Public Safety at the State Level: A Survey of Major Services

• NCJ Number: 124497
• Author(s): P Finn, D McGillis
• Date Published: January 1990
• Length: 12 pages
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

This paper reports on the activities and resources of state public safety services in three key areas: highway patrol services, criminal case investigations and intelligence, and crime laboratory and forensic services.

Abstract

Information for this report came from three sources: a mail survey sent to fifty states, telephone calls made to fifty states, and the most recent annual reports from the 41 responding state law enforcement agencies. Several observations were made as a result of this survey. One was that State public safety agencies offer similar services, but operate very differently. It was also noted that State public safety agencies have established a large number of special units for providing services. Another observation is that State public safety agencies provide a striking array of significant and free services to local law enforcement agencies. It was also observed that the number of actual highway patrol personnel on board in a given state may differ substantially from the number of personnel authorized by the State statute. The only consistent difference in law enforcement resources and services by region that was found is that states in the south have a higher median number of personnel in several categories than do states in three other regions; southern states also do more training. 10 tables, 1 figure, 1 acknowledgement, 6 endnotes.