Sheriff's Message History

Everything Matters

April 18, 2012

For the past few years, I have assigned a word or theme of the year at the beginning of each year for Sheriff's Office members to focus on and use as a performance theme throughout the year. In 2010, the word was “Improvement” and in 2011, it was “Quality.”


For 2012, the theme for the Sheriff's Office is “Everything Matters.” The reason that I have selected this theme is because we sometimes tend to take the little things for granted. But in actuality it is the little things that set the tone for everything else.


There is a theory taught in community policing training known as the “Broken Windows” theory. That refers to not paying attention to the first signs of degradation in a community, such as broken windows on abandoned houses. It slowly becomes normal to see more and more broken windows and abandoned cars until, one day, you wake up and notice that you live in a bad neighborhood and you wonder how it got that way.


The same thing applies to law enforcement agencies. We need to pay attention to how we present ourselves to you, the members of the community. Regardless of the nature of the call for service, we need to handle everything from a burglary in progress call to a public assist of a motorist that is out of gas in a caring, professional manner. Whatever the nature of the call, it obviously mattered to the person who called. So it should matter to us, too.


And we seem to be doing a pretty good job at showing that we care. We recently went through our re-accreditation process. The assessors went through the Sheriff's Office with a fine-toothed comb and found us to be 100% in compliance with all standards. Our agency was the first that the assessors had ever given a perfect score to. They told me the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office was an exceptional agency full of good people who absolutely pay attention to the small things.


Just know that we know that “everything matters” to someone, including us.


Thanks,


Bill Cameron

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