Strategic Plan

The Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office Strategic Plan is designed to be an evolving document, constantly reviewed, updated, and brought into line with the desires of the community. It is a culmination of a series of exercises all designed to ensure that the vision, mission, and objectives of the agency are successfully achieved.

The plan ensures that the elements within this document are understood, supported, and reflect the wishes of the community. An outgrowth of this process is the enhanced ability to effectively manage resources, provide accountability through measured results, and adjust to change.

Successful planning requires the fortitude to change course when opportunities and community demands arise. Ultimately, it is the planning process itself that keeps the agency focused on what it wishes to accomplish and the best route to get there. This product consists of three interrelated exercises:

1. CITIZEN SURVEY

A community survey will be accomplished on an annual basis. The citizen survey results well demonstrated how the community rated the Sheriff’s Office in recommending need for improvement to excellent.

2. INTERNAL SURVEY

This segment of the plan focuses upon the most defining element of an organization – the employees. This survey attempts to gain insight from employees about their recommendations and suggestions for improvement, to advance and ultimately determine what obstacles we face to achieve our goals.

3. FISCAL PLANNING

As diverse as ideas may be, funding will ultimately determine the level of services that the organization can provide. Innovation, the detection of grants and other funding mechanisms must be aggressively explored.

This document articulates the goals that the agency plans to accomplish over the next year. Most importantly, it is designed to be an overview for the agency as a whole, allowing us all to work together developing strategies and objectives that support the plan. In the most basic sense, it is the roadmap for our future.

METHODOLOGY

At the core of the Strategic Plan are a variety of steps, all designed to assist the organization in keeping our eyes on the horizon. Each objective is discussed and a definition or an explanation of the objective is provided. A performance indicator will be articulated and defined, as will target dates by which we hope to accomplish the task. Most importantly, numerous strategies will be employed, all designed to ensure success.

MISSION STATEMENT

To maintain social order within ethical and constitutional limits, in collaboration with the citizens we serve. We are committed to providing fair and impartial law enforcement services to ensure the safety and well-being of our community.

A. Protection of Life and Property: To provide services that contributes to the preservation of life, the protection of property, and the safety of the community.
B. Prevention, Detection and Investigation of Criminal Activity: To prevent crime through aggressive patrol that limits the opportunity for a crime to occur, and through education of citizens that reduces the likelihood of them becoming victims. To provide a thorough, appropriate and efficient investigation of criminal activities.
C. Apprehension of Offenders: To provide for the expeditious and prudent apprehension of suspected violators of the law, regardless of his status in the community, by thorough, appropriate, and efficient investigations.
D. Maintenance of Public Order: To maintain peace and public order. To assist during times of natural or technological occurrences or disasters.
E. Recovery Of Property: To secure and maintain an inventory of all property, evidence, lost and recovered or stolen property being held by law enforcement agency; thereby ensuring that all property and evidence is available when needed.
F. Training of Officers: To design and implement a training program to fill the training needs of officers, and to promote a high rate of proficiency in the officers of the Agency. To address career development goals of Agency personnel.
G. Compliance with Ethical Standards: To ensure the integrity and adherence to professional standards of the Agency by processing and investigating all complaints against Agency personnel.
H. Traffic Control: To provide for the safe and effective flow of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic and the investigation of traffic related accidents.
I. Community Service: To provide the resources necessary for assisting citizens under special non-criminal circumstances. The Agency’s management system will plan, staff, coordinate and control resources in support of community-oriented policing. Further, the Agency’s community relations and crime prevention objectives are shared by all personnel.
J. Court Security: To provide the resources necessary to maintain effective security in the courts of the County.
K. Service of Civil Process: To provide for the prompt service of all civil papers, warrants, and other directives of the courts.
L. Detention: To maintain a safe, secure facility for the detention of individuals as provided by statute.
M. Evaluation: The Division Commanders should submit to the Sheriff, at least annually, a report evaluating the progress made toward attaining the goals and objectives.
N. Line Input Into Goals and Objectives: It is important for all employees to have an opportunity to offer input in formulating CCSO goals and objectives. Each Division Commander in determining goals and objectives will solicit the input from all units and personnel under their command for ideas and suggestions pertaining to CCSO goals and objectives. All ideas and suggestions will be reviewed by the immediate supervisor, who will attach any additional comments and submit them up the chain-of-command. By involving employees of the CCSO, it encourages all members to participate in planning future courses of action.
O. Review: The Division Commander will review all comments and suggestions for their merit and will compile the division’s report and forward to the Sheriff.
P. Review of Goals: Before the end of each calendar year, the goals and objectives of each division individually, and the Sheriff’s Office, as a whole, shall be formulated and/or updated in writing. Upon review by the Sheriff, these goals and objectives will be returned to the appropriate Division Commander for implementation and distribution to all personnel under their command.

OBJECTIVES

The Sheriff’s Office objectives involve separate divisions of operation which include Administration, Detective Division, Patrol Division, and Jail Operations. Each of these operations has proposed goals for the current year.
Setting objectives for the Agency converts the mission of the organization into targets and performance milestones. They represent a commitment to producing specific results in a specified time frame.

• Improve the quality of law enforcement services
• Reduce the incidents of crime
• Provide a safe, efficient traffic flow on the roadways of Catoosa County
• Improve services for citizens
• Implement new technology to improve service

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Sheriff’s Office Administration

Goal #1: Improve computer network security

Strategy: Work with the Information Technology Department to evaluate and implement more secure computer login procedures other than passwords.

Goal #2: Make training videos to have better consistency during the initial training process (FTO) and as a reference for continued training for consistency.

Strategy: See if one of the school’s video departments would like to partner with us on this project or hire a video company to produce professional videos.

Goal #3: Go to bid and start construction on a work release facility.

Strategy:  We are in a contract with an architect and working through the design, development and estimated cost.

Uniformed Patrol Division

Goal #1: Train enforcement personnel on commonly encountered National Incident Base Reporting System errors of reporting in the Records Management System.

Strategy: Conduct training throughout the year for all enforcement personnel. This will be done individually during the shift and in field training for new employees to the patrol division. Training will cover why the errors are present and how to correct and prevent them in the RMS.

Goal #2: Conduct quarterly concentrated patrols throughout the county to reduce the number of crashes caused by distracted driving, speeding, and driving impaired.
In 2024, there were a total of 2,356 crashes reported in Catoosa County. 72% of those crashes occurred when the weather was clear, 89% on dry roads, and 61% during daylight hours. These numbers indicate that many of these crashes could have been caused by one of the aforementioned contributing factors.

Strategy: Utilize 6 to 8 off-duty deputies and supervisors to conduct quarterly concentrated and high visibility patrols throughout the county. These patrols would consist of license/DUI checkpoints, speed reduction, occupant restraint compliance, and distracted driving compliance. Utilizing off-duty personnel voluntarily would reduce the fatigue of the on-duty shift during these operations.

Goal #3: Return to the MNTEN Traffic Enforcement Network. This network, which is a part of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, affords participants the opportunity to receive additional training on traffic enforcement-related topics and other networking opportunities within the region. 

Strategy: Identify 1 or 2 deputies on each shift who are traffic enforcement oriented to participate in the Mountain Area Traffic Enforcement Network program. Those deputies could attend the monthly meetings and participate in their concentrated patrols. This would rotate each month allowing each shift’s deputies opportunities to experience the program and network with other law enforcement agencies throughout the region. This agency would sponsor one of the meetings per year.

Criminal Investigations Division

Goal #1: The Criminal Investigation Division (CID) will spearhead working with local and state agencies to identify local gangs’ locations, movements, and criminal activities, thus updating and improving the local gang database. 

Strategy: To achieve this goal CID will work with Ft. Oglethorpe Police, Ringgold Police, State Probation, Chattanooga Police, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify local gang hangouts, better track criminal gang activities, and hold meetings to discuss enforcement actions against these criminal elements. 

Goal #2: CID will expand Sex Offender registration background checks on sex offenders’           employment.

Strategy: To accomplish this goal, the sex offender registrar will supply CID personnel as well as other sworn personnel with information on the employment of sex offenders both in the county and out of the county for verification. This information will confirm better locations and movements of registered sex offenders, providing a safer community.

Goal #3: To implement a small drone for CID to assist in photography to show a more complete   crime scene. 

Strategy: CID will look at the feasibility of the use of drones to map out crime scenes both inside buildings as well as in an outside environment. This will provide better details and “to scale” information when used in a criminal trial. The drone could be used for other law enforcement activities. 

Detention Division

Goal #1: Select, develop, train and place all midline and frontline supervisors in detention.

Strategy: To achieve this goal, we will select potential candidates and work closely with them to help give them the skills they need to fill the new and/or available positions. We will continue to have regularly scheduled meetings with midline supervisors to help increase productivity and this can be a forum for addressing any issues or concerns.

Goal #2: Conducting monthly roll call training to improve consistency and quarterly defensive tactic training for Officer safety.

Strategy: To achieve this goal, we will conduct monthly roll calls to cover policies, procedures, report writing, leadership development and other areas of concern. We will conduct quarterly defensive tactic training for our officers in detention with the help of trained personnel.

Goal #3: Train and develop additional Field Training Officers to better mentor and train our new officers.

Strategy: To achieve this goal, we plan to ensure all FTO’s complete the FTO training and become proficient in the field training software. We will continuously monitor our FTO’s to make sure they are consistent with policies and procedures.