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For my agency report, I chose to go to the Minooka Police Department and do an interview with a juvenile police officer. I was able to do an interview with police Sergeant Gary Fiedler. Sergeant Fiedler has been an officer with the Minooka Police Department for 19 years.
When I went to the police department I was originally supposed to meet with Chief Doug Hayes. Unfortunately he was busy, so therefore I was not able to receive any information about the budget or get an overview of all the officers that he has hired. Sergeant Fiedler believed that the mission of the Minooka Police Department was changing all the time. Everyone has different goals that they are trying to accomplish, so the department needs a mission statement that is flexible to the goals. Fiedler believes that the biggest things with the mission statement is being able to incorporate community police and having the police officers and the community work as a team rather than police as enforcers.
Sergeant Fiedler is a high school graduate. He has attended junior college and then went on to Western Illinois University where he received a bachelor degree. He also takes more and more classes every year so that he can continue his education. Although it is required for employees to only have a high school education, more and more people are coming in with bachelor degrees.
As a juvenile officer, I asked what Sergeant Fiedler typically does. He said that as a juvenile officer, it is his responsibility to make sure that all of the juvenile’s rights are being granted. They are for the most part given the same rights as an adult. However, police are required to attempt to contact the juvenile’s parents. Juveniles are read their Meranda Rights just like adults. The only thing about juveniles is that juveniles are required to be detained separated from other adults. One question that I was curious about when it came to arresting juveniles was how he felt about it....
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