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### **The Pima County Sheriff’s Department: Covering a Large Territory with a Community Policing Approach**

 August 2017 | Volume 10 | Issue 8

*The  COPS Office is pleased to feature the August 2017 winner of the Community  Policing in Action Photo Contest: the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. The  winning photo features Bureau Chief Karl Woolridge participating in a painting  activity with area students.*

Pima County is the  second most populous county in Arizona, covering the areas in and around  Tucson, Arizona’s second largest city. It shares land with the Mexican border,  providing a strong Hispanic cultural history. Its linguistic and cultural  diversity requires well-trained law enforcement officers who must be equipped  to engage and interact with residents of multiple ethnic backgrounds. That is  where the Pima  County Sheriff’s Department comes in: the department emphasizes training not only its new deputies and  corrections officers, but also tenured personnel, on the diversity of the  community. Deputies and officers are expected to be part of the community they  serve—not above it. 

“We have a lot of  bilingual and multilingual people here. That’s something we take into account  when we train our deputies,” said Deputy Cody Gress, the department’s public  information officer. “We realize that we’ll be encountering a lot of different  cultures.” 

For deputies in  Pima County, community policing is just as important for their own safety as  for public safety. Pima County has a population of close to one million  residents and the department is responsible for covering 9,200 square miles.  Many deputies patrol very remote areas in pairs or small groups, so knowing and  having strong relationships with community members is critical. “We’ve got one  of the largest counties, in terms of square miles, in the country,” Gress  shared. “Our deputies have to be self-sufficient in a way that you don’t see in  a lot of other police organizations.”

Pima County is not  immune to most of the crime-related issues other areas around the country of  the same size are experiencing, but it does have unique needs because of its  nexus with the Mexican border. Deputies have to manage issues related to drug  and human trafficking, and they offer support to U.S. Border Patrol as needed. 

Though the  department is fairly large, with over 1,400 employees, Gress finds that the  camaraderie among staff and the community is strong. “There’s a lot of  familiarity, especially when you’re working on patrol, in terms of being  effective and coming home safe every night. We typically get assigned the same  beats so you get to know the people, especially the people living in remote  areas that are kind of cut off from the big city. You get a big mix of the  demographic and socioeconomic classes. . . . We have a pretty supportive  community, which is nice.”

Gress, who is a  27-year-old native Tucsonan, says that the department encourages officers to  engage in self-initiated activities with the community. During his time working  in patrol, he says, deputies were expected to get out of their cars and  introduce themselves to residents. “We go above and beyond.” In his role as  PIO, he gets to lead some of the department’s community outreach efforts, which  range from participating in volunteer events and neighborhood fairs to events  with area schools. 

“Just last week our  SRO [school resource officer] unit put on an active shooter workshop with local  high school students. They were able to get the drama students to participate.  The students took a week off of their summer vacation to participate.” The  workshop drew over 150 participants over a week’s span, in which the students  worked with officers to enact three active-shooter scenarios. “That’s a really  good example of what we’re doing to help better prepare people for the worst  situation.” 

The department’s  winning photo features Karl Woolridge, a bureau chief, during a planned event  specifically for command staff. Gress shared that it is important for the  command staff to engage with the community often and to build rapport with  youth. Those efforts may also be helping with recruitment and hiring: Gress shared  that, though the department has a mix of ages represented, it is quickly  becoming a young department as more young recruits are joining the force.  

The COPS Office  congratulates the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for  being one of the 12 winners of the COPS Office 2017 Community Policing in  Action Photo Contest, and for its commitment to community policing.

Written with  contributions from Deputy Sheriff Cody Gress. Photo taken by Christopher M.  Radtke.

          Najla Haywood          Managing Editor          COPS Office

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