Horse Association, and the Farm Bureau,which serves as an insurance underwriter in many rural areas, to learnmore about the financial and emotional costs of trailer theft. Sheriff'sdeputies also worked with the members of these organizations to spreadthe word of the Office's response to the problem and to seek theirparticipation in the microchip program. National Microchip HorseRegistry technicians installed the microchips in the trailers, and themass media helped publicize the program throughout the state ofOklahoma.

Results

Trailer theft dropped 69 percent during the first year of the responseprogram. Trailer theft was virtually eliminated in Rogers County shortlythereafter. Only one trailer was stolen in 2000 and 2001, and the ownerof the stolen trailer had not participated in the Rogers County theftreduction program. The program has saved residents and the insurancecompanies serving Rogers County an estimated $300,000 since 1998.

Community participation in the program is strong–there is currently alist of over 100 trailers waiting to be registered and tagged. The successof the trailer program has led the Rogers County Sheriff's Office toexpand the installation of microchips to include tractors, recreationalvehicles, and all-terrain vehicles. Demand for the program is so highthat the Sheriff's Office is working to purchase a mobile microchipinstallation unit so that owners will no longer need to transport theirequipment to central locations for tagging. This mobile installation unitwill greatly increase the number of participants in the program and thetypes of property it can protect.

Collaborative partnerships and problem-solving projects are two coreelements of community policing. The Rogers County Sheriff's Officeproved once again how effective community policing strategies can be–Rogers County deputies essentially eliminated the targeted crimeproblem in a single year. COPS is pleased to support agencies like theRogers County Sheriff's Office as they work to keep their communitiessafer through community policing.


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Sacramento Communicates MORE Effectively

A series of COPS MORE grants enables the Sacramento CountySheriff's Department (SSD) to acquire and deploy several newtechnologies. The SSD serves a population of 1.2 million residents innorthern California. As the county's population and calls for servicegrew steadily over the past two decades, the SSD did not keep pacewith technologies to evaluate service needs and help deputies performtheir duties. The department expanded its community policing programin 2000 by decentralizing the patrol division to six district stationhouses, each located in the community it serves. Deputies were trainedto work with neighborhoods to solve recurring problems, but they oftendid not have the necessary resources.


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The department's aging computer-aideddispatch (CAD) system required considerabletime and funding to maintain. Even worse,data entry and retrieval for CAD and therecord management system (RMS) wereindependent and not user-friendly. Districtdeputies found it difficult to access crime andcalls for service (CFS) information. Crimeanalysis was available, but not in a timelymanner. It could take days for district deputiesto receive feedback from a written request forinformation, making it difficult for them toidentify recurring neighborhood problems.Older mobile terminals had limitedcapabilities. The SSD believed that betterintegrated information systems would greatlyimprove its service to citizens.

The SSD determined to improve the efficiencyand effectiveness of the department byintegrating new technologies. The SSDselected crime-fighting and time-savingtechnologies to give deputies more time topartner with residents to resolve neighborhoodproblems. The new technologies enabled theSSD to:

Upgrade information technology andbooking systems

Reduce response times to calls for service

Analyze the deployment of personnel within geographic boundariesof patrol districts

Provide deputies immediate access to CAD, DMV, and criminaldatabases

Offer Supervisors more effective tools to manage patrol personneland calls for service




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Improve access to crime analysis information for deputies

Deploy integrated portable information technologies

Approaches/Methods

COPS MORE grants in 1995, 1996, 1998, and 2001 enables the SSD toacquire and deploy several new technologies. The SSD used 1995COPS MORE funding to purchase off-the-shelf resource optimizationsoftware. This software helped the SSD reevaluate the boundaries of itssix patrol districts and the number of personnel assigned to each districtstation house. Station houses are full-service facilities that houserepresentatives from a variety of public safety organizations, including aDistrict Attorney for Community Prosecution and the CaliforniaHighway Patrol. These agencies work together with residents to resolveneighborhood problems.

The SSD partnered with several organizations to implement its grants.The Institute of Social Research at California State University,Sacramento conducted a community survey to evaluate publicperceptions of such issues as crime, fear of crime, and the SSD'sperformance. The Remote Access Network Board for SacramentoCounty (RAN Board), authorized by the California Penal Code,contributed more than $850,000 toward the matching funds portions ofthe SSD's COPS MORE projects.

COPS awarded the SSD its largest MORE grant in 1998 for thepurchase of 230 Mobile Data Computers (MDC'S). These MDC'sprovided deputies access to all CAD information and instantaneousresponses from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), theDepartment of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and criminal justice databaseinquires. This grant also funded the CAD and Records systems and anupgraded wireless network.

A 2001 grant is currently funding the SSD's deployment of 170 personaldigital assistants (PDAs) and the development of a super query that willgather information from multiple county systems. The PDAs will becapable of transferring communications and data-sharing to deputies toMDC's in their vehicles. CDMA technology will link MDCs with theagency's local area network (LAN), providing deputies access to email,


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training calendars, departmental policies and procedures, and otherdepartmental resources.

Results

COPS MORE funding led the SSD into the 21st century technologicallyand greatly improved its community policing and problem-solvingcapabilities. The resource optimization software helped redesign patrol'sgeographic boundaries and the number of personnel assigned to each ofthe six districts at a time when the department was expanding itscommunity policing program.

The SSD staff reports a high level of satisfaction: deputies appreciatedhow much easier new technologies made their jobs. MDC technologyhelped reduce response time and redeploy a great deal of time tocommunity policing activities Access to CAD and crime analysis givesdeputies and other agencies working at community resource centers theinformation and tools they need to partner with neighborhood residentsto solve problems. The SSD estimates that the MDC inquiries alonesave an estimated equivalent of more than 14 full time deputiesannually. Investigators also report saving time by using laptopcomputers at crime scenes. Improved crime analysis and CAD datagives deputies more accurate information to educate communitymembers at the monthly community policing meetings.

These overall time-savings allows the department to increase thenumber of the SSD's sworn staff deployed into community policingactivities, such as working with high school students and implementingproblem-oriented policing projects. The SSD reports that its efforts toimprove its services to the community are evidenced in the researchconducted by the Institute of Social Research at California StateUniversity, Sacramento. Current research shows the department enjoyshigh public approval ratings.

The SSD shows how COPS MORE grants can help American lawenforcement agencies improve their communication capabilities andmore effectively engage the communities they serve. As local lawenforcement faces new challenges, quick and effective communicationis imperative. Crime-fighting technologies help agencies like the SSDbetter serve their jurisdictions through community policing.


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Mohave SROs Go Back to School

A 1999 COPS in Schools grant helped Arizona's Mohave CountySheriff's Office (MCSO) bring two school resource officers (SROs) toits two local high schools. Mohave County consists of 13,500 squaremiles of essentially rural areas that include ranches, farms, and triballands, and 90 full-time sworn members of the MCSO serve more than60,000 citizens.

The tragedy at Columbine prompted the MCSO to assign patrol officersto each of the two high schools within its jurisdiction, Kingman andRiver Valley. The students' positive response to the officers led theschool districts and individual high schools to request that thearrangement be made permanent. SROs were the most effectiveresponse to persistent problems of school code violations, disorderlyconduct, criminal activity, unauthorized individuals on campus, andbomb threats.


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SROs were given considerable flexibility inthis project. Mohave SROs focus onidentifying and addressing emerging trendsbefore they become problems. By fostering abetter understanding of the SRO role as botheducator and law enforcement professional,the SROs built strong working relationshipswith both students and staff that enabled themto more quickly resolve problems. Patrolofficers now refer all school-related calls forservice to SROs. SROs are solely responsiblefor incidents that occur on campus, on buses,at bus stops, and in areas traveled betweenhome and school.

Responses

SROs needed to focus first on increasingschool safety. Each officer developed a safetyplan with his respective site council, whichconsists of teachers, students, parents, andschool administrators. The safety planassessed both the school climate and the entire

campus, using such tools as Crime PreventionThrough Environmental Design (CPTED), aerial photography, andinterviews. The SROs developed safety products like crisis kits andemergency procedure pocket cards, which offer guidance in case ofevacuation.

The SRO at Kingman High School created and monitors a "SilentWitness" telephone hotline program. This hotline has helped resolvecriminal acts including several bomb threats. Kingman's SRO alsoworked to place metal detectors at the school entrance, require studentsand staff to wear visible identification cards, change the schoolcrosswalks to create one main entryway onto school grounds, andconstruct a student checkpoint. All students must enter through the maingate and present proper identification before proceeding to the frontdoors. Backpacks, coats, and persons are examined with metal detectorswhen special situations–such as bomb threats or reports ofweapons–warrant.

COPS in Schools (CIS)

CIS grants enable lawenforcement agencies tohire law enforcementprofessionals to work inand around primaryand secondary schools.CIS has helped to hireand train nearly 6,000School ResourceOfficers (SROs) since1999. COPS hasallocated a total of $672million to help hireSROs and an additional$21 million to trainSROs and the schooladministrators withwhom they work.


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The Kingman SRO works with the Robotics Club, which took thirdplace in a national competition two years in a row. He also helpedcreate a tobacco cessation program–the first of its kind in Arizona.According to the program, the SRO must once a year teach a classduring the school day to inform students about the dangers of smokingtobacco. Students caught smoking while on school grounds canparticipate in a five-week diversion program to avoid the normal three-day suspension. The University of Arizona partnered with Kingman todevelop and mail out a tobacco awareness and education package oncea week for five weeks to the student's home. The students must reviewand complete a test covering the materials. The SRO monitors theprogram, and students who do not complete the program receive thethree-day suspension.

River Valley's SRO is also one of the school’s football coach. Hedeveloped and chaperones a "Safe and Sober Night" graduationceremony. As part of Safe and Sober Night, the SRO receives donationsfrom local businesses, such as a used car, dinners, manicures, andtuxedo rentals, which are raffled off before the event.

The SROs also teach classes in the high schools on subjects likeDriver’s Education, Criminal Justice, and Careers in Law Enforcement,and they address community groups through presentations and safetyprograms. The officers have completed training from the NationalAssociation of School Resource Officers (Basic, Advanced, andSupervision certification), the National Center for Missing andExploited Children, and are state certified law enforcement trainers.Outside of the school calendar year, the SROs assist in patrol inaddition to addressing youth problems.


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Results

Interviews with students show a reduction of the fear of crime on schoolcampuses. The SROs have freed up time for patrol officers, since SROshandle all calls on campus, can make arrests, and follow up schoolrelated incidents initially handled by patrol. At first, patrol officers werereluctant to rely on SROs, but the difference they make with the youthand the community earns them increasing levels of acceptance and trust.The two officers chosen for SRO detail were graduates of the highschools they now serve. Their sergeant suggests that the officers have adeep sense of commitment and pride in part because of this.

Staff, students, parents, and other community members also increasinglytrust the police thanks to the SROs' work. The SROs have also helpedforge a stronger working relationship with Juvenile Probation. This hasled to better case management and an ability to more effectivelyidentify and intervene with students who are on probation or have beenon probation and are still struggling to comply with school rules andpolicies.

Innovative policing programs like the smoking cessation program andthe Safe and Sober night show how community policing can make adifference in the lives of America's youth. Mohave's SROs–andthousands of others like them around the country–demonstrate one waycommunity policing efforts reduce crime and the fear of crimenationwide.


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East Baton Rouge Takes It To The Streets

A COPS hiring grant enabled the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office toexpand its forces to meet the needs of its rapidly growing population in1997. After the first COPS hiring grant helped the Sheriff's Office add25 deputies in 1997, a 1998 COPS MORE grant provided funding toarm them with new mobile laptop computers, making them even moreeffective.


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The new COPS-funded personnel faced toughchallenges. The growth of major businessesand subdivisions outside the city limits had anegative effect on the Parish's economicviability and, ultimately, on the city's crimerate and overall quality of life. Increasingcalls for service kept existing supervisorsfrom devoting full attention to their roles assupervisors and trainers.

Making matters worse, the volume of callssoon overburdened the existing dispatchsystem. Call overflows frequently requiredsupervisors to answer non-emergencyrequests for service. New line personnelworked to deploy community policing teamsto saturate problem areas, dismantle illegalactivities, and establish Neighborhood Watchprograms in the community. These teams

faced persistent crime problems including drugtrafficking and the illegal manufacturing of controlled substances inpublic housing.

The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office partnered with communitymembers and civic and business associations to help launch communitypolicing strategies. New COPS-funded personnel gave the Office theresources to significantly expand its participation in these activities inan effort to achieve their goals.

Reduce crime and enhance the safety of the community

Make the 911 dispatch system more effective

Decrease overall response time and increase staffing allocation inpatrol

Free supervisors' time to supervise and train

Improve the community's quality of life

Hiring Grants

Various COPSprograms help lawenforcement agencieshire officers toimplement or expandcommunity policingefforts. COPS hiringgrants have helped12,800 American lawenforcement agencieshire more than 116,500new community policingofficers by distributingclose to $7.1 billiondollars since 1994.


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Develop partnerships between lawenforcement and the community

Approach/Methods

The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Officeconducted a work force analysis of thedispatch system to determine peak callperiods, and adjusted schedules to bestsupport those hours. The study also found thatthe 911 system's efficiency was impeded by ahigh number of non-emergency calls and lackof an automated system. The office addressedthese problems by pulling two newcommunications positions from existingclerical positions and reclassifying them ascriminal deputies. These deputies serve as theinitial contact point for all 911 calls and eitherprovide the information requested or forwardthe calls to the dispatcher on duty aftergathering preliminary information. The systemwas made even more efficient by the additionof a computer-aided dispatch system withgeographic capabilities.

The Sheriff's Office organized the additionaldeputies into eight- and twelve-personplanning teams based at each of threesubstations. The planning teams maintainedhigh visibility in troubled areas so that boththe citizens and criminal elements noticed aconstant police presence. They also moved quickly from one troublespot to another and saturated any areas where problems arose. Theteams implemented community policing programs and strategies toreduce drug demand at the neighborhood level in both urban and ruralareas. The planning teams maintained a communications network withresidents to help exchange information and monitor progress.




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The deputies delivered 100 Neighborhood Watch presentations toapproximately 4,900 individuals, and interacted with civic groups,parents, and children. Neighborhood Watch meetings currently involvethe presidents, secretaries, and council members of more than 200 civicassociations. Each problem-solving project is chosen by a needsassessment, developed using the SARA method, and followed up withan evaluation.

Results

Last year, the Sheriff's Office effectively managed 80,000 calls forservice. The automated dispatch system decreased dispatch time byalmost four minutes. The new sworn communications personnel haverelieved the supervisors from answering non-emergency calls, and areable to devote full attention to delivering quality information inresponse to citizen calls.

The addition of 22 deputies has freed the supervisors to supervise andsupport a better trained team of deputies. Supervisors use new laptopcomputers–made possible thanks to a COPS MORE 98 grant–to traindeputies in the field and provide training for all new deputies on thestreets. The Sheriff's Office receives additional community policingtraining at the Louisiana Community Policing Institute in Shreveport.

The improved ability to be highly mobile and saturate problem areashas helped to assure that high-crime areas, such as open-air drugmarkets, are a very undesirable place for criminals to enter, therebyeliminating them. The success of this strategy is obvious on severallevels: not only are property values beginning to rise, but children onceagain play in their yards. Input from both the general public and lawenforcement professionals in the field suggests an increase in residents'trust of law enforcement and a reduction in their fear of crime–all ofwhich contributes to an improved quality of life for the wholecommunity.


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Improved communications between deputies and residents has not onlyhelped to educate the community about crime, it has also increased theflow of intelligence from the public to the Sheriff's Office. Thecommunity policing planning teams work successfully with residents toidentify criminal activity and quality of life issues and then developresponses to eliminate the problems based on the principles ofcommunity policing. Businesses and private organizations such asnursing homes and utility companies now increasingly requestpresentations by the Sheriff's Office on subjects such as theft.

For example, the Gardere Area was so overrun with crime in 1997 thatthe bus system stopped transporting to the area and pizza businessesstopped delivery for fear of robbery. Many residents moved out of thearea and property values dropped. A community policing team of 12deputies responded by saturating the area on foot and in vehicles andmaking initial contacts with residents to begin documenting theproblems. In addition to enforcement and arrests, the communitypolicing team coordinated block parties to demonstrate that residentswere taking back their neighborhood. This strategy succeeded in drivingout much of the criminal element. Citizens moved into the area andservices such as pizza delivery and bus service were restored.

The renewal of the Gardere Area is a testament to the effective problem-oriented policing and community policing strategies of the East BatonRouge Sheriff's Office. By providing funding for agencies to hire morelaw enforcement professionals and providing them with crime-fightingtechnology, COPS helps keep America safe, one community at a time.


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Conclusion

COPS programs have advanced community policing across the countryby putting more than 116,000 officers and deputies on the street, placinginnovative crime-fighting technologies in the hands of law enforcementprofessionals, providing training to law enforcement and communitymembers alike, and spending more than $50 million on law enforcementresearch since 1994. COPS has also produced a wide variety ofpublications for training, technical assistance, and research purposes.

COPS continues to fund state, local, and tribal implementation ofinnovative and effective community policing strategies. COPS looksforward to continuing to work with local law enforcement in 2003 andbeyond.

www.cops.usdoj.gov

FOR MORE INFORMATION

U.S. Department of JusticeOffice of Community Oriented Policing Services1100 Vermont Avenue, NWWashington D.C. 20530

To obtain details on COPS programs, call theU.S. Department of Justice Response Center at 800.421.6770or visit COPS Online at the address listed below.

Created March 14, 2003 e02031878

Promising Strategies from the Field: Spotlight on Sheriffs · Promising Strategies From The Field...

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