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Police misconduct isn�t just a small-town problem By Sara Murphy Is it fair to assume that the recent rash of cops-gone-wrong stories may indicate a trend in Jackson County policing? In the last two years, more than a half-dozen police officers from Gold Hill to Ashland have been accused of misconduct, either on or off duty. That�s got some folks wondering whether the problems are a predictable side effect of "low-budget" police departments in relatively small cities. The experts say it isn�t so. For the most part, anyway. "I would say that�s just a fluke," says Alan Scharn, deputy director of the state Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. "That�s not representative of the quality of officers in Jackson County, in my opinion." Police officers anywhere from Butte Falls � where the town marshal was fired last year after being kicked out of the Oregon Police Academy for drinking � to New York City can get into trouble. It�s not just a small-town problem. And, for the record, local agencies aren�t unusually small. The International Association of Chiefs of Police reports 80 to 85 percent of America�s police departments have fewer than 25 sworn officers. "There are literally thousands of little towns that I�ve never heard of and every one of them has a police chief," says Gordon Graham, a California Highway Patrol captain and national speaker on law enforcement. Not to be misled, Graham says, big cities and state police agencies can employ thousands of officers. And most people receive their police services from larger departments, including Medford, which employs 94 sworn officers, and the Jackson County Sheriff�s Department, which numbers 125 in both patrol and corrections. Still, the vast majority of American police departments are more similar in size to Central Point, with 19 bluecoats, or Phoenix, with just six. And despite variations in hiring practices, Scharn says, every officer in Oregon will receive the same 10-week basic training course. "An officer from a two- or three-man department will receive the exact same training as an officer from the Salem Police Department or the Portland Police Bureau," he says. The difference in departments is often maintenance training, which can be costly. But, Scharn says, many departments are forming partnerships that allow smaller agencies to attend training sessions hosted by larger departments. Critics, like Southern Oregon University criminology professor Vic Sims, say that�s not good enough. Sims, an officer for 10 years himself, criticizes police training and education requirements as almost laughable. But he�s not laughing. "There are only six states that require less training than Oregon," Sims says. "A barber in Oregon is required to have more than twice the hours of training that police officers get, and yet we expect them to be professionals." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA