By Hannah W. Wever

Published: April 24, 2008

Last November, citizens elected Mark Amos as sheriff of Orange County. Leading up to the election, Mark Amos promised that as sheriff, he would put a proactive emphasis on road safety, internet crime and gang prevention. Now that he’s in office, Amos has set his sights on educating the community to follow through on his campaign promises.
Much of crime prevention, according to the sheriff is about keeping citizens in-the-know.
“An educated public is a safer public,” he said. And Amos uses that philosophy to help keep internet, gang and traffic-related crimes to a minimum.
And apparently, the community is eager to learn.
“The Citizens Police Academy has gone very well. We have another one starting up at the eastern end of the county. We’ll try to hold two of those a year,” he said.
The popular program reaches capacity class-size shortly after enrollment opens, he said. Participants range in age from high school seniors to senior citizens. Topics covered by deputies and experts during the course include an insider’s look at a fictional crime scene, the details of a domestic dispute, firing range training, and factors of a traffic stop.
“We want them to have a better understanding of what police work’s all about,” Amos explained.
Amos identified internet-related crimes as a major threat to the safety of county citizens, and plans to combat cyber crime with a local installation of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. The federally-funded program assists state and local law enforcement agencies with investigations, training, victim services and community education. In Orange County, the program is still in the beginning phases, but the local task force is already operative and has already carried out successful undercover operations.
In fact, much of the funding for sheriff’s department programs and technologies comes through grants. As they become available, the sheriff said, he and his deputies complete the necessary paperwork and hoop-jumping to secure state, federal and private foundation dollars. This year, deputies’ overtime will be paid by a DMV grant. “That’s overtime money for guys to go out and run checking detail.”
Speeders, road-ragers and dangerous drivers: be advised. Amos wants more deputies out there performing random traffic stops, and county officials agree; they’ve agreed to fund two new road deputy positions in next year’s budget. And he’s using those additional deputies, along with speed boards to keep order on the county’s roadways.
In addition to the Citizens Police Academy, Amos said he’s in the early stages of organizing a traffic safety unit.
“We have asked people to start a traffic safety unit, which was one of the things I mentioned in my campaign,” Amos said.
The course will cover good defensive driving techniques, and provide citizens with a better understanding of law enforcement’s approach to maintaining safe travel ways, Amos said.
Folks who don’t participate in the traffic safety unit might learn safe driving the hard way, because Amos has plans to place speed boards and patrol cars in some of the county’s most notorious stretches of highway.
“A lot of it will be done on Route 20,” Amos revealed. But locations on Routes 522, 33, 15, and other roads in the county have already been identified by the sheriff as areas to place dangerous driving deterrents.
Amos has said in the past that he’s a proponent of improving Route 20 by four-laning it. But until that happens, he uses driver paranoia to improve drivers’ awareness and consequently create safer roads. Amos uses a speed board that tells drivers how fast they’re traveling as they pass it. People seem to suspect, he explained, that when they see a speed board, there’s likely law enforcement close by.
“It really does help,” he confirmed.
The number of incidents to which deputies respond has experienced an increase over the years, but that’s owing to the county’s increased population. “There are more weapons, more drugs; that grows with the population.” But, Amos added, “Overall, Orange is a pretty safe county.”
Infamous open air drug markets of the 1980s and 1990s have been foiled. The result is that law enforcement has to work a little harder to catch drug dealers, whose furtive narcotics retailing is now underground and out of sight. “There’s more talk of gang activity now.” But Amos said most local crimes that he sees arise from drugs, not from the sales, but by individuals who go to desperate measures either to acquire drugs, or as result of being under the influence of them. “It’s mainly your larcenies and your domestics, and most are drug-related.”
And although Amos listed gang prevention in his platform of crime fighting initiatives, he said the county is for the most part, still gang-free. The concern, he added, is that known gangs in nearby counties will make their way to Orange.
“So far, gangs are not an issue. We’ve seen some indication of it, but it’s not a major problem,” he said.
There are a handful of students at the high school who appear to be assuming a gang-banger persona. But for all appearances, Amos said, those teens did not actually maintain affiliations with known gangs.
Before gangs can infiltrate the school system, sheriff’s deputies and school officials hope to implement gang prevention and identification techniques.
And likely, the county will provide the funding for those gang prevention programs.
Last week, Orange County Administrator Bill Rolfe presented the 2008-2009 county budget to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The budget totaled $165,568,671, a 15 percent increase over last year’s budget. To adequately fund everything in the proposed budget, the county would need to increase real estate taxes $.09.
Proposed cuts, Rolfe said, were within those optional services. So although there are recommendations for a handful of new county hires in the proposed budget, other departments won’t get additional help, and some may be ultimately be eliminated altogether.
“We’re doing more with less, except in those critical areas that have to do with life, health and safety issues,” he said.
The sheriff’s department was one of only a few county departments to receive close to what was requested out of next year’s budget.
“We need communications officers.” “We have five full-time communications officers and three part-time. That’s to handle a 24-hour shift. We answer about 25,000 incidents that come through dispatch a year.”
Following a board of supervisors work session, county officials have tentatively agreed to fund two new communications officers and two new traffic deputies for the sheriff’s office.
“You never have enough staff. Don’t get me wrong—we have enough to do the job, but it’s always nice to have more,” Amos said.
For the sheriff and his staff, it’s not always about apprehending criminals and writing tickets. Sometimes lighter side of local law enforcement is responding to calls from community members that don’t necessarily involve a crime—well, not one committed by a human, at least.
“A little old lady called about groundhogs tunneling away on Route 522. We sent animal control out to take care of the groundhogs.”
Amos said deputies occasionally respond to unorthodox calls from community members; and sometimes its really just a request for a little comfort for the confused. But part of the job of law enforcement officers, he said, is making sure the community finds you accessible and responsive, even if that means calming a caller who’s been frightened by things that go bump in the night.
Deputies also escort funerals and perform welfare checks, Amos said, “When a relative hasn’t heard from someone for two to three weeks. Sometimes they’re dead. Sometimes they went to Florida and didn’t tell anybody.”
As sheriff, Amos said, the task of managing the entire department comes with more challenges than managing the community.
“I learned a long time ago that dealing with the public is not nearly as hard as dealing with personnel. We’ve got a good group of people here.” The staff at the sheriff’s office experienced precious few personnel changes following the election. “It’s been smooth. There’s been some turnover, but it’s been just day-to-day operation.”
One explanation for the high retention rate among staffers could be a well-developed cohesiveness developed over the decades. Amos said that he, and a number of other staff members have spent 20 or more years together at the sheriff’s office. “There are several of us that have quite a few years here.”
It may be team spirit that keeps deputies and investigators here in Orange, or it may be that it’s not any more rewarding to work in neighboring localities.
Amos said county officials have been supportive of the county’s law enforcement agency.
“They did a salary survey a few years ago. They saw we were below the scale and they brought it up. We’re comparable with surrounding counties.”