Chief Steven Mazzie has given his approval for Everett’s police department to join with Chelsea’s and a half dozen others in the area in order to combine forces in an effort to meet expanding law enforcement responsibilities.
In what is likely the first big step towards some form of regionalization, Chelsea’s police chief Brian Kyes has been successful in recruiting Mazzie and the chiefs of Revere, Malden, Saugus and Winthrop, in order to give police more tools to attack crime and more numbers, as well.
Together, these law enforcement forces are much more powerful than if left entirely alone.
This has been the experience recently, as some aspects of law enforcement inevitably become regional in contiguous areas such as those mentioned above.
A force of 500 police officers is a much more powerful weapon than a force with 100 officers.
The 500 brought together in a literal power-sharing program can better serve the 250,000 who live in their communities than the individual police force in each of the named cities and towns.
During the past year, Mazzie has met with Kyes and all the chiefs discussing strategies and innovations aimed at addressing local and regionalized crime issues.
All the chiefs agree, and it is true, that all the crime in all the named communities taken together is all about a regional area and not just about a single community.
So matters of jurisdiction take on new meaning for police officers – and for the criminals who prowl our streets and neighborhoods.
The chiefs believe the most common theme binding all the communities together is the drug problem.
No one place has a corner on that market, according to Kyes, Mazzie and the other chiefs.
So the way to go, according to Kyes and Mazzie, is to enhance existing partnerships with neighboring local police departments and empower the respective police officers to be able to effectively reduce drug and related gang crime.
This involves allowing officers from all the above communities to have greater powers in communities that are not where they are officers.
It widens jurisdictions and officers can now have the power to arrest for all crimes in all of the listed communities.
Chief Mazzie is showing that he can think out of the box and that he knows how to work together.
Good going, Chief Mazzie.
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