NCJ Number
124531
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 38 Issue: 6 Dated: (June 1990) Pages: 24-28
Date Published
1990
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article describes characteristics of three northern Ohio small (five or fewer full-time officers) police departments: Hiram, Put-in-Bay, and Brunswick Hills.
Abstract
Reliance on part-time police, armed auxiliary police, and, at Put-in-Bay, summer police is a major difference between these three departments and larger departments. Also, pay and job benefits are well below the norms for larger municipalities. Even so, department employees expressed a high degree of dedication. Ohio's strict jail standards result in the three towns depending on county jails for lodging prisoners. Most of the officers did not obtain their training from well-known State police academies, university programs, or big-city police academies. Most were trained at lesser known institutions, often during evening or weekend class sessions. Additional officer-selected and department-approved training is easily available and promptly approved. All three departments rely on mutual aid to perform their duties, primarily due to a judge's ruling that prevents police officers from making misdemeanor arrests outside of their jurisdictions without the assistance or direction of an officer from the jurisdiction in which the arrest is made.