Community Oriented Policing, and the challenges of 24/7 coverage

Having someone on the road 24 hours a day is a goal we have been working on since the first of the year. There are two basic approaches to patrolling the streets; pro-active policing and re-active policing. To achieve the most effective method, you have to do both. You must be pro-active, while ready to be re-active. Community oriented policing can only be accomplished by having patrol units out in the county, always ready to respond while making an effort to be alert and look for things that are out of place. There will always be people out there looking for someone to rob and some place to break in to. The idea of community oriented policing is to deter the would-be burglar by having a presence in the community, catching a thief in the act, or at least being able to respond to a crime that has already happened by already being on patrol.

One of the first problems of having 24-hour patrol was the need to have deputies on duty during the day to respond to calls, serve papers, and provide bailiff duties for court. This left a portion of the night not covered and deputies would be called out of their homes to respond to calls by dispatch. The second problem this created was every time a deputy would be called out, he would be in overtime. This created a large amount of comp-time with a total of over 2,400 combined comp-hours within the Sheriff's Office at the first of the year. Comp-time could not be used because there was already a portion of the day not covered, so letting a deputy off to use some of the comp-time built up was nearly impossible without causing even more comp-time.

Another issue was not being able to have security in the courthouse all the time because the deputy would be needed back on the road as soon as possible. Having a deputy in the courthouse was a high priority because of the liability of having issues that can become dangerous with various agencies in the court house like the Juvenile Office, the County Prosecutor's Office, as well as the judges and court clerk's offices. It looked like we would need a road deputy to fill in the gap during the night shifts, a bailiff to serve the courthouse and the ability to let deputies take off to use earned comp-time. What we found after evaluating the office and looking at several ideas was to simply add one position, a court bailiff. This would allow one of the road deputies who had been working the day shift just to help with court to be moved to the night shift; it fixed the problem with court security and by creating a mixture of 8- and 10-hour shifts; it allowed us to have overlapping shifts so deputies could use comp-time when needed. Comp hours have been decreased by nearly 1,000 hours this year as a result of the shift change. The deputies at the Vernon County Sheriff's Office are committed to serving the county and are eager and willing to do whatever it takes to keep our community safe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.