Based upon the needs and wishes of community residents who have been active with Red Lake Project Safe Neighborhoods, the Red Lake Department of Public Safety has partnered with some local community councils to develop a community patrol. The Red Lake Department of Public Safety now is in the process of developing a proposed policy and procedure manual for daily operations for the Red Lake Nation Community Patrol.
Citizen patrol groups have been used in the United States for more than 20 years.
Citizens On Patrol are citizens who, after being screened, background-checked, and trained by their local law enforcement agency, patrol their communities acting as "eyes and ears" for law enforcement.
The number of individual citizen patrol volunteers in the U.S. is estimated to be more than 75,000 with groups in every state of the nation.
By patrolling their community on a regular basis, usually in four- to eight-hour shifts, community patrol volunteers become more familiar with their community and are better able to recognize suspicious activity and notify the authorities. Due to their focused patrol activity, it is not uncommon for community patrollers to observe crimes in progress.
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Community Patrols do not take enforcement action, they only observe and report. Citizen patrol volunteers are not authorized to carry weapons and are encouraged to avoid physical contact. Their greatest weapon is their established bond with local law enforcement and their ability to communicate directly with them by radio or cellular phones using special dedicated phone numbers.
Other common duties performed by community patrol groups is traffic control at accident scenes, special events, crime scenes, fires, in addition to focused patrols in high crime areas for deterrence.
It is not uncommon for active citizen patrol groups to reduce crime rates in specific communities by an average of 20 percent.
