Police Department - Patrol Operations

| School Resource Officer | Traffic Division | Police Reserve Program | Police Records | Crime Analysis | 

Patrol Operations is the foundation of our organization. The patrol division enforces the laws of the United States, the State of Oregon, both criminal and traffic, and Milwaukie City Ordinances. Patrol also attempts to facilitate problem solving by direct intervention or acting as a directional, informational resource to our own citizen or other citizens in need.

Currently there are twenty-three officers, including supervisory sergeants assigned to patrol. They respond to calls, investigate crimes, write reports, patrol the neighborhoods, enforce traffic laws, respond and investigate traffic accidents, facilitate livability issues, make arrests, and regularly testify in court.

Foot, vehicle, and bicycle patrol, community meetings and contacts, directed, enhanced, and traffic patrol, prevention education, inter-agency and governmental cooperation, are just some of the tools Patrol Operations uses to build a connection to the community and find solutions to livability issues.

In support of patrol are several sub-units, which are specialized in areas of particular need. These include but are not limited to School Resource Officers, Motorcycle Traffic Officers, Reserve Officers, Police Records and Crime Analysis.

School Resource Officer (SRO)

The School Resource Officer provides consistent and readily available police support to the neighborhood schools by having officers directly assigned to those schools. The officers work in collaboration with school administration, teachers and other faculty, and parents to mentor and hold accountable, children who demonstrate a proclivity towards disruptive behavior, criminal activity, and general at-risk conduct.

Approximately one quarter of the City's population is located in the school environment.

School Resource Officers are responsible for investigating crimes occurring in the school environment as well as crimes that occur in the child's home, but are discovered while the child is at school. Examples of such crimes would be child abuse, sex abuse or even domestic abuse. The mentoring aspect of the School Resource Officer role comes into play during "non-confrontational" contacts with students, as officers and students get to know each other and, over time, develop a communication bond.

The Milwaukie Police Department also has a volunteer program that is directed towards young adults of our community. The Milwaukie Cadet program allows High School students to enter a supervised program and see first hand the many facets of a law enforcement career.

Cadets attend an academy, conduct on-going training and ride along with regular police officers.  They assist in traffic control, and other duties that do not require legal authority.  Each year Milwaukie Police Cadets enter the Law Enforcement Challenge to test their skills against other cadets or explorer posts.

Cadets are eligible to apply and test for reserve officer and regular officer positions upon turning twenty-one years of age. The program provides realistic experience encompassing the Law Enforcement profession and allows for an educated decision regarding entering such a career.

Traffic Division

The traffic division consists of two officers and a patrol supervisor who specialize in traffic safety management and enforcement. Our traffic officers utilize motorcycles for effective enforcement in high volume dense traffic corridors. The motorcycle has been shown to work effectively for these corridors because of the high maneuverability and lower detection profile.

Milwaukie's proximity to a major metropolitan area creates a high volume of traffic through our city. A primary responsibility of the traffic division is to manage the influence of speed and associated negative factors.

Pedestrian safety, supporting neighborhood traffic calming and enhanced enforcement of high-risk traffic zones are all duties associated with the Traffic Officers. The Traffic Division works cooperatively with other county traffic teams in performing truck inspections and other enhanced enforcement. Such programs share the cost-burden and effectively target problem areas throughout the county. Our City benefits because these same teams also provide enforcement within our city limits.

Other targeted problems on which the Traffic Division works include seat belt enforcement, child safety seat enforcement, curtailing driving under the influence of intoxicants, and traffic accident investigation.

Although the Traffic Division specializes in the area of traffic they must still maintain a working knowledge of criminal enforcement. Just as patrol handles traffic duties when there is a need or problem, the Traffic Division also assists patrol as needs arises.

Police Reserve Program

The Milwaukie Police Reserve Program is citizen volunteers who are unpaid but perform several functions that augment and support our Department's mission. Their function can be compared to the National Guard, which are part time soldiers used to boost the regular armed forces in time of need.

The reserve program is authorized twenty positions but is currently staffed by one-half that number.

Reserve Officers are part time police officers who give their time to augment regular Police personnel. They work with regular officers in a back up roll and assist in duties such as parades, festivals, special events, and have other duties such as court bailiff, providing security at crime scenes, and to a lesser extent, and closely supervised, perform minor investigations. Police Reserves often have to appear in court as a result of their duties.

In order to become a Milwaukie Police Reserve Officer there are strict entry and training requirements similar to those of our regular officers. They attend an approved basic academy and then move into a field training and evaluation program, coached by a regular officer. Update and refresher training continues through out the Reserve Officers' tenure, just as it does for all officers in our Department. One example is firearms training; Reserve Officers must meet the same strict standards that are required of regular officers, in order to maintain their status of Reserves. There are many other examples that demonstrate the dedication and commitment of Reserve Police Volunteer Officers.

Police Records

The Records Division is staffed by two full time employees and assisted by the receptionist. Records is the repository of a massive amount of information which is reviewed, collated, properly distributed, stored, and retrieved. With the arrival of the computer age, these employees must input a large amount of this data.

The records division handle on average, 4000 police reports a year. This can range from a one-page report, to in some cases, several three-ring notebooks dealing with one incident or investigation.

For example, 4,150 citations, 260 written warnings, 250 traffic accidents, 4,818 telephone calls, and contact with 2,387 citizens are some of the data the records division handles in a single period. This information must be received, input and distributed to the proper entity, including internal distribution, other Law Enforcement agencies, District Attorneys, Circuit Court personnel, and City Government, to name a few.

Crime Analysis

In 1995, the Milwaukie Police Department introduced Crime Analysis and Crime Prevention as essential components of the effective transition into Community Policing. Due to budgetary considerations, personnel rotation, and outdated software, our department lost the ability to effectively perform the Crime Analysis function. Crime prevention, to a large degree, became the responsibility of the individual Patrol Officer.

Without real-time information retrieval, analysis, and dissemination the crime prevention efforts are less than effective.

Crime Analysis is a tool used to study crime patterns and trends, how they affect a particular jurisdiction or neighborhood, and how best to respond to that pattern. Crime Analysts gather the information that enters the agency, such as crime reports, calls for service, arrest reports, intelligence data, and other forms of data. The analyst then processes this data looking for patterns, series, and trends in crime or related problems. Once a pattern has been identified, it is  analyzed and presented to our agency, which then use this information to develop strategies and tactics to address the problem.  The analysis process may involve ferreting out the root cause of a pattern, forecasting future occurrences, or identifying potential suspects.  This material may be used to forecast shifts and personnel requirements, as well.

Analysis of crime patterns or trends involves thoughtful and intelligent consideration of many factors; offender and victim characteristics, modus operandi, days/time periods, geography, and environment just to name a few. Analysts are often asked to forecast the date, time and location of the next probable crime in a series, which is a complex process and requires evaluation of immense amounts of data.

The Crime Analyst must have strong writing and publishing skills, the ability to master word processing, database applications, statistical packaging, and geographic information systems.