GUYTON — The long arm of the law in this little town is always reaching out.
Public Safety Director Stacy Strickland said officers in the Guyton Police Department constantly strive to be helpful — and visible.
“We are here for the public,” he said. “It is our job to take care of them and that’s what we need to do. Everybody around here knows us by our first names.
“I like to think that we’ve helped Guyton because we don’t have a high crime rate.”
Strickland said no one should mistake his department’s approachability for permissiveness.
“People know they can talk to us but they know we aren’t going to tolerate any foolishness, either,” he said. “Business is business. If you’d done something to get a citation, you are going to get a citation.
“There is no good-ol’-boy system. We are going to do what we are supposed to do.”
Strickland said the department adheres to the concepts of community-oriented policing. Rather than responding to crime only after it occurs, community policing encourages agencies to proactively develop solutions to the immediate underlying conditions contributing to public safety problems.
“If you don’t know your community, then your community doesn’t know you and they aren’t going to help you do what you are supposed to be doing,” Strickland said.

See the May 23 edition of the Effingham Herald for more details.