Abstract:
Since its inception in 1980, Alaska's
Village Public Safety Officer (VPSO) program has provided policing and other
public safety services (including fire fighting, search and rescue, water
safety, and emergency medical services) to rural Alaska Native villages.
The VPSO program was developed in response to public safety needs of the
villages and to economies of scale, since individual villages could not
generate resources for separate agencies to handle specific programs. Since
1983, the first year for which adequate records are available, turnover
in the VPSO program has averaged 36 percent per year; that is, for every
100 VSPOs serving in a given year, 36 have quit or been fired. This turnover
rate is far higher than in any other sector of the public safety labor force.
This report, based on surveys of current and former VPSOs, examines the
extent of and reasons for VPSO turnover, and considers the ramifications
of these findings as they pertain to the overall objectives of the VPSO
program, the problems of rural police departments, and the feasibility of
community-oriented policing in sparsely populated areas. Marriage, service
in a home village, connectedness to Alaska Native culture and the presence
of other police officers all are factors associated with officers remaining
with the VPSO program.
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