From The Director

The men and women of the Spartanburg Public Safety Department are a group of dedicated police officers and firefighters who care about the city for whom they work, as well as, the residents and businesses within our jurisdictional boundaries. The City of Spartanburg Public Safety Department is one of only a few departments to achieve national accreditation for both its Law Enforcement Division and Fire Division.

The Law Enforcement Division has attained re-accreditation three times since its initial accreditation in 1999. In order to achieve accreditation, the department had to meet over 436 required standards for compliance in 1999, with all mandatory standards and 80% of applicable other than mandatory standards. To maintain an accredited status, departments must undergo a re-evaluation every three years by a team of outside assessors.  The departments must now meet 463 standards due to new additional standards, as well as those with revisions as set by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).  The Law Enforcement Division received its third re-accreditation in 2008 and will unergo review again in December 2010 to retain its accreditation status.

The Fire Division received Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, Inc. (CFAI) for meeting the criteria established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment and accreditation program in 2003. The Fire Division received re-accreditation status in March of 2009.  Through the dedicated work of the employees of the Fire Division, the City of Spartanburg enjoys an ISO rating of 2.  This equates to lower insurance premiums for residences and businesses within the city limits.

For 2009, we wanted to impact the rising number of burglaries within the city. We assigned MPO Chris Banks as our Burglary Reduction Specialist and charged him with reducing burglaries within the City of Spartanburg. As a burglary would occur, Chris would go out, not only to investigate, but to talk with surrounding neighbors or businesses 1) to alert them to what had occurred; 2) to garner any information they might have or something they might have seen; and 3)to put a face on what we were wanting to achieve. Due to his diligence, dedication and hard work along with patrol officers and investigators, we were able to reduce burglaries from 948 in 2008 to 785. This resulted in a 17 percent reduction. For 2010, Chris will continue to dedicate his time and efforts to further reducing burglaries by working with the community on ways to strengthen and improve building and property security to further reduce or minimize risks.

Some specific initiatives for the department in 2010 are the reduction of traffic accidents through education and directed enforcement; neighborhood stabilization by engaging communities to identify neighborhood issues, information sharing and collaboration; targeted efforts to reduce youth violence by working with service providers and criminal justice practitioners to identify creative ways and provide alternatives for high risk youth; and continuing to build on established relationships to improve regional and local community fire safety with automatic aid programs.

By working together, we will continue to “Build A Safer City” for everyone.