[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 147 (Monday, October 20, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S12887]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        LVMPD VOLUNTEER PROGRAM

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a group of 
people who are giving their time and energy to make southern Nevada a 
better place to live.
  Like every other city in the Nation, the city of Las Vegas faces the 
challenge of providing essential services on a tight budget. And the 
most essential service of all is public safety.
  This challenge is particularly difficult in the Las Vegas area, which 
is adding more than 6,000 new residents a month. While the national 
average is about 2.5 police officers for every thousand residents, we 
have only 1.7 officers per thousand in Clark County.
  Simply put, we need more police officers in Las Vegas and Clark 
County. There is no easy answer to this problem--but fortunately there 
are hundreds of people who have become part of the solution.
  The Las Vegas police department sponsors a Metro Volunteer Program 
that allows citizens to assist police officers in a variety of tasks, 
from assisting tourists to arranging for abandoned vehicles to be 
towed.
  Some of these volunteers visit schools to present programs on safety 
and crime prevention, while others compile databases that are used to 
track crimes and solve cases.
  For every hour that a volunteer performs one of these tasks, that is 
another hour that a sworn police officer is out on the street fighting 
crime.
  Over the past year, 318 volunteers contributed more than 42,000 hours 
of service to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. That is the 
equivalent of 21 full-time police officers on the street, who would not 
be there otherwise.
  In this way, the Metro Volunteer Program is making our community 
safer. So I salute the volunteers on behalf of all of the citizens of 
Clark County. I also salute Sharon Harding, the coordinator of the 
Metro Volunteer Program, and Sheriff Bill Young, who is always looking 
for ways to better protect and serve the citizens of Clark County.

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