2020 & Beyond Strategic Plan

Palos Park Police Department 2020 & Beyond Strategic Plan

Our goal, to provide police services that enhance safety and the quality of life in the Village of Palos Park.

As Police Commissioner, I am pleased to introduce the Palos Park Police Department’s 2020 & Beyond Strategic Plan. Our new plan is a single guiding document that identifies the organization’s priorities and represents our vision for the future.

The plan contains our mission and vision to address community concerns through an insightful examination into emerging issues. It establishes our responsibility to our employees to develop their abilities and skills to meet the challenges of 21st century policing.

The objectives and strategies highlighted in this plan are designed to support our principal goals:

• Prevent crime: Preventing crime is the primary mission of policing. Crime prevention promotes the health and welfare of a community instead of merely curing its ills (crimes). It reduces the threat of crime on the front end and enhances the sense of security and quality of life within the community.
• Provide effective police services: We are committed to ensuring Palos Park remains a safe community by employing the best practices in law enforcement to meet the challenges of 21st century policing.
• Develop, strengthen and sustain partnerships: We realize for us to be successful; we must have the confidence, support and respect of the people who live and work in our community. We are committed to developing and maintaining partnerships with the community, with our internal village partners and with our regional and national public safety partners.
• Develop personnel: We will provide the best equipped, and most highly trained and committed employees to help meet the needs of our community.
• The Palos Park Police Department is committed to being a leader in law enforcement. We will pursue and engage the best trained, equipped, and committed professionals who demonstrate the highest standards of performance and best policing practices in partnership with the community.
• Enhance our umbrella of supervision, by assigning our supervisory staff to cover and maximize on duty supervision and direction to the optimal scheduling availability.
• Enhance, refine and modernize our crime fighting strategies
• Increase visibility of police throughout our community
• Enhance crime prevention programs
• Explore and implement technology that will assist with crime prevention efforts (i.e. parking lot cameras, social media)
• Empower patrol officers to identify and develop solutions to beat specific issues
• Enhance crime analysis capabilities
• Continue to enhance Crime Prevention roles and function in community meetings
• Identify current and emerging crime trends in the business community and develop proactive strategies to prevent them.
• Continue to partner with schools to identify and address crime prevention needs.
• Promote overall traffic safety and reduction in accidents
• Enhance Forensic Capabilities
• Maximize staff capabilities through training and education
• Strengthen partnership between the Criminal Investigations and Patrol
• Expand online report capabilities
• Evaluate investigative follow-up procedures
• Conduct a workload allocation and deployment study dependent upon technology support
• Develop and implement program evaluations continuous assessments of effectiveness
• Assess and identify relationships with regional law enforcement agencies relationships
• Continue to enhance technology partnerships with the law enforcement community and other stakeholders

Dan Polk, Police Commissioner