Department Goals

The goals of this department are:

• Crime prevention suppression and resistance
• Crime prevention and reduction through law enforcement
• Movement and control of traffic and safety enforcement
• Maintenance of public order
• Public and emergency service
• Community support for department goals

This area consists of both long and short-range crime prevention efforts. It covers such areas as a highly visible preventive patrol in directed activities. It covers educational programs presented in our school system, alerting our youth to the dangers and consequences of crime and delinquent behavior. It covers specialty programs to various business and civic organizations. It covers referrals to the appropriate organizations of those in need of social, psychological and economic assistance and pre-delinquent referrals to the proper social service agency.
Emphasis on:

• Those short-range prevention activities such as directed aggressive patrol in high problem areas along with field interrogations designed to discourage potential offenders.
• Those long-range crime prevention efforts such as hazard-oriented preventative patrol aimed at the identification and correction of those potential areas of concern in our community.
• Those long-range preventative activities such as the work being carried on in this department directed towards our juvenile youths.

To include the investigation of crimes reported to this department; the investigation of crimes not reported but which pose a continuous threat to the welfare of this community or constitutes ongoing criminal activity; the identification, arrest and prosecution of criminal offenders and the recovery and return of stolen property. 
Emphasis on:

• Cooperation with all local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
• Joint criminal investigations by both patrol and investigation divisions.
• A concentrated effort on those crimes or activities which threaten life or health or pose a perceived danger to this community.

Intelligence Gathering:  To include the collection, recordation and verification of intelligence information along with its evaluation and timely dissemination to the proper division head or personnel.  Directed at facilitating the safe and rapid movement of automobiles and pedestrians over our streets and highways. To include accident prevention programs directed at public education and awareness, statistical data collection and analysis directed at the location and elimination of local traffic hazards, selective enforcement of existing state and local traffic laws. 

Emphasis on:

• A concentration on D.U.I. enforcement due to the major role it plays in fatality, serious injury and property damage accidents.
• Enforcement of those traffic violations which are most often responsible for accidents.
• The concentration of efforts at those locations and times when accidents are most prevalent.
• The constant survey of individual districts for possible hazards in order to eliminate them.

It is the responsibility of this department to be prepared to cope with special events, man-made or natural disasters, and civil or criminal disorders that may occur from time to time. Each division commander will ensure that he has personnel properly trained to maintain order and effectively deal with these problems.

Emphasis on:

• The specialized training of select personnel that normally required by law enforcement to effectively deal with any outbreak of civil or criminal disorder.
• Pre-planning on the courses of action to be taken when these conditions exist with much forethought on the types of conditions that may occur in our locale.

A significant number of calls for service to this department are non-criminal and fall in the category of emergency and miscellaneous service. These calls relate to lost persons or property, frightened persons, citizens locked out of homes and automobiles. It is the policy of this department to render this service in a prudent manner to the full extent of our availability of manpower. 

Emphasis on:

• Setting a priority on the calls for service, placing a lower priority on non-emergency or non-criminal requests. However, if manpower is available, we should respond to each request and render the service in a courteous and cooperative manner.

Citizen support and participation in attaining goals are essential in ensuring the success of the police mission. It is a major goal of this department to secure that support and participation.  

Emphasis on:

• A sound philosophy of public service is that embodied in the following excerpts from the British Police Principles.
• To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
• To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws; by the ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to wealth or social standing, race, sex or national origin; by the ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
• To maintain at all times a relationship to the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police.