Certified Crime Prevention Community Program

PRESS RELEASE

Cer­ti­fied Crime Pre­ven­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Program

The War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office has eval­u­at­ed its exist­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing efforts and pro­grams over the last year, and is embrac­ing the lofty chal­lenge of join­ing twelve oth­er exclu­sive com­mu­ni­ties in becom­ing a Cer­ti­fied Crime Pre­ven­tion Com­mu­ni­ty (CCPC) through the Vir­ginia Depart­ment of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Ser­vices (DCJS).  The goal of the CCPC pro­gram is to pub­licly rec­og­nize and cer­ti­fy local­i­ties that have imple­ment­ed a defined set of com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty strate­gies as part of a com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ty safety/crime pre­ven­tion effort to the bet­ter­ment of their community.

The CCPC Pro­gram was cre­at­ed through guber­na­to­r­i­al exec­u­tive order in 1998 by the New Part­ner­ship Com­mis­sion for Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty to pro­mote com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­ing on youth and fam­i­ly safe­ty.  The CCPC with its twelve core com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty ele­ments is iden­ti­fied as a best-prac­tice amongst law enforce­ment agen­cies wish­ing to set them­selves apart from medi­oc­rity, and to insti­tute cut­ting-edge com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing efforts.  The twelve CCPC core safe­ty ele­ments include insti­tut­ing the following:

1. Com­mu­ni­ty Crime Prevention/Safety Council
2. DCJS Cer­ti­fied Crime Pre­ven­tion Specialist
3. Neigh­bor­hood Watch Program
4. Com­mu­ni­ty Policing/Crime Con­trol Plan­ning Process
5. Orga­nized Dis­tri­b­u­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty Literature
6. Deputy Trained Com­mu­ni­ty Safety/Risk Assessments 
7. Crime Ana­lyst
8.  Com­pre­hen­sive School Safe­ty Audit Process
9.  Busi­ness Out­reach Program
10.  Orga­nized Refer­ral Process for Crime Victims
11.  Youth Delin­quen­cy Pre­ven­tion Program
12.  VLEPSC Accreditation

To this end, the WCSO will be incor­po­rat­ing the twelve-core com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty and crime pre­ven­tion ele­ments under the umbrel­la of their pro­gram plan, which will be coor­di­nat­ed through the Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing Unit (CPU), led by Lieu­tenant Rob­bie Seal and the CPU Sergeant. 

Accord­ing to DCJS oth­er pop­u­lar pro­grams may be con­sid­ered option­al under the CCPC guide­lines; how­ev­er, Sher­iff Mark But­ler states these ini­tia­tives will con­tin­ue because they are mean­ing­ful and pro­vide real val­ue to our res­i­dents.  These include D.A.R.E., Seniors and Law Enforce­ment Togeth­er (S.A.L.T.) / TRIAD, Nation­al Night Out, and School Resource Offi­cer are exam­ples of such pro­grams.  The Sheriff’s Office recent­ly renewed its mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the War­ren Coun­ty School Board on April 7, 2021 to extend the pres­ence of SROs in coun­ty schools through 2026, and has applied for a State grant through DCJS to add an addi­tion­al SRO to our schools.

There are sev­er­al tan­gi­ble incen­tives and val­ues for becom­ing a cer­ti­fied crime pre­ven­tion com­mu­ni­ty, such as becom­ing a rec­og­nized leader in com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty, send­ing a clear sig­nal to crim­i­nals that crim­i­nal behav­ior will not be tol­er­at­ed, and the Sheriff’s Office will be giv­en pref­er­ence in the State Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Grant appli­ca­tion process. 

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is a great mar­ket­ing tool for com­mu­ni­ty and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment efforts to attract fam­i­lies, tourism, and busi­ness­es inter­est­ed in find­ing a safe loca­tion in which to live, work, and play.  Oth­er ben­e­fits may include insur­ance pre­mi­um reduc­tions from insur­ance com­pa­nies for coun­ty pol­i­cy­hold­ers.  Becom­ing a CCPC enhances the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of coun­ty gov­ern­ment and Sheriff’s Office by show­ing we can meet rig­or­ous stan­dards relat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty.  Once cer­ti­fied, which Sher­iff But­ler hopes to achieve in twelve months, the coun­ty would have to recer­ti­fy every three years afterwards.

There are three basic eli­gi­bil­i­ty require­ments that must be met in order to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­gram.  These include being a com­mu­ni­ty or local­i­ty in the Com­mon­wealth of Vir­ginia, adopt­ing a res­o­lu­tion of par­tic­i­pa­tion and fil­ing this res­o­lu­tion with DCJS, and des­ig­nat­ing a local coor­di­na­tor for the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion effort.  These req­ui­sites are cur­rent­ly being com­plet­ed, with res­o­lu­tion to be pre­sent­ed to the Board of Super­vi­sors and a pro­mo­tion­al review for the new CPU Sergeant being com­plet­ed pri­or to June 1, 2021.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sheriff’s Com­mu­ni­ty Advi­so­ry Coun­cil (CAC) mem­bers con­tin­ues to yield fresh ideas from our cit­i­zens.  The CAC Chair­man, Bruce Town­shend states “I real­ly believe that once War­ren Coun­ty achieves the CCPC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion it will make this com­mu­ni­ty safer for every­one, and a more desir­able des­ti­na­tion for tourists, busi­ness­es and peo­ple who want to live in the Shenan­doah Val­ley. We already have so much to offer. The CCPC will make us stand out from the rest of the Com­mon­wealth of Virginia.”

Near future actions include con­ven­ing a work­ing group to shape the process, com­plet­ing an assessment/gap analy­sis of exist­ing Sheriff’s Office pro­grams and com­mu­ni­ty needs, assign­ing roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties to cor­rect any iden­ti­fied short­falls, ensur­ing the twelve core com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty ele­ments are com­plet­ed or in-progress, and final­ly – sub­mit­ting the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pack­et to DCJS. Any ques­tions or those inter­est­ed in find­ing out more about the CCPC Pro­gram are asked to con­tact Lt. Rob­bie Seal at (540) 635‑4128.