Community Services Section
The Community Service Section handles the following areas:
Neighborhood Watch, Gang Intervention & Training, D.A.R.E. and the S.R.O. program
Neighborhood Watch
The Neighborhood Watch concept was started in the 1970s by concerned citizens who wanted to protect their community. Neighborhood Watch programs teach citizens how to protect themselves and their property, and how to deter and prevent crime within their community.
Presentations assist member citizens by teaching them to recognize suspicious activities and how to obtain a good description of suspects and suspect vehicles. Many other tips, helpful to both the citizens and the Sheriff's Office, are given.
Neighborhood Watch information will guide residents through detection and prevention by reporting illegal activities correctly to law enforcement officials which will help neighborhoods to effectively eradicate crime.
Gang-Intervention and Training
Gang-Net operations have been initiated and the Sheriff's Office is "on-line" with other local law enforcement agencies.
This "net" incorporates the use of computers to pursue gang members and their illegal activities within the community. Selected police officers are given extensive training to assist fellow officers in gang related crimes. These officers work a secondary duty that involves direct communications with gang members, younger children considering gang involvement, schools, parents, other law enforcement agencies, and the community support organizations.
Children identified as starting a gang-style association are visited by a Gang-Net Officer. This officer hand carries an official notification letter to the parents informing them of their children's illegal activities.
The preliminary results of these letters are favorable, introducing parents to their children's illegal gang activities.
For more information on this program, please contact Sgt. Larsen at 390-2151, or Lt. Ross at 390-2123.
SRO/DARE Unit
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a nationwide program designed to prevent substance abuse among school-age children. Although drug identification and harmful effects of drugs and alcohol are taught, the majority of the curriculum is formulated to enable school children to resist both subtle and overt pressures for experimentation with drugs and alcohol.
School Resource Officers (S.R.O.) are deputies that interact with high school aged juveniles. The S.R.O. program was developed to give students one-on-one contact with a known deputy who is in the school daily, to provide a high visibility presence and recognizable response to the day to day issue surrounding the school environment. It is our goal to help provide a safe learning environment for our youth, while we blend the SRO program, with the many other community policing programs within the schools.
For more information on this program, please contact Sgt. Way at 520-7349.