SHERIFF SHARES DEPARTMENT'S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

LAFAYETTE - Sheriff Mike Neustrom plans to attack the high recidivism rate
of his inmates through rehab programs such as Project Return, a three-month
initiative that offers substance abuse rehabilitation and job skills
training. The program is expected to begin in February or March.

"If all you're doing is warehousing, the problem is not solved," he said at
a Citizens for Good Government meeting Monday night.

He said the department is even planning on changing its way of policing by
implementing problem-oriented policing, or P.O.P. The strategy ditches the
traditional method of adding extra patrols on the streets which is
expensive and a short-term solution, he said.

Rather, P.O.P. focuses on specialized programs of attack. For instance, he
said, a drug dealing problem in an apartment complex would not be
approached the same way as drug dealing on the streets. P.O.P. policing
would examine other solutions of controlling the problem, including
architectural possibilities like added lighting or creating a dead end
street, he said.

The parish is also researching the possibility of combining the dispatches
of public safety enforcement and even ambulance services in the community
to make the operation more efficient.

He also announced that public safety agencies are brainstorming homeland
security programs in light of Sept. 11. The group, representative of the
state police, city police, sheriff's department, FBI, National Guard and
other local emergency response teams, will create hypothetical scenarios
and responses to possible community-wide threats.

Neustrom also addressed the issue of jail renovations and responded to a
member who questioned whether or not a female should be in the cell area
considering last month's incident when an inmate held a female deputy
captive for two hours.

"The incident was not structure-related, and the gender issue is not
related," Neustrom said.

The sheriff said that $5.5 million has been allocated to renovate the structure.