Patrol touts criminal patrol success with opening of new canine training facility

Published on December 18, 2018

In 2011, State Highway Patrol leadership charged Ohio troopers with elevating the importance of their criminal patrol efforts to the same level as their core responsibility of traffic safety. Troopers were urged to ‘look beyond the license plate’ or the reason for the traffic stop, in an attempt to detect and interdict criminal activity. Since this shift of operational mentality, drug arrests have increased every year, with an increase of 194% since 2011. Troopers have made more than 4,000 arrests for weapon violations and nearly 30,000 felony arrests since 2011.

This shift also brought upon the formal formation of the Criminal Patrol Unit. In 2010, the division had only 14 canines. In the years since, that number has grown to 35 canines around the state. Read More