“It made me feel so good to see that,” said Michael Hughes, Chief of the Egg Harbor Township (New Jersey) Police Department (EHTPD), referring to the photo of Community Policing Officer Thomas Rizzotte and local boy Corey Brown walking off the field together after a game of dodgeball.

“Corey went up and put his arm around Officer Rizzotte and thanked him for coming out to play with him and his friends. This is a picture of community policing at the grass roots level. Our department fully embraces the community policing philosophy. We’re especially committed to supporting the young people of Egg Harbor Township, starting even before a baby comes home from the hospital, by installing child safety seats and showing parents how they work.”

The program in which Corey and Officer Rizotte were engaged was recently developed by EHTPD Community Policing Officer Edward Bertino. “We call it the Egg Harbor Township Law Enforcement Activities Program, pronounced LEAP,” said Chief Hughes. “It’s a particularly appropriate name because it incorporates our slogan, Taking a Leap Forward with our Community, which reflects our efforts to continue developing programs to benefit local people.”

Focusing on Youth

Through LEAP programs, which are currently designed just for young people but will soon include programs for adults, the EHTPD officers interact with kids both on and off duty. Dodgeball, football, and homework help are just a few of the programs they’ve set up.

Said Officer Bertino, “There are a lot of kids who benefit from these programs. In this township of about 46,000 people, we have a wide range of income levels, which runs the gamut from those living in multimillion-dollar homes to individuals lacking any kind of shelter, with many in between. As a suburb of Atlantic City, which is the East Coast gambling capital, we have children whose parents do not have the means to pay for activities that kids who are more well off can enjoy. So, we organize things like a recent trip to Medieval Times, which was funded by a local group. We bussed the kids to the show, where they saw tournaments, falconry, and jousting. Several officers, including some retired ones, came up to cheer with the kids. It was really fun for all of us. When we move into our new headquarters this year, we will have space for additional youth programs. The community center has also granted us free access to their site for open gym time, so we can mentor kids while playing basketball or other games. I’m the supervisor for these activities, but other adults, including off-duty officers, teachers, other municipal workers, and vetted community members also help out.”

Another youth and family service the EHTPD offers is Child ID. At the parent’s request, department staff take a photograph of a child and create a card with the picture and information about the child. Officers can enter this information into the National Crime Information Center computer so that they can immediately put out an alert if the child is missing.

Fighting Drug Abuse in Schools

The EHTPD’s in-school programs include Adopt-a-Cop, in which a fourth grade class “adopts” an officer who visits the classroom regularly to talk about topics such as bicycle safety, bullying, and internet safety. When Bertino is the “adoptee,” he brings in the K-9 unit and lets the kids sit in his squad car.

In fifth grade, officers try to keep kids safe from opioid abuse and other drug problems by teaching Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) classes. To keep the D.A.R.E. message fresh, they discuss topics related to drug and alcohol use with Juniors in high school and run a program for Seniors about the dangers of opioids called NEO (Not Even Once).

An interactive opioid awareness program, NEO concentrates on misuse and treatment options. It was created by the Manchester Township (New Jersey) Police Department with input from recovery coaches, guidance counselors, and other professionals as well as local teenagers. According to Officer Bertino, all officers who teach the program are graduates of Egg Harbor High School and have personal connections to these problems. “The school is on board with this,” he said “And they also bring in people who have recovered. It’s surprising how many kids come up and say a relative is addicted. We tell them how they can get help. We also work with the Liberty Mid Atlantic HIDTA—High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area—a program run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). It provides assistance to local law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions. We lend an officer to the task force, which provides access to all the other towns’ information consolidated in one database.”

Reducing Traffic Fatalities and Helping Those in Need

“Another big problem is traffic crashes,” Officer Bertino said. “We have more people killed that way than by crime. So, we adopted DDACTS—Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety—which enabled us to determine which parts of town have the most accidents, then reallocated our resources. Our presence in those areas has an added benefit in that when people see squad cars and officers talking to drivers, it not only sends a warning about speeding but [also] deters other crimes. If somebody is going to shoplift at the Walmart, for instance, and they see police cars in the parking lot, they’re unlikely to do it. We have a lot of retail theft, which goes hand in hand with the opioid epidemic. And like in any casino area, we have a high homeless rate too.

So, we partnered with Volunteers of America (VOA), an organization that provides services to the unhoused, people suffering from mental health issues or drug abuse, and others in need. We learned about it from Christopher Winters, Chief of the Pine Hill (New Jersey) Police Department, who said ‘I think you guys would benefit from it.’ They asked for a small office to work out of, and we provided one outside the secure part of our building. So an officer can bring people down to the station and hand them over to VOA for help, then go back on the street. We are in our second year partnering with them, and they have requested to place another person here to assist, based on the referrals they’ve gotten from us. One of them, an individual who was stuck here after losing everything at the casino, got home with the help of these volunteers. Another was a girl who got caught up in prostitution and wanted out. VOA got her clean clothes, a hotel room, and a medical exam, then took her to the airport, where she flew home to her parents. We can go into VOA’s portal and see what the outcomes are. This is important to us, because we want to know what became of these people. We like to know that we made a difference.”

Faye C. Elkins
Sr. Technical Writer
COPS Office

Tweet