Posted on 04/05/2011 1:38:04 PM PDT by decimon
Paul Adams spends time with a civilian detective on patrol
The city of Mesa in the US state of Arizona has turned over some police duties to a new team of civilian investigators. The BBC's Paul Adams says the programme is a law enforcement innovation - and policing on the cheap in an era of government cuts.
In the only programme of its kind anywhere in the United States, Mesa's nine civilian investigation specialists are handling work normally reserved for uniformed officers.
Plenty of other police departments employ civilians to handle DNA and fingerprint collection or perform clerical work, but nowhere do they perform the range of functions Mesa's unit has handled since its inception in 2009.
From crime scene processing to fraud investigations and a lot of patient hand-holding, the civilians appear to be making an impact.
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Last year, the unit handled about 50% of all burglary calls, the police department says.
It also wrote almost one in 10 written reports city-wide, relieving uniformed officers of much burdensome paperwork.
"If you look at the numbers that they've produced, they're really mind-boggling," Mesa Police Chief Frank Milstead says.
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(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
This program will mysteriously die once these folks being solving more cases than sworn officers do...
In a related story donut consumption is down 26%......
I saw that done by an attorney in court here in Nashville once. The cop kept refereeing to witnesses as "civilians" so the lawyer called him on it... The Judge snickered and the cop became so mad I thought he was going to pop his top.
Yep. One of my neighbors is a cop and he always uses that term. I always point out that I am a veteran and that he is not - he is and will always be a civilian.
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