CALABASAS : Citizen Anti-Crime Patrol Suggested

Faced with growing concerns about crime and shrinking public budgets, a group of Calabasas residents has proposed arming citizen volunteers with uniforms, cellular phones and flashlights, and letting them patrol the streets.

The Calabasas Police Advisory Committee, which meets monthly with sheriff’s deputies, proposed citizen patrols largely to help prevent burglaries--one of the most common crimes in the semirural town, said Lt. Jim Pierson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Lost Hills/Malibu station.

“This is an affluent area, and burglary is a major problem,” Pierson said. “The point of citizen volunteers is that you have someone who is going to check the homes of people who are on vacation for open doors and windows and newspapers in the driveway, and who will be extra eyes and ears to report anything that looks suspicious to the deputy in the area.”

The proposed volunteer effort is modeled after a program started in the Antelope Valley in January.

There, pairs of volunteers cruise near shopping malls, schools and residential areas in white Ford Escorts bearing the Los Angeles County logo. Decked in uniform white shirts and blue pants, they phone in any mischief they see.

In Calabasas, volunteers would be extensively screened and trained, Pierson said. They probably would work four-hour shifts, and be expected to provide their own flashlights, he said.

Other costs would be picked up by the city, and would require approval by the City Council. The council is expected to consider an outline of the program at its regular meeting Oct. 20.

If approved, the patrol effort would probably start with about six volunteers on the streets, two at a time. But as many as 30 citizens could eventually be used to patrol the 11-square-mile city.