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Press Releases>
Webster Parish Sheriff’s Department receives grant for community policing project
CAD Patrol Team to launch June 29
Webster Parish, La. --
Jun 25, 2009 --
Contact: Jenny Reynolds / 318-377-1515
Gov. Bobby Jindal presents grant award in Springhill, La. to Webster Parish agencies. The Webster Parish Sheriff's Department received $157,089.00 for a community policing project.
The Webster Parish Sheriff’s Department is pleased to announce it has received a no-match grant award in the amount of $157,089.00 through the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, and from the 2009 Edward Byrne Memorial and Justice Assistance Grant project as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the purpose of initiating a community policing project in Webster Parish. Governor Jindal joined parish representatives in Springhill this week to present the award, which included additional funding for other parish entities.
The Sheriff’s Department’s award will proactively address potential problems that can follow economic struggles through this new project that will be provided to Webster Parish residents as an addition to the Department’s regular fulltime, 24-hour patrol services. Increases in robbery, theft, burglary, crimes involving scrap and/or precious metals, property crimes, larceny, thefts, drug-related crimes, crimes involving firearms, gasoline theft, vandalism, arson, and quality-of-life crimes are all potential results of economic stress; and increased crime furthers negative economic impacts and reduces quality of life in a community. The Sheriff’s Department plans to prevent increased crime and preserve quality of living through enforcement methods that include a new innovative program.
The Communtiy Action Directive Patrol project (CAD Patrol) will consist of a team of officers who will patrol the parish with special intent and direction, and who will incorporate community involvement in an effort to enhance and encourage relationships.
“These methods of policing are being used in other areas of the state,” explained Chief Deputy Bobby Igo. “Community policing techniques and directive patrol tactics have been proven profoundly effective in other Northwest Louisiana districts.”
The Department hopes that their new community policing strategies may enhance the relationships between law enforcement and local communities, improving behaviors exchanged between citizens and police in certain high-crime areas. The Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office will implement programs and activities that are oriented toward fostering a closer rapport between the community and the local law enforcement, increasing the quantity and quality of police-citizen interactions, and enhancing the capacity of the police to engage in problem-solving partnerships through eliciting community input.
“Our new CAD Patrol Team will do what we believe will build better relationships with communities in our parish,” said Webster Parish Sheriff Gary Sexton. “From youth intervention, special detail, problem solving and other specific directives, we hope to measure real improvements from this new program.”
The Webster Parish Sheriff’s Department Community Action Directive Patrol Team will provide professional, innovative, self-disciplined and self-motivated officers who are deployed directly into the community to areas of specific concern, high crime, high profile, special need and high potential for incident in order to identify, discuss, analyze and solve existing or impending neighborhood and community problems.
The Webster Parish Sheriff’s Department envisions the empowerment of CAD Patrol officers to take special action to solve specific reported community problems, create partnerships with the community, and improve the social environment of the communities they serve in order to enhance decency and order throughout. To ensure that this mission is accomplished, the CAD Patrol team will be a proactive force, able to deal with a broad variety of conditions which tend to disrupt the community peace and adversely affect quality of life.
Programs such as this Community Action Directive Patrol project improve awareness and education, and in many instances, result in more positive evaluations of police by residents. By combining both the directive patrol strategies and community policing methods, this CAD Patrol Project initiated by the Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office is expected to be effective in achieving its goals.
The CAD Patrol project will be launched June 29, 2009.
Webster Parish Sheriff's Department
Sheriff Gary S. Sexton
410 Main Street
P.O. Box 877
Minden, LA 71058
318-377-1515
admin@webstersheriff.org
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