Galveston Police Department Community Policing Plan

As the Galveston Police Department transitions to community-oriented policing during the next few weeks and months, it’s occurred to me it would serve us well for our customers to know of the changes that have taken place, especially as it relates to the organization.

I’ve previously related the many advantages of community-oriented policing, and we’ve trained to that model during the last many months, planned for an orderly transition, reorganized to accommodate that model, identified many of the issues that our officers will need to address and actually addressed some of those issue while in transition.

The changes in our organization and in the philosophy in which we operate are among the most dramatic and not easily accomplished. Police departments do not typically embrace change easily.

To their credit, the men and women of the Galveston Police Department have done an exceptional job of accepting this change and working toward this new model of policing. CAMSTAT is the model adopted by the Galveston Police Department. CAM is the acronym for Consultation, Adaptation and Mobilization: The problem-solving formula for police officers that will enable them to better address the needs of the community on a case-by-case basis. STAT is that part of the model that will ultimately provide statistical information for more effective and efficient deployment of our personnel.

Most traditional police departments are organized in ways that assign officers to various shifts and schedules that reflect the need to respond to calls for service — response-driven schedules. Officers are assigned various beats or districts on a given shift and the number of officers is a reflection of the calls for service during that period.

Officers and supervisors typically and often rotate assignments throughout the city and are not provided a real opportunity to know their customers, citizens and members. Our plan, in part, is to assign supervisors and officers to geographical areas of the city rather than to simply assign them to shifts.

Once assigned to these areas, officers come to know the residents and business owners better, are more accommodating to requests for service, are more attentive to the community needs and responsive to concerns about quality of life issues. In effect, those officers “own” the issues that emanate from their new assignments and, over time, members of the community and officers assigned therein work much more closely than in other models of policing.

Organizationally, the department is comprised of three bureaus — Operations, Investigative Services and Administration.

The Office of the Chief of Police consists of the Office of Professional Standards and an administrative assistant.

Initially, the city is divided into three geographical areas for the purposes of basic police service delivery — east of 35th Street, 35th to 61st streets and west of 61st Street. Those areas will be known to us as East Isle Community, Mid-Town Community and West Isle Community.

As we hire newly appropriated officers during the next few months, the geographical boundaries will increase to four specific areas or “communities” — east of 35th Street, or East Isle Community; 35th to 61st streets, or Mid-Town Community; 61st to Pabst Road, or Mid-West Community; and west of Pabst Road, or West Isle Community.

While we experience a “soft transition” effective Oct. 1, the actual effective date is Jan. 1. We’ll use this time to work out some of the kinks in our plan.

So, be patient with us as we move toward this new model of policing for Galveston. Community-oriented policing is not new to law enforcement but this particular model for Galveston represents tremendous change, and there will be adjustments necessary over time. We’ll make those adjustments and ensure that our citizens are represented by the very best we have to offer in service delivery. The community deserves no less than that.