At a news conference here with Monroe County District Attorney Mark P.
Pazuhanich, and local police chiefs, Fisher said the changes he has
implemented will put more task force officers on the streets fighting drugs
and also will alleviate concerns raised by many police chiefs about the
revisions made to the Task Force Program last year by his predecessor.

"As Attorney General, fighting the war on drugs is my top priority," Fisher
said, "And one of the most successful tools we have in this war is the
Attorney General's Municipal Drug Task Force Program. However, as with any
successful program, it must change and evolve with time just as drug
dealers change their strategies and tactics we too must change to keep one
step ahead of them."

"After taking office, I promised to review the Municipal Drug Task Force
Program in order to improve it and achieve a higher level of participation by
municipalities across the Commonwealth. As part of that promise, we spoke
with and listened to police chiefs, district attorney's and local task force
officers," said Fisher.

In May, Fisher convened a Drug Enforcement Summit, and spent a significant
portion of that two day meeting exploring options regarding the improvements
of the task force program.

The result of the dialog with law enforcement officials and the
recommendations born out of the Drug Summit, resulted in the changes to the
Municipal Drug Task Force Program.

The changes are:

Lifting the ban on twoofficersper department who could be rostered to
participate in an Office of Attorney General run Drug Task Force Program. A
police department may now roster five officers per department or 25 percent
of a departments sworn officers, which ever is greater. However, the total
number of officers shall not exceed 20 officers per department.

Fisher noted that this limit on officers does not apply to the 28 district
attorney run Task Forces. In district attorney controlled Task Forces the
total number of rostered officers will continue to be at the discretion of
the district attorney.

Creation of "Local Impact Teams" may be formed by participating municipal
departments with shared boundaries or common drug problems. Although not
separate Drug Task Forces, the Local Impact Teams will have a fair degree of
autonomy and discretion in addressing what they perceive to be their specific
drug problems.

Fisher said he created the Local Impact Teams because after the revisions
made last year, municipal departments expressed a desire to work with
neighboring departments rather than being spread across multicounty
geographical areas and working with departments with whom they have no
geographical or similarities in terms of drug problems.

Fisher said there are 40 Drug Task Forces representing 55 of the
Commonwealth's 67 counties. Of those 40 Task Forces, 28 are controlled by
district attorney's. There are 289 participating police departments with 422
rostered officers.

Monroe County is part of the Monroe and Carbon County Task Force. With 14
police departments participating and 22 Task Force officers rostered.

Fisher said the changes to the Task Force Program went into effect July 1.

SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General

CO: Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General

ST: Pennsylvania

IN:

SU: PER

07/08/97 13:19 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com