Report suggests Luverne-Rock County joint law continue

By Sara QuamThe Rock County Sheriff’s Office received the final evaluation of its community policing training.The report recommends that joint law between the city of Luverne and Rock County continue in order to keep the community policing style of law enforcement."I appreciated the positive evaluation," Sheriff Mike Winkels said. "I’ve always said that community policing is something Rock County has always done, but we had good additional training."The final report said, "Problematic to the hiring and maintenance of an effective and stable work force has been the fiscal challenges facing the County Board and the primary contract entity, the Luverne City Council. Cutbacks in state aid funding have stretched both the city and county budgets ... This has created an uneasy environment for the several new hires and for those seasoned deputies who were looking forward to promotional opportunities."The Rock County Board of Commissioners and the Luverne City Council jointly funded the training throughout two years for a total cost of $52,900.The report also said, "The Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute merely served as a catalyst and facilitator for an agency and a community that wanted to make changes and were willing to work hard to make the necessary improvements."The final evaluation leaves the department with recommendations, some of which are:
To continue with joint law enforcement between the city of Luverne and Rock County
To continue interaction with the community
To implement a promotional selection process for a patrol supervisor position
To create a citizens’ police academy
To develop community oriented policing meetings that would involve all city governance
To use local cable access television, e-mail, newsletter or other methods to communicate with the people of Rock County.The evaluation notes positive changes in the department and employees such as:
Sheriff Winkels modified the existing organization while long-time staff was retiring.
The new K-9 unit was added.
The Sheriff redefined what he expected from deputies when they are on patrol. Previously, deputies just looked for crime in progress and hoped that their presence deterred crime.
The "waiting to respond" philosophy of being on duty has changed to a "problem solving and proactive approach."Much of the success of community policing is lower crime rates, meaning officers are preventing crime by their new skills. Sometimes people judge a department by the number of tickets or arrests, but community policing credits the absence of crime and community involvement.Winkels said, "The community is more involved after the past couple years. They know their neighborhoods and are comfortable bringing information to our office."The Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute, Woodbury, evaluated the department before the community policing training started. The training included classes in various topics — from ethics to organizational skills to drug identification. That first evaluation highlighted shortcomings in the department and outlined how training could fix the problems.Some of the previous problems were:
Deputy distrust in leadership
Unwillingness of some deputies to interact with the community
A lack of clearly defined leadership and accountability in the officeCounty Administrator Kyle Oldre said, "The report was done by an independent group who did a nice job of training. I feel good about the work they did and about the work the department has done for the past few years."