By Emma Barrett
emma@newsroom.byu.edu
The 22 police officers on the Utah County Major Crimes Task Force may not show up to work at 8 a.m. every morning, but they are experts at what they do.
Since the Task Force was created in July of 1997, Utah County police have seen an increase in the number of gang-related arrests made in Utah County.
'Our gang problems have definitely gone down,' program director Lt. Steve Clark said.
Clark said the idea to establish a countywide task force came because of the nature of gang- and narcotics-related criminal activity.
'Criminals know no boundaries ... yet police departments do,' Clark said.
Sgt. Gordon Smith said the Task Force targets gangs and narcotics simultaneously because they are usually found together.
'The vast majority of drugs are controlled by gangs and vice versa,' Smith said.
According to Smith, a federal grant to law enforcement agencies funds the Task Force.
Members of the Task Force come from 11 police departments in Utah County.
Orem and Provo each have six officers on the Task Force, but smaller cities like Springville only have one, Clark said.
The individual police departments decide which officers are sent to the Task Force.
Lt. Doug Edwards of the Orem Police Department said the appointment of Orem officers to the Task Force is an administrative decision.
'They do allow the officers to volunteer, but ultimately it is an administrative decision,' Edwards said.
The 22 officers on the Task Force are divided into four teams, each with a team leader, and presided over by a program director and field director.
According to Clark, officers work 'whenever we have something going down.'
Most officers do not come in during the morning but work late into the night following up on tips and making contacts.
Smith said officers get most of their information from other narcotics and gang offenders and from anonymous tips.
Often, someone brought in on a minor charge will give information about a bigger crime in return for a lighter sentence, Clark said.
Another vital source of information for the Task Force comes in the form of anonymous calls from residents who notice suspicious activity.
'I would say of the tips that come in, 75 percent of them we score on,' Smith said.
'They know it won't come back to bite them because it is anonymous.'
Smith said the success of the Task Force is because of the way they approach their work.
He said the Task Force operates under the idea of the career criminal.
'Eighty percent of the crime is committed by 20 percent of the people,' Smith said.
He said the Task Force knows who is involved in drugs and gang-related activities, and they keep an eye on these people rather than just waiting for something to happen.
'We bring most of our targets into custody within 48 hours,' Smith said.
Smith also said that the Task Force keeps busy with activities like filling search warrants and busting drug labs.
'On average, we serve a search warrant every day we come into work,' Smith said. 'That's someone's door getting kicked in every day.'
Smith also said the Task Force is able to discover and dismantle more drug labs than individual police departments did before its creation.
Last year, the Task Force busted 47 methamphetamine labs, Smith said.
This is a large number compared to statistics before the formation of the Task Force.