Sheriff's Office Update

Polk County Sheriff’s Office Update – June 2016 
From Sheriff Mark Garton

I want to take a moment to let everyone know what has been happening at your Sheriff’s Office during the past few months. The Sheriff’s Office has been working hard towards honoring the promises that were stated during the campaign for the public safety levy. Since the voters passed the levy, your Sheriff’s Office immediately took action to rebuild the office and follow through on the promises that were made during the levy campaign. 

The task of hiring deputy sheriff’s is not as simple as it sounds. It could take up to 18 months to fully complete the hiring process for 1 patrol deputy. That process consists of both a 16 week police academy and 16 weeks of field training along with extensive background investigations. With having limited patrol deputies left before the passage of the levy, training new deputies was a slow process since there were only a handful of deputies available to train the newly hired deputies. 

The levy granted the Sheriff’s Office to hire 12 patrol deputies and 5 deputies in the jail. Along with those positions, we also had 12 other vacant positions (patrol and jail) before the levy, in which some employees left for more sustainable employment elsewhere, some retired and two employee’s passed away. Since July of 2015 the Sheriff’s Office has hired 29 individuals, 14 for the patrol division and 15 in the jail. 

On June 26th, 2016, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office will reinstate 24 hour patrols. Since the passage of the levy the Sheriff’s Office has been working hard to hire the necessary deputies to sustain and safely staff 24 hour coverage. The Sheriff’s Office has also hired the necessary deputies in the jail to ensure that it continues to run efficiently. While not every deputy has fully completed their field training or attended their state required academy training they are all on course to successfully complete their training.

With the addition of 24 hour patrols, the Sheriff’s Office will also begin to supervise the Polk County Inter Agency Narcotics Team (POINT) again. Due to budgetary constraints, the team was shut down in June of 2014. The Monmouth, Dallas and Independence Police Departments have all committed detectives to the multi-agency team starting at the beginning of July. The Oregon State Police is also placing a detective on the team as well. 

The employees of the Sheriff's Office have put in a great deal of time and effort to make this happen and I am proud of what we have accomplished thus far. But, there is still a lot of work to do and we are still moving forward. We will continue to focus on community involvement, educational programs and services for our youth and we will also work towards implementing immediate mental health services for our residents who suffer from mental health related illnesses. We will always be striving to provide premier law enforcement services to the people of Polk County.

Without the support from Polk County residents the restoration of 24 hour services would not have occurred. I truly want to say, Thank You for your support and I look forward to being responsive to your needs in the future.

- Sheriff Mark Garton