Camden turning to unarmed police aides for certain jobs

[v85 212]

http://www.officer.com/news/10818671/camden-nj-turns-to-unarmed-police-aides

What do you think of this?

Most of the country is already using positions such as this under various titles: Police Aide, Police Cadet, Community Service Officer, Police Service Aide, Auxiliary Police , Report Writer etc...

I don't know how I feel about it personally. I mean on one hand do we really need a sworn officer to take every single "I just need a number for the insurance company" report? On the other hand some departments have abused positions like this where complaintants have to fight to get an actual police officer, as opposed to some 18 year old civilian to take the report of a 1,000,000 dollar plus art theft.

[16fire5 693]

What I think is this is the biggest bunch of union bashing being endorsed by the keynote speaker of the GOP. Give me a break. Look at page two the county says the new department will cost about the same amount as the old department. So why are they doing this? This is a great idea get rid of the veterans who know the streets and lets put a force predominatly made up of rookies in one of the most dangerous cities in the country. If this isn't destined to fail I don't know what is. I pray they come to their senses before it's too late. Rant over.

[v85 212]

Unfortunately its coming from both sides of the aisle now. There is some "police expert" in the article that says that it should help community relations because certain people in the community are "too intimidated" by armed police officers

[ex-commish 490]

"respond to radio calls for nonviolent crimes" ...are they serious? Can any police officer on here tell me how many times you have responded to a non-violent crime that has turned violent? You need armed, sworn officers..period.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

Stupid idea. What if a dispatcher gets it wrong and the call turns out to be violent?

Having civilian staff to do administrative tasks INSIDE the PD is almost always a good idea. Why pay a cop's salary and benefits to someone who just answers phones? Get that Officer out on the street doing what they were hired to do.

THIS is taking that concept a little too far. Auxillaries/CSOs/Whatever-you-call them have a place in some police departments, responding to calls on their own is not one of them.

[PCC030664 2]

City/town PDs and county SOs here in Florida use this concept two ways. There are paid "community service aides" and volunteer "citizens on patrol". The latter tends to be mostly retirees who function like volunteer security guards but who are part of the PD or SO.

Both groups wear uniforms (different style and color scheme from sworn officers) and carry portable radios. They drive marked vehicles (often a retired patrol car) with a different graphic scheme and usually a yellow lightbar. I have seen them do things like direct traffic at accidents and events, patrol public parks, and transport mail and other documents.

Also the "CSI techs" are generally civilians and are nearly always full time employees.

Phil