ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — The City of Rock Island is coming up with new ways to serve the public —extending beyond police officers and instead turning to everyday people.
"Primarily the community service officers (CSO) handle our abandon vehicleed procedures," Rock Island Police Department Chief Richard Landi said. "They would go through and tag cars, or animal control. Those kinds of city ordinance violations. Things like that, they would be handling."
The department is expanding the community service officer position, which it thinks will alleviate some problems facing the agency.
"We're trying to take a fresh look at it and see what else can we do with community service officers to help maintain the level of public service we're used to giving while dealing with some of the staffing shortages we're facing," Landi said.
The field is down to around 11 officers prior to the lengthy training process.
"What it may hopefully be is something especially a younger person may get started as a CSO and they say 'you know what, this is a great stepping stone, maybe I want to go ahead and become a police officer,'" Landi said.
The position is expected to allow for flexible staffing and time on emergency calls, and the officers won't be behind the wheel of a squad car or issued a gun.
"These non-emergency report-style calls are what we call minus-solvability, they'll be able to take those," Landi said. "One of the things we're taking on in 2023 is parking enforcement. That was once something we contracted out. We're bringing that back into the police department."
Two CSOs are currently on the team while two more spots are left the department plans to fill. The application window for CSOs has closed, but officials said it may open back up this summer.
The police department has also rolled out upgraded incentive hiring packages for new police officers, for more information on both positions, click/tap here.
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